Chapter 5

VI

THE COASTAL SERVICES

THE HOME TRADE

"_We're a North-country ship, an' a deep-water crew. A--way, i-oh! Ye can stick t' th' coast, but we're damned if we do. An' we're bound t' Rio Grande!_"

SO we sang--sounding a bravery at the capstan as we hove around and raised anchor to begin a voyage. We had our ideas. We were foreign-going sailors, putting out on a far venture. In pride of our seafaring--of rounding the Horn, of crossing Equator, perhaps of a circumnavigation--we looked down upon the coaster. He was a hoveller, a tidesman, a mud-raker--his anchors could shew no coral on the flukes as they came awash. We carried these ideas to the beach. Deliberately, we produced an atmosphere that is unjust to the cross-channel man.

The oversea voyage possesses a greater appeal to the imagination. Long distances, variation of the climes, storm and high ocean seas--a burthen of goods brought from a far country, all contribute to make an impression that the tale of a coasting voyage could not produce. Familiarity, perhaps, has robbed the short-carriers' sea-trip of what shreds of romance existed. In tide and out, the smaller vessels have grown to the sight as almost part of the familiar quays and wharves they frequent. A voyage from Tyne to the Thames or from Glasgow to Liverpool is so common and everyday that little remark is excited. We are unconcerned at its incident; the gale that wrecked a collier on the Black Middens may have blown a tile or two from our roof; the fog that bound the Antwerp boat for a tide is, perhaps, the same that held us in the City for an hour over time. We may entertain our friends with recital of a sea-voyage, but we have not a great deal to say of a Channel passage.

At war, this focus of the public outlook has persisted. The threat to our sea-communications, to the source by which the nation gains its daily bread, has drawn an intense interest to the fortunes of the ships, but that interest has rarely been extended to the coasting vessels and the seamen who man them; there is little said of the work of the coastal pilots, on whose skill and local knowledge so much depends. We are concerned for our _Britannics_ and _Justitias_, but the fate of the _Sarah Pritchard_ of Beaumaris, or the escape of _Boy Jacob_ are small events in relation to the toll of our tonnage. Their utility has not been brought before us in the same way as the direct service of the great ocean carriers. It is not difficult to understand that a breakdown of that source of supply would mean starvation and disaster. Our dependence on the coasting vessels is not so apparent. The vital needs served by them are, in part, obscured. We are, perhaps, satisfied that alternative channels exist for passage of the tonnage they transport: road and rail are open for inland carriage.

The situation is not quite so clear. Pressure at the rail-heads, at the collieries, at the steelworks and the manufactories, has thrown a burden on our island railways that they are unable to bear. But for the service of the coasters and the resolution of the home-trade seamen, the block to our traffic could not have been other than fatal. By relieving the congestion on the lines, they made possible the expansion of our output of munitions. Millions of tons that would otherwise have been put upon land transport (and have lain to swell the accumulations), are brought to tide-mark to be handled and cleared and ferried between home ports and across the channels by the coasting vessels. The Fleet is coaled and stored almost entirely by sea. Our men in France and Flanders are carried and fed and refitted by light-draught steamers. Power is transmitted to our Allies from British coalfields by our grimy colliers. Constant voyaging, dispatch at the ports of lading and discharge, seagoing through all weathers, make huge the total of their tonnage, but their individual cargoes rank small against the mammoth burdens of the oversea merchantmen. The sea-ants (however busily they throng the ports) are seldom remarked; their work is carried on in the shadow of more spectacular and lengthy voyaging. On occasion, a stray beam of popular recognition is turned on the smaller craft--as when _Wandle_ steams up Thames after her gallant fight, or when _Thordis_ (Bell, master) rams and sinks a U-boat--but the light is quickly slewed again to illuminate the seafaring of the oversea vessels. Similarly--with the men--interest has centred on the deep-water mariner; the coasting masters and their crews, together with the pilots, are little heard of. Their navigations, steering by the land on a short passage of a tide or two, have not the compelling emphasis of long voyaging on distant seas. Chroniclers of our deeds and fates have set out the drawn agony of the raft and the open boat in mid-Atlantic; they are less insistent on the tragedies (as bitter and prolonged) of inshore waters. Perhaps they are influenced by a common misconception that succour is ever ready at hand in the narrow sea. There are the lifeboats on the coast, patrols on keen look-out in the channels, vessels are ever passing up and down the fairways; the land, in any case, is not far distant. Such assurance has but slender warrant. Gallant, unselfish, and thorough as are the services of the lifeboatmen, their operations in the main are intended to serve known wrecks and strandings. A flare in the darkness or a flash of gunfire in the channels is now no special signal; the new sea-casualty gives little time or warning for a muster of resources. The ready succour of the patrols is, perhaps, more instant and alert, but the channel seaways cover an area that no system could place under a quartered post or guard. No vigilance could prevent the capture of _Brussels_ and the martyrdom of Captain Fryatt; the crew of the _Nelson_ smack were for over thirty hours adrift in the narrow seas ere they were sighted and rescued. In the busy waters of the Irish Sea, three men of the ketch _Lady of the Lake_ made ten miles in eight hours under oars, after their vessel had been sunk by gunfire. A weary progress, with ships passing near and far, but none daring too close the boat that might, for all they know, be trap for an enemy mine or torpedo.

It is time we ceased to sing that Rio Grande chanty: an _amende_ is overdue.

While we, the foreign-going men, have our 'ins and outs' of the most dangerous seas--serving our turn in the front-line sea-trenches, then retiring to a rest in safer and more distant waters--the coastal seaman has no such relief. His daily duty lies in the storm-centre, in the very midst of the sea-war. From harbour mouth to the booms of his port of entry, no course can be steered that does not drive his keel through minable areas and across the ranges of lurking submarines.

The new sea-warfare has developed a scheme of offence that renders our inshore waters peculiarly fraught with peril to navigators. The coast-line is no longer a defence and protection; rather, by limiting sea-room in manoeuvre, the shoals and rock-bound beach have turned ally to the enemy. Sea-mark and headland provide a guide in estimating the run of a torpedo; note of a point definite, on which sea-routes converge, is of value to a submarine commander. Even in the shallower waters--depths in which a torpedo attack would be difficult--an equally deadly offence may be maintained. The run of the sea-bottom in the channels offering a good hold to slipped mine-moorings, it was not long before the enemy had adapted submarines to continue the minelaying that our command of the surface had stopped. While new and larger U-boats are sent abroad on the trade routes, special submarines, less encumbered by the stores and equipment that longer passages would demand, make frequent visits to the fairways to sow a freight of mines. No section of the channels holds sanctuary for the coaster. Close inshore, as in the offing, is all a danger area, open to the stealthy visits of the submarine minelayers. Right on the Mersey Bar, the Liverpool pilot steamer went up with a loss of forty lives; remote West Highland bays have echoed to the crash of mines exploded; seaward of the Irish banks, the deeps are alike dangerous. Counter-measures there are (services as efficient and resourceful in life-saving as those of the enemy are cunning and viciously ingenious in murder), but even the gallantry and skill and untiring efforts of our minesweepers cannot wholly clear the immense water-spaces. Mechanical contrivances--the Otters--are valuable, and aid in fending the mines, but (the sea-bottom being foul with wreckage) they are often a danger to their carriers. There is ever the harassing uncertainty which no vigilance may allay. The sheer relief of passing over the hundred-fathom line to the comparative safety of the deeps of ocean is never experienced by the cross-channel captain.

Favoured by their light draught and smaller proportions, the coasters are perhaps less exposed to successful torpedo attack than their larger and deeper ocean sisters. In the early days of submarine activity, the enemy was loath to use his deadlier and more expensive weapon on the small craft. He relied on gunfire to produce effects. The channel seas were not then as well patrolled as now by armed auxiliaries: he could have a leisurely exercise in frightfulness at little risk to himself--there was no return to his fire--it was an easy target practice. _Cottingham_ was shelled at short ranges when off the Bristol Channel. Unarmed and outdistanced, the master stopped his engines, lowered the two boats, and abandoned ship. The shelling continued, but was directed on the sinking ship; the submarine commander evidently thought the bitter wintry weather would accomplish a more refined _Schrecklichkeit_ than the summary execution of his shell-bursts. In the heavy battery of a sou'west gale, the boats drove apart. The master's boat was sighted by a patrol, and the crew of six rescued after some hours' exposure. The mate's boat came ashore at Portliskey in Wales, bottom up and shattered; of the seven men who had manned her there was no trace. Six of _Cottingham's_ crew survived the bitter weather--six hardy seamen were spared to return to service afloat. The German became dissatisfied with a frightfulness that murdered only half a merchant ship's crew when it was possible to murder all. It was not enough to destroy the ships and leave the seamen to the wind and sea and bitter weather. If they were not to be driven from their calling by fear, there were other measures--sure, definite, final. There was to be no weakness among the apostles of the new creed, no shrinking, no humanity--British seamen were to follow their shattered ships to the litter of the channel bottom. The _Kölnische Zeitung_ set forth that "in future, our German submarines and aircraft would wage war against British mercantile vessels without troubling themselves in any way about the fate of the crews." The _Kölnische Zeitung_ could not have been well informed. Their submarine commanders troubled themselves greatly about the fate of our crews. They shelled the boats in many subsequent attacks. They expended ammunition in efforts to secure that no further seafaring would be possible to their victims. Sheer individual murder took the place of an illegal act of war. ". . . We were unarmed, a slow ship. The submarine hit us with a shot on the bow and then ran up the signal to take to the lifeboats. We did so, and several shots were fired at the _Palermo_. They did not take effect, however, and a torpedo was sent into her side. She sank within a few minutes. Whether the fact that he had to use a torpedo to send our vessel to the bottom angered the commander I do not know, but the submarine came directly alongside of our lifeboats. The commander was on the deck, and yelled, 'Where is the captain of that ship?' The captain stood up and made his way to the side where the German was standing. The German held his revolver close to our captain's head. 'You will never bring _another ship across this ocean_,' he said, using several oaths, then he pulled the trigger. Our captain fell dead, and we were permitted to continue."

The new campaign was directed particularly against the coasters and fishermen. The procedure was simple. No great speed or gun-range was required. There was no risk, if a good look-out was kept for patrols and war craft. The helpless, unarmed vessel, outsped and hulled, was brought-to within easy range, and shelling could be continued to augment the confusion of boat-lowering in a seaway. If by resolution and fine seamanship the boats were got away, there was further target practice with shrapnel or machine-gun. The schooner _Jane Williamson_ of Arklow was attacked without warning. The first shot smashed one of her boats, the second killed one of the crew. At shouting distance--a hundred yards range--point-blank under the submarine's gun--there could be no question of defence or escape. The remaining five hands put over the second boat, tumbled into her and shoved clear. To hit the boat the submarine's gun must have been slewed deliberately from the larger target: bad shooting could not have occurred. Afloat and helpless, a shell struck her, killing one man outright, mortally wounding the master and another, and damaging the frail row-boat. The Germans beckoned the boat to them, but it was only to laugh at the throes of the dying men. The U-boat submerged, leaving the three survivors to ship oars and face the long weary pull towards the distant land. The _William_ was sunk by gunfire; the gun's crew of the U-boat then loaded shrapnel and turned the gun on the open boat, wounding a man of the crew. _Redcap_ was hauling her trawl when without any warning shrapnel burst on board. There was no challenge, the fishermen had made no attempt to get under way and escape. Busied with the gear, all hands were grouped together, when the shell exploded among them. One hand was killed instantly, the mate's leg was blown off, two seamen were wounded. Under fire, the survivors put the boat over and removed the wounded; the Germans gave no thought to their distress, but centred rapid fire on the trawler, sunk her, and disappeared.

When guns were served to merchant ships, the coasters shared in their issue. Encounters with enemy submarines were no longer one-sided and hopeless. Effects could not be secured by the Germans at so small a cost. Frequently the effects were those that the submarine commander was most anxious to avoid. _Atalanta_ picked up the crew of _Maréchal de Villars_, then fought off the U-boat that had sunk that vessel. Watchers on the coastal headlands saw many a running fight between handy little home-traders and the under-sea pirates. Nor were the fishermen slow in action. Once armed for defence, they proved that they could use their weapons with skill and precision. Off Aberdeen in stormy weather, a German submarine hove up from his depths for practice on a fleet of trawlers. It was to be a _Redcap_ diversion: rapid fire, shrapnel, boats thrown out hastily, common shell on the hulls of the trawlers--wholesale destruction. But there was a mistake. A 'watch-dog' was among the fleet--_Commissioner_, armed and alert. At an opportune moment she cut her gear adrift, canted under speed and helm, returned the U-boat's fire and sank her in five rounds. Submarine commanders soon realized that 'diversions' were risky, the target could now hit back. It was safer to submerge when within range of anything larger than a row-boat. Even the sailing barges acquired a sting. In proportion to her tonnage, _Drei Geschwister_--a captured German, refitted to our coastal service--is probably the heaviest armed vessel afloat.

In channel waters, look-outs must not be confined to the round of the sea. To the U-boat's gunfire and torpedo, to the menace of moored and drifting mines, is added a danger that rarely threatens the oversea trader--an attack from the air. Striking distance from enemy bases has given opportunity for exercise of aircraft. Zeppelin and seaplane have their turns of activity in the North Sea and the Straits. Steering a careful course in a sea 'foul with floating mines,' the Cork steamship _Avocet_ was attacked by three aeroplanes. The action lasted for over half an hour. Bombs exploded alongside, the bridge and upper decks were scarred and pitted by a hail of machine-gun bullets. The master and mate kept the aircraft at a respectful height by using their rifles--the only arms carried. By skilful handling, Captain Brennell saved his ship. He is probably the only seaman who has steered a deliberate course between a 'fall' of bombs; swinging on starboard helm, 'three bombs missed the starboard bow and three the port quarter by at most seven feet.' The _Birchgrove_ was attacked by two seaplanes carrying torpedoes--a novel adaptation. Again the use of ready helm proved a moving ship a difficult target. Both torpedoes missed. Less fortunate was the _Franz Fischer_, an ex-German collier. Anchored off the Kentish Knock, the night black dark, the thunder of a Zeppelin's engines was heard overhead. Before there was time to extinguish all lights, the huge airship was able to take up a position for attack. One heavy bomb sufficed. _Franz Fischer_ reeled to a tremendous explosion, heeled over, and sank. Only three survived of her crew of sixteen.

Constant sea-perils are enhanced by war measures in the channels. On open sea there is less confusion; the issue is narrowed to contest between ship and submarine and the hazard of a derelict or floating mine--there is ample sea-room in which to 'back and fill.' The coaster has a harder task. His navigational problem is complicated by the eight hundred odd pages of 'Notices to Mariners'--the amends and addends and cancellations of Admiralty instructions relating to the seafaring of the coast. Inner channels are confused by 'friendly' minefields or by alteration of the buoyage; aids to navigation are suspended or rearranged on scant notice; coastwise lights are put out or have their powers reduced to small efficiency in the mists and grey weather. Unmarked wrecks, growing daily in numbers, litter the sea-bottom; areas are to be avoided to leave a fair field for the hunters; zigzag courses in close proximity to the land sustain a constant anxiety. Above all, navigation without lights increases the danger to all merchantmen and to the patrols and naval craft that crowd the seaways of the coast.

Through all that the enemy can set against them, the home-trade vessels proceed on their voyages. Their losses are heavy in numbers (if the sum of their tonnage be not great), but the press of short sea-carriers that passes up Channel or down shews no evidence that frightfulness achieves an effect in holding them, loath, at their moorings. There is freight enough for all. Every vessel that has a sound keel and a helm to steer her is actively employed. Old craft and odd are come on the sea to serve turn in our emergency. Barges and inland watermen, Hudson Bay sloops, whilom pleasure craft, mud-hoppers reshelled, hulks even, are used; if they can neither sail nor steam, the ropemakers can supply a hawser--there is trade and bargain for a tow. After peace-years of grinding competition with the freight-grabbing steam coasters, the sailing craft of the smaller ports have found a new prosperity, from which no risks can daunt them. Sailmakers and rigging-cutters, the block and spar makers, have taken up their old tools again, and the gallant little topsail schooners, brigantines, cutters, and ketches are out under canvas.

The German boast that he can achieve victory by submarine policy could be nowhere more plainly refuted than in the War Channel that extends from the Thames to the Tyne. The evidence is there for all to judge. The seaway is foul with wrecks, foundered on beach and sandbar--the tide vexed by under-water obstructions. Topmast spars with whitened cordage whipping in the wind stand out above the swirl of the tides; a shattered bow-section or gaunt listed shell of a wrecked vessel sets the turn to a new shoal drift; crazy funnels, twisted and arake by the broken hulls below, stud the angles of the buoyage that marks the fairway. Disaster to our shipping is plainly shewn, grouped in a way that no figures or statistics could rival. But there is other evidence. Daybreak in the Channel gives light to a progress of seaworthy craft that seems in no way diminished by the worst that the enemy can do. He has failed, despite the sinister sea-marks that litter the fairway. Down the river estuaries and out from the sea-harbour and roadstead, the coasters still join in company through the channels. An unending procession; the grey seascape is never free of their whirling smoke-wreaths. Passing and turning in the deeps, they steam close to the red-rusted, shattered hulls of their sister ships. The gaunt masses of tortured steel stand out as monuments to an indomitable spirit--or to an influence that calls their sea-mates out to steer by the loom of their wreckage.

PILOTS

IF we may count antiquity and precedence a claim, the pilot is the real senior of our trade. Before the ship and her tackling--the rude coracle, setting across the river bars or steering on a short passage by sea-marks on the coast, before the oversea venturer with his guide in sun and star--the lodesman, who marked the deeps and the shallows.

The pilot's departure and boarding are definite and well-marked incidents in the course of a voyage, and have a significance and interest few other ship-happenings claim. He is our last and first connection with the shore. His leaving is attended by a sober emotion, a compound of regret and impatience; regret that his sure support is withdrawn--impatience to go ahead to open sea. He backs over the rail and lurches down the swaying side-ladder to his dinghy to an accompaniment of cordial good-byes. Passengers crowd the bulwarks to watch his small boat go a-bobbing in the stern-wash as we gather way. It hardly occurs to them that their farewell letters, now in his weather-stained bag, may be for days or weeks unposted; to them he is the last post--the link is snapped, the voyage now really begun.

There may be masters who affect a fine aloofness when the pilot boards them on incoming, others who preserve a detached air--but there are few who do not feel relief in answering the cheerful hail--'All well aboard, Captain?'--as the pilot puts a cautious testing foot on the side-ladder. Here is the voyage practically at an end with the coming of an expert in local navigation. The anxiety of a landfall is over. The channel buoys, port hand and starboard, stretch out ahead to mark definite limits to shoal and sandbank; familiar landmarks loom up through the drift of distant city haze; the outer lightship curtsies in the swell, beckoning us into port to resume the brief round of longshore life. After a lengthy period of silence and detachment, we are again in touch with the affairs of the beach; the news of the day and of weeks past is told to us in intervals of steering orders--sailor news, edited by a competent understanding of our professional interests. The tension of the voyage is unconsciously relaxed. We are in good hands. The engines turn steadily and we come in from sea.

If the pilot was ever a welcome attendant in the peaceful days, his services in the war earn for him an even warmer appreciation. War measures in their operation have rendered our seaports difficult of entry. The buoyage has, perhaps, been reset in the interval of a voyage's absence. Boom defences and examination areas exist, channels are closed or obstructed; certain of the lightships or floating marks may be withdrawn on short warning. Amid all our doubts and uncertainties, we look for the one assured sea-mark on the unfamiliar bars--the red-and-white emblem of a pilot vessel on her boarding station. Undeterred by the risk of mine or torpedo while marking time on their cruising ground, the pilots are constantly on the alert to board the incoming vessels as they approach from seaward. No state of the weather drives the cutter from her station to seek shelter in safer waters. If the seas are too high for boatwork, she steams ahead and offers a lead to a quieter section of the fairway where boarding may be attempted.

Turn and turn of the pilots in service can no longer be effected. The even balances of their roster (that worked so well in peace-time) have been rudely disturbed by war. The steady round of duty, in which every man knew the date of his relief, has given place to a state of 'feast and famine'; all hands are frequently mustered to meet the sudden and unheralded demands of an inward-bound convoy, or the limited accommodation of the cutter is taxed and overloaded by the release of pilots from an outward mass sailing.

There are grades of pilotage--from that of the rivers and protected waters to the more hazardous voyages between coastal ports. It is, perhaps, to the sea-pilots of Trinity we are most intimately drawn. While the river pilot is with us for the short term of the tide, the Trinity man is of our ship's company for a day or days. His valued local knowledge is at our service to set and steer fair courses in the perplexing tangents of unfamiliar tideways; operations of the minesweepers and patrols--that alter and multiply beyond counting in the course of a voyage abroad--are a plain book to him. If we meet disaster in the channels, we have a prompter at our elbow to advise a favourable beaching. We have a peer to confide in throughout our difficulties. After days of anxious watchkeeping on the bridge we are well served by a competent relief.

Ship movements in the western waters are controlled by the naval authorities in a manner that allows of independent sailings, but the Trinity pilots' duties lie in the Channel and the North Sea, where a more exacting regime is in force. From the Downs to the north, measures adopted for protection of the ships call for a time-table of sailings and arrivals that can only be adhered to by the pilot's aid. A 'War Channel' is established, a sea-lane of some two hundred and eighty miles that has constantly to be swept and cleared in advance of the traffic. Navigation in the channel obstructs an efficient search for mines; sweeping operations interfere with the passage of the ships. No small amount of control and management is necessary to reconcile conflicting actions and expedite the safe conduct of the shipping. Latterly, sailings were restricted to the hours of daylight; a system of sectional passages is enforced, by which all vessels are scheduled to make a protected anchorage before nightfall. An effect of this is to group the vessels in large scattered convoys, forming a pageant of shipping that even the busiest days of peace-time could not rival.

In all the story of the Downs, the great roadstead can rarely have presented such a scene as when, on a chill winter morning, we lay at anchor awaiting passage. Overnight, we had come in under convoy from the westward, eighteen large ships, to swell the tonnage that had gathered from the Channel ports. From Kingsdown to the Gull, there was hardly water-space to turn a wherry. Even in the doubtful holding ground of Trinity Bay some large ships were anchored, and the fairway through the Roads was encroached upon by more than one of us--despite the summary signals from the Guardship. All types were represented in our assembly; we boasted a combination in dazzle paint to set us out, and our signal flags carried colour to the mastheads to complete the variegations of our camouflage. Troop transports from the States, standard cargo ships, munition carriers come over in the night from the French ports, high-sided empty colliers returning to the north for further loads, deep-laden freighters for London, ammunition and store ships for the Fleet, coasters and barges, made up the mercantile shipping riding at anchor, while naval patrols and harbour craft under way gave movement to the spectacle. Snow had fallen, and the uplands above Deal and Walmer had white drifts in the quartered fields. To seaward, we could see twin wreaths of smoke blowing low on the water, marking the progress of a flotilla of minesweepers, on whose operations we waited. A brisk north wind held out our signal flags, shewing our ports of destination, and the pilot cutter, busily serving men on the inward bound, took note of our demands. In time, the punt delivered our pilot, and we hove short, awaiting a signal from the Guardship that would release the traffic.

The teeth of the Goodwins had bared to a snarl of broken water that shewed the young flood making when movement began among the ships. Long experience had accustomed the pilots to the ways of the minesweepers, and when the clearing signal 'Vessels may proceed' was hoisted at the yard-arm of the Guardship, there were few anchors still to be raised. Crowding out towards the northern gateway, we found ourselves in close formation. Variations of speeds rendered the apparent confusion difficult to steer through, but the action of a kindred masonry among the pilots seemed to clear the narrow sea-lane. There was little easing of speed; with only a few hours of winter daylight to work in, shipping was being driven at its utmost power to make the most of the precious time. 'All out,' stoking up and setting a stiff smoke-screen over the seascape, we thinned out to a more comfortable formation, while the smaller craft, taking advantage of the rising tide, cut the inner angles of the channel to keep apace.

With flood tide to help us, we made good progress. The press of shipping gradually dropped astern till only the troop transport, our sea-neighbours of the convoy, kept company with us. Satisfied with the speed made, the pilot reckoned up the mileage and the tide. We were for Hull and, with luck, he expected to make Yarmouth Roads before darkness and the Admiralty regulations obliged us to bring up. Like all who serve the tide, he was prepared for an upset to his plans. "Not much use figuring things out in these days, Capt'n," he said. "A lot o' happenings come our way. In spite o' these fellows out there"--he pointed to a group of destroyers lining out on our seaward beam--"the U-boat minelayers get in on the channels to lay 'eggs'; as fast as we can sweep them up, sometimes. But"--cheerfully--"they don't always get back for another load: saw the bits o' one being towed into Harwich last week."

Happenings came our way. At the Edinburgh Channel, where the troop transports parted company and turned away for London, we were halted by an urgent signal from a spurring torpedo-boat. 'Ships bound north to anchor instantly,' was the reading of her flags; we rounded to and obeyed. In groups and straggling units, we were joined by the larger number of the fleet that had left the Downs with us. Some few were for the Thames and steamed ahead in wake of the troop-ships, but the most were bound for east-coast ports and anchored near the Channel Lightship. Two hours of precious daylight were lost to us as we rode out the last of the flood. High water came and we swung around on the cant of the wind. The pilot grew visibly impatient. The traverse of his reckoning lessened in mileage with every hasty step or two up and down the bridge. Yarmouth Roads receded into the morrow; Lowestoft (if the chief could crack her up to thirteen) was possible, but unlikely. Time passed, with no clearing signal--we were to be 'nipped' on the long stretch with no prospect but to dodge into Hollesay Bay before black night came.

By some mysterious agency, the coasters developed a foreknowledge of permission to proceed. Feathers of white steam curled from their windlasses, and their anchors were awash before the block was signalled clear. They had start of us. Less handily, we got under way and stood on into the Black Deep, where the smaller craft were throwing green smoke in their efforts to get ahead. The tide had now turned ebb to set us on our way. As we surged past the channel buoys the pilot was reassured. The prospect of windy Lowestoft Roads beckoned him on with every coaster we overhauled and passed; the outlook improved as we timed our passage between the sea-marks. Off the Sunk, we came on the cause of our stoppage. The pilot noted a new wreck on the sands, one that had not been there when last he steered over this route. Beached at high water, he said. She had not been long on. The wreck lay listed on a spit of the sandbank. Her bows were blown open, exposing the interior of forecastle and forehold. Neutral colours were painted on her topside; the boats were gone and dangling boat-falls streamed alongside in the tideway. There was no sign of life on her, but a patrol drifter was standing by with a crowd of men on her decks. Out to seaward a flotilla of minesweepers was busily at work. Turning no more than a curious eye on the mined neutral, the pilot paid attention to the steering. That we were over a mined area had no grave concern for him. Relying on the minesweepers, he kept course and speed--the channel was reported clear.

LIGHTSHIPS

DEVOTED to the service of humanity, in a bond that linked all seafarers, lightships and isolated sea-beacons were regarded as exempted from the operation of warlike acts. The claim of the 'beacons established for the guidance of mariners' rested upon a high conception of world-wide service to mankind. Their duties were not directed to military uses or to favouring alone the nation who manned them. Their upkeep was met by a universal levy. Their warning beams were not withdrawn from foreign vessels; no effort was made to establish the nationality of a ship in distress ere setting portfire to the signal-gun to call out the lifeboat. On rare occasions sea-rovers interfered with the operation of the guide-marks. Retribution overtook them; they were outlawed by even the loose opinion of the period. There is surely more than legend in the ballad of Sir Ralph the Rover; if death by shipwreck was not actually his fate, it is at least the penalty adjudged to him by popular acclaim. Smeaton, in his Folio, records an instance of reparation for a similar 'diversion.'

"Lewis the Fourteenth being at war with England during the proceeding with this building, a French privateer took the men at work upon the Eddystone Rock, together with their tools, and carried them to France, and the Captain was in expectation of a reward for the achievement. While the captives lay in prison, the transaction reached the ears of that monarch. He immediately ordered them to be released and the captors to be put in their place: declaring that though he was at war with England, he was not at war with mankind. He therefore directed the men to be sent back to their work with presents, observing that the Eddystone Lighthouse was so situated as to be of equal service to all nations having occasion to navigate the Channel."

A lightship is as peaceful and immobile as the granite blockstones of a lighthouse. She requires an even greater protection, exposed as she is to dangers on the sea that do not threaten the landward structure. She is incapable of offence or defence. Unarmed, save for the signal-gun that is only used to warn a vessel from the sands or to summon assistance to a ship in distress, she can offer no resistance to a show of force. She is moored to withstand the strongest gales, and cannot readily disengage her heavy ground-tackle. She has no efficient means of propulsion; parted from her stout anchors, she would drive helplessly on to the very shoals she had been set to guard. To all seafarers, in war as in peace, she should appeal as a sea-mark to be spared and protected; in the service of humanity, she is exposed to danger enough--to the furious gales from which she may not run.

Unlike the Grand Monarch, the Germans are bitterly at war with mankind. As one of their first war acts at sea, they shelled the Ostend Lightship. Like the Lamb, she was using the water; the Wolf would suffer no protestation of her innocency. Was she not floating placidly on the same tides that served the German coast?

In view of his subsequent atrocities in torpedoing hospital ships and shelling rafts and open boats, it is probable that our light-vessels would have been similarly destroyed by the enemy, but that his submarine commanders found under-water navigation required as accurate a check as in coasting on the surface. The fury of the Wolf was, in his own interest, tardily suppressed. He recognized that the value of the lightships in establishing a definite position was an asset to him. Withal--his 'fix' decided--he had no qualms in sowing mines in the area of these signposts; nor did he stay his hand in the case of a sea-mark that was not vital to his plans. Two lightships on the east coast were blown up by mines; one, off the coast of Ireland, was deliberately torpedoed.

The menace of the German sea-mine remains the greatest war danger to which the lightships are exposed. Zeppelin and seaplane pay visits to the coastal waters, but the sea is wide for a chance missile from the air, and no great success has attended their bombing efforts. But the enemy mine has no instant aim. Full-charged and deadly, its activity is not confined--as the British mine is--to the area of the mooring. Their minelayers, creeping in to the fairways in cloak of the darkness, are anxious to settle their cargo of high explosive as quickly as possible. Not all of the mines they sow hold to the hastily slipped 'sinkers' till disaster to our shipping or the untiring search of the minesweepers reveals their presence. Many break adrift and surge in the tideways, moving as the set of the current takes them. Vessels under way, by keen look-out and ready helm, can sight and avoid the drifting spheres, but the lightships have no power to steer clear. Moored on the offset of a shoal or sandbank (their position, indeed, a guide to the minelayer), their broad bows offer contact to all flotsam that comes down on swirl of the tide. The authorities were unwilling to expose their men to a danger that could not be evaded, however gallant the shipmen or skilled their seamanship. It was not a seagoing risk that could be met; no adequate protection consistent with the lightship's mission could be devised. As the submarine war became intensified, the more distant vessels were withdrawn; new routes were set to divert shipping from the outer passages; only those floating sea-marks are now maintained whose removal would entail disaster to the traffic that passes by night and day.

Holding station in waters that are patrolled and, in part, protected, the Trinity men who form the crews of the lightships have readjusted their manning. A large proportion of the able-bodied men have joined the naval forces, leaving the older hands (and some few who have a physical disability) to tend the lights. War risks still remain, for the German minelayers have followed the shipping to the inner channels, but the greybeards have grown stolid and immovable in a service that was never at any time a safe and equable calling. They have become sadly familiar with the new sea-warfare--with disaster to the shipping in the channels. While they have incident enough, in the movement and activity of patrols and war craft, in the ceaseless sweeping of the channels, to judge our sea-power and take pride in its strength, they have all too frequent experience of the murderous under-water mechanics of the enemy. Living in the midst of sea-alarms, the old placid tedium of their 'sixty days' has given place to an excitement that even the monotonous rounds of their small ship-life cannot suppress. The men on the 'Royal Sovereign' were observers of the terrific power of the sea-mine; three ships in sight being blown to small wreckage within an hour. 'Shambles' jarred to distant torpedoings off the Bill. The 'South Goodwin' saw _Maloja_ brought up in her stately progress by a thundering explosion, then watched her list and settle in the stormy seaway; a second crash and upheaval drew the eyes of the watch on deck to the fate of the _Empress of Fort William_ as she was hastening to succour the people of the doomed liner. Up Channel and down, the lightshipmen were observers of the toll exacted by the enemy--the price we paid for the freedom of the seas.

But not all their observations of sea-casualties brought gloom to the dog-watch reckoning. If there remained no doubt of the intensity and power of German submarine activity, they were equally assured of the efficiency of our surface offence, and the deadly precision of our own under-water counter-measures. On occasion, there were other sea-dramas enacted under the eyes of the lightshipmen--short, swift engagements that set an oily scum welling over the clean sea-space of the channel, or an affair of rapid gunfire that cleared a pest from the narrow waters. There is at least one instance of a lightship having a commanding, if uncomfortable, station in an action between our drifters and a large enemy submarine. The lampman of the 'Gull' had a front view. . . . "Misty weather, it was. Day was just breakin', about seven o' th' mornin' when I see him. I see him just over there--a little t' th' nor'ard o' that wreckage on th' Sands. A big fella, about th' size o' them oil-barges as passes hereabouts. I didn't make him out at first--account o' th' mornin' haze, but there was somethin' over there where no ship didn't oughta be. I calls down th' companion--'Master,' I says, 'there's somethin' on th' north end o' th' Sands.' He comes up an' has a look. Then we made 'im out what he was, a big German sub.--but he hadn't no flag flyin'. Jest then we hears firin', an' th' shells goes over us an' lands nigh him. They was three drifters jes' come out o' th' Downs t' start sweepin' an', all three, they goes for him like billy-o--firin' as they comes. We was right atween them an' th' shots passes over th' lightship. One as was short just pitches clear an 'undred yards ahead o' us. Two guns he had--th' sub.--an' they didn't half make a din as they goes at it--_bang-bang-bang!_ Th' drifters passes us, goin' a full clip. The first one, she got hit a-top th' wheelhouse, but they didn't stop for nothin'. The' keeps bangin' away with th' gun. . . . Yes. Some shots landed hereabouts, but we was busy watchin' th' drifters. . . . I see their shots hittin', too. I see one blaze up on th' submarine's deck, an' one o' his guns didn't talk back no more. Th' drifters was steerin' straight for him. I dunno how one o' them didn't go ashore herself--near it, she was. The sub. was hard on by this time, an' he stands high--with a list, too, but fightin' away like he was afloat.

"Two more drifters come up an' they joins in, an' th' shells goes _who-o-o-o!_ overhead again. Then a destroyer, he comes tearin' along at full speed, an' he puts th' finishin' touch to him. There was an explosion on th' submarine, an' th' nex' we see--we see his men tumblin' out o' him overside t' th' Sands. . . . Them up t' their middles in th' water an' holdin' their hands up."

The lampman was, of his service, a trained observer. He said nothing of the scene on the deck of the lightship--the watch tumbling up from below, their clothing hastily thrown on--the questioning, the alarmed cries. His concern was directed to the happenings on spit of the Sands. "Some shots landed hereabouts," he said; but his interest was on the Goodwins.

VII

'THE PRICE O' FISH'

THE inshore patrol hailed us and reported the channel clear as far as the Nore, and we stood on at full speed, making the most of the short winter daylight. Past the Elbow buoy, we met the minesweepers returning from a sweep of their section. They were steaming in two columns, line ahead, and we sheered a little to give them room; within the reading of our Admiralty instructions, they were a 'squadron in formation,' to whose movements we were advised to give way. They passed close. The leader of the port column was _Present Help_; we read the name on a gilt scroll that ornamented her wheelhouse. For the rest, she was trim in a coat of iron-grey, with her port and number painted over. A small gun--a six-pounder, perhaps--was mounted on her bows, and she carried a weather-stained White Ensign aloft. She scurried past us, pitching to our bow wash in an easy sidling motion that set her wheelhouse glasses flashing a cheery message. The skipper leaned from an open doorway, in an attitude of ease that, somehow, assured us of his day's work being well done--with no untoward happenings. He waved his cap to our greeting. _Present Help_ and her sisters went by, and we returned to our course in the fairway.

"These lads," said the pilot, waving his arm towards the fast-receding flotilla. "If it wasn't for these lads, Capt'n, you and I wouldn't feel exactly comfortable on the bridge in channel waters. Two went up this week, and one a little while agone." He turned his palms upward and raised both arms in an expressive gesture. . . . "Three gone, one with all hands, but only one merchant ship done in by mines hereabouts in the last month. (_Starboard, a little, quartermaster!_) . . . I dunno how we could carry on without them. Out there in all weathers, clearing the fairways and--Gad!--it takes some doing. . . . I was talking to one of the skippers in Ramsgate the other day. Saying what I'm saying--(_Steady, now, steady's you go!_)--what I'm saying now, and all he said was--'Right, pilot,' he says. 'If you feels that way, remember it when we gets back to th' fishin' in peace-time, an'--for th' Lord's sake--keep clear o' our gear when th' nets is down! I lost a tidy lot o' gear,' he says, 'with tramps an' that bargin' about on th' fishin' grounds.'. . . He didn't think nothing of this minesweeping. His mind was bent on his nets and the fish again." A pause, while he conned the ship on a steady course, then, reflectively, "An' there's some folks--there's folks ashore growling about the price o' fish!"

Of courage in the war, on land as on sea, there are few records comparable to the silent devotion of the fishermen. The heat of attack and fury of battle may call out a reckless heroism that has no bounds to individual gallantry, but the sustained courage required for a lone action under heavy odds--every turn of the engagement being assessed and understood--is of a rarer quality; mere physical health and high spirit cannot generate it; tradition of a sea-inherence and long self-training alone can bring it forth. That the fishermen (inured to a life of bold hazard and hardship) would offer valuable service in emergency was never doubted, but that the level of their gallantry should reach such heights, even those who knew them were hardly prepared to assume. And we were weak in our judgment, for their records held ample evidence by which we should have been able to predict a bravery in war action no less notable than their courage in the equally perilous ways of their trade. For a lifetime at war with the sea, wresting a precarious living from the grudging depths, their skill and resolution required no stimulus under the added stress of sea-warfare. In the fury of the channel gales, shipwreck and disaster called forth the same spirit of dogged endurance and elevating humanity that marks their new seafaring under arms. The countless instances of their service to vessels in distress, to torpedoed merchantmen and warships, in the records of strife, are but repetitions of their sea-conduct throughout the years of their trading. When Rozhdestvensky's panic-stricken gunlayers opened fire on the 'Gamecock' fleet on the Dogger, the story of that outrage was distinguished by the same heroism of the trawlermen that ennobles their diary to-day. When the _Crane_ was sinking, the crew of _Gull_, themselves suffering under fire, boarded her to rescue the survivors. . . . "When they got on board the _Crane_ they found the living members of the crew lying about injured. The vessel was in total darkness, and it was known that at any moment she might founder; yet Costello (the _Gull's_ boatswain) went below to the horrible little forecastle to bring up Leggatt's dead body. Smith (the second hand), who took charge of the _Crane_ when the skipper was killed, refused to leave her till every man had been taken off. Rea (the engineer) showed unyielding courage when, in spite of the fact that the little ship was actually foundering, he groped back to the engine-room, which was in total darkness, to reach the valves. The stokehold was flooded with water, and Rea could do nothing. He went on deck, where the skipper was lying dead, and all the survivors, except the boy, were wounded."

In all its bearings, the comradely action of the _Gull_ was but a foreshadowing of _Gowan Lea's_ assistance to _Floandi_ in the raid by Austrian cruisers on the drifter line in the Adriatic. The circumstances were curiously alike--the actual occurrence, the individual deeds. We have Skipper Nichols refusing to leave until his wounded were embarked, and Engineman Mobbs groping (as Rea did) through the scalding steam of _Floandi's_ wrecked engine-room to reach the stokehold and draw the fires. Then, as in the Russians' sea-panic of October 1904, the fishermen (fighting seamen now) came under a sudden and murderous gunfire at close range. Overpowered by heavy armament, there was no flinching, no surrender. _Gowan Lea_ headed for the enemy with her one six-pounder spitting viciously. The issue was not considered--though Skipper Joseph Watt must have had no doubt that he was steering his drifter towards certain destruction. Her gun was quickly put out of action. Her funnel and wheelhouse were riddled and shot to pieces. Water made on her through shot-holes in the hull. On the gun-platform, her gunlayer struggled to repair the mechanism of the breech--his leg dangling and shattered. Shell-torn and incapable of further attack, she drifted out of the line of fire. Bad as was her own condition, there were others in worse plight. _Floandi_ had come under direct point-blank fire, and her decks were a shambles. Out of control--her main steam-pipe being shot through--seven dead or badly wounded, and only three remaining to work her, she was in dire need of assistance. Skipper Watt observed the distress of his sea-mate and steered _Gowan Lea_ down to her to offer the same brotherhood as of the _Gull_ to _Crane_. The analogy is peculiarly complete: the boarding, the succour to the wounded, the reverent handling of the dead. Not as a new spirit born of the stress of war, but as the outcome of an age-old tradition, Gowan Lea stood by.

After four years of warfare at sea, serving under naval direction and discipline, one would have expected the fisherman sailing under the White Ensign to lose at least a certain measure of his former character--to have become a naval seaman in his habits of thought, in his actions, his outlook. Four years of constant service! A long term! He has come under a control that differs as poles apart from the free days of 'fleeting' and 'single boating.' He is set to service in unfamiliar waters and abnormal climates, but the habits of the old trade still cling to him. New gear comes to his hands--sweeps, depth-keepers, explosive nets, hydrophones, and paravanes--but he regards them all as adaptations to his fishing service. He is unchanged. He is still fishing; that his 'catch' may be a huge explosive monster capable of destroying a Dreadnought does not seem to have imposed a new turn to his thoughts. He is apart from the regular naval service. The influence of his familiar little ship, the association of his kindred shipmates, the technics of a common and unforgettable trade, have proved stronger than the prestige of a naval uniform. In his terms and way of speech, he draws no new farrago from his brassbound shipmate. Did not the skipper of the duty patrol hail _Aquitania_ on her approach to the Clyde booms and advise the captain? . . . 'Tak' yeer _bit boatie_ up atween thae twa trawlers!'

The devotion and gallantry and humanity of the fishermen is not confined to the enlisted section who man the patrol craft and minesweepers. The regular trade, the old trade, works under the same difficulties and dangers that ever menaced the ingathering of the sea-fishery. Serving on the sea in certain areas, the older men and the very young still contrive to shoot the nets and down the trawls. Their contribution to the diminished food-supply of the country is not gained without loss; 'the price o' fish' is too often death or mutilation or suffering under bitter exposure in an open boat. The efforts of the enemy to stop our food-supply are directed with savage insistence towards reducing the rations drawn from the deeps of the sea; brutality and vengeful fury increase in intensity as the days pass and the indomitable fishermen return and return to their grounds. In August 1914, fast German cruisers and torpedo-boats raided our fleets on the Dogger Bank. Twenty fishing vessels were sunk, their crews captured. There was no killing. ". . . The sailors [of the torpedo-boat] gave us something to eat and drink, and we could talk and were pretty free," said the skipper of _Lobelia_. Later, on being taken ashore ". . . with German soldiers on each side of us, and the women and boys and girls shouting at us and running after us and pelting us, we were marched through the streets of Wilhelmshaven to a prison." Hardship, abuse! Now ridicule! ". . . The Germans stripped us of everything we had. . . . But they were not content with that--they disfigured us by cutting one half of the hair of our heads off and one half of the moustache, cropping close and leaving the other half on, making you as ugly as they could. . . . It was a nasty thing to do; but we made the best of it, and laughed at one another."

Hardship, abuse, ridicule! The fishermen still served their trade at sea. Now, brutality! The third hand of _Boy Ernie_ details the callous precision of German methods in September 1915. The smack was unarmed. ". . . It was very heavy and deliberate fire. [There were two enemy submarines.] The shots . . . were coming on deck and going through the sails. We threw the boat overboard and tumbled into her. . . . I started sculling the boat away from the smack, all the time under fire; but the Germans were not content with firing shells at a helpless craft--they now turned a machine-gun on to defenceless fishermen in a boat on the open sea. . . . The boat was getting actually riddled by the machine-gun fire, and before I knew what was happening, I was struck by a bullet on the right thigh, and began to bleed dreadfully. . . . The smack was blown to pieces and went down. This was the work of one of the submarines--while she was sinking the smack the other was firing on us."

Throughout all the malevolent and calculated campaign of destruction, the fishermen remain steadfast to their old traditions of humanity. When _Vanilla_ is torpedoed without warning and vanishes in a welter of broken gear, her sea-mate, _Fermo_, dodging a second torpedo, steams to the wreckage to rescue the survivors--but finds none. In a heavy gale, _Provident_ of Brixham risks her mast and gear, gybing to close the sinking pinnace of the torpedoed _Formidable_, and rescue the exhausted seventy-one men who crowded her. The instances of fisher help to merchantmen in peril are uncounted and uncountable.

In the distant days when the Sea Services were classed apart, each in its own trade and section--working by a rule that admitted no co-partnery--we foreign traders had little to do with those whom (in our arrogance) we deemed the 'humble' fishermen. In the mists of the channel waters, we came upon them at their trawls or nets. Their floats and buoys obstructed our course; the small craft, heading up on all angles, confused the operation of a 'Rule of the Road.' Impatient of an alteration that took us miles from a direct course, we felt somewhat resentful of their presence on the sea-route. That they were gathering and loading a cargo under stress and difficulty that contrasted with _our_ easy stowage in the shelter of a dock or harbour, did not occur to us; they were obstructionists, blocking our speedy passage with their warps and nets and gear. Although most masters grudgingly steered clear, there were those in our ranks who elected to hold on through the fleets, unconcerned by the confusion and risk to the fishermen's gear that their passage would occasion. There were angry shouts and protests; the gear and nets were often the sole property of the fishermen; serious losses were sustained.

At war, we have incurred debts. When peace comes and the seas are free again, we shall have memories of what we owe to the fishermen in all the varied services they have paid to us. The minesweepers toiling in the channels, that we may not meet sudden death; patrols riding out bitter weather in the open to warn us from danger, to succour and assist the remnants of our manning when a blow goes home. War has purged us of many old arrogant ways. When next we meet the fishing fleet at peaceful work in the channels, we shall recall the emotion and relief with which we sighted their friendly little hulls bearing down to protect us in a menaced seaway. We shall 'keep clear o' th' gear when th' nets is down.'

VIII

THE RATE OF EXCHANGE

THE Bank of England official, who had been a close attendant on the bridge during the early part of the voyage, seems now to be reassured. We are nearing land again. Another day should see us safely berthed at New York, where--his trust discharged--a pleasant interval should open to him ere returning to England. The gold and securities on board are reason for his passage; he is with us as our official witness, should the activity of an enemy raider compel us to throw the millions overboard. Nothing has happened. The 'danger zone' has been passed without event. Stormy weather on the Grand Banks has given way to light airs and a smooth sea as we steer in to make our landfall.

Together on the navigation bridge, we are discussing the shipment. ". . . It is the exchange, Captain," he says. "The exchange is against us. These huge war purchases in the States cannot be balanced by the moderate exports we are able to send over. When we left Liverpool the sovereign was worth four dollars, seventy-one cents in America. I don't know where it is going to end. We can't make securities. There must be a lim----" Drumming of the wireless telephone cuts in on his words. "Operator wishes to know if he can leave the 'phones, sir? Says he has to see you."

The bridge messenger turns aside inquiringly, holding out the receiver of the telephone as a context to his words. The request, that would have aroused an instant disquiet six days ago, now appears trivial and normal. There may be receipts to be signed. Approaching port the operator will be completing his accounts. We are unconcerned and resume our conversation until he arrives.

He is insistent that it cannot be due to atmospherics. "A queer business, sir. Thought it best to report instead of telephoning. Some station addressing a message to ABMV [all British merchant vessels], and another trying to jam it out. Can't get more than the prefix, when jamming begins. No, not atmospherics. I've taken ABMV, though distant, twice in this watch, and, looking up the junior's jottings for the last watch, I see he had traces. Whatever is jamming the message out is closer to us than the sender. I dunno what to make of it!"

"You mean that a message from a land station to us is being interfered with, deliberately, from somewhere near at hand?"

He produces the slip of his junior's scribbles. Among the jumble of noughts and crosses, there is certainly a hastily scrawled ABMV, then x's and x's. "What else, sir? At first I thought it was atmospherics--x's were fierce last watch--but x's can't happen that way twice running!"

"All right! Carry on again. Let me know at once if anything further. Gear to be manned continuously from now on. Keep your junior at hand."

A queer business! We trim the possibilities in our mind. It is now nearly dark. As we go, we should make Nantucket Lightship at daybreak; our usual landfall on the voyage. There is not much to work on. 'A message being sent, and some one making unusual efforts to prevent receipt.' A raider? It is now some months since _Kronprinz Wilhelm_ was driven into Norfolk; she cannot surely, have escaped internment. _Karlsruhe?_ Nothing has been heard of her for a long term. A submarine? Perhaps _Deutschland_, with his torpedo-tubes refitted and a gun mounted? He knows the way; he could carry oil enough to reach the coast, do a strafe, and sneak into a port for internment. . . . Figuring on the chart, measuring distance and course and speed, it comes to us that enemy action would best succeed off Nantucket or the Virginia Capes. We resolve to cut in between the two, to make the land below Atlantic City, and take advantage of territorial waters. If there is no serious intention behind the jamming of the wireless, there will be no great harm done--we shall only lose ten hours on the passage; if a raider is out, we shall, at least, be well off the expected route. We pass the orders.

A quiet night. We are steering into the afterglow of a brilliant sunset. The mast and rigging stand out in clear black outline against lingering daylight as we swing south four points. The look-out aloft turns from his post and scans the wake curving to our sheer; anon, he wonders at the coming of a mate to share his watch. Passengers, on a stroll, note unusual movement about the boat-deck, where the hands are swinging out lifeboats and clearing the gear. As the carpenter and his mates go the rounds, screwing blinds to the ports and darkening ship, other passengers hurry up from below and join the groups on deck; an excitement is quickly evident. They had thought all danger over when, in thirty degrees west, we allowed them to discard the cumbersome life-jackets that they had worn since leaving the Mersey. And now--almost on the threshold of security and firm land--again the enervating restrictions and routine, the sinister preparations, the atmosphere of sudden danger. Rumours and alarms fly from lip to lip; we deem it best to publish that the wireless has heard the twitter of a strange bird.

Before midnight, the bird is identified. Our theories and conjectures are set at rest. The operator, changing his wave-length suddenly from 600 to 300 metres, succeeds in taking a message. '_From Bermuda_'--of all places--'_to ABMV German armed submarine left Newport eighth stop take all precautions ends_.' A submarine! And we had thought the limits of their activity stopped at thirty degrees west. Even the Atlantic is not now broad enough! The definite message serves to clear our doubts. A submarine from Newport will certainly go down off Nantucket. Our course should now take us ninety miles south of that. There remains the measure of his activity. A fighting submarine that can navigate such a distance is new to us. His speed and armament are unknown. We can hardly gauge his movements by standards of the types we know. We are unarmed; our seventeen knots top speed may not be fast enough for an unknown super-submarine. Crowded as we are by civilian passengers, we cannot stand to gunfire. A hit will be sheer murder. It is a problem! We return to the deck and make three figures of that ninety miles.

The pulse of the ship beats high in the thrust and tremor of the engines, now opened out to their utmost speed; the clean-cut bow wave breaks well aft, shewing level and unhindered progress. In the calm weather, the whirl of our black smoke hangs low astern, joining the sea and sky in a dense curtain; we are prompted by it to a wish for misty weather when day breaks--to make a good screen to our progress. Though dark, the night is clear. A weak moon stands in the east, shedding sufficient light to brighten the lift. We overhaul some west-bound vessels in our passage and warn them by signal. Two have already taken Bermuda's message and are alert, but one has no wireless, and is heading up across our course. We speak her; her lights go out quickly, and she turns south after us.

Daybreak comes with the thin vapours of settled weather that may turn to a helpful haze under the warm sun. We zigzag in a wide S from the first grey half-light, for we are now due south of the Lightship. In the smooth glassy surface of the sea we have an aid to our best defence--the measure of our eyes. We note a novel vigilance in the watchkeepers, a suppressed anxiety that was not ours in the infinitely more dangerous waters of the channels. The unusual circumstance of zigzagging and straining look-out for a periscope almost in American waters has gripped us. Every speck of flotsam is scanned in apprehension. The far-thrown curl of our displacement spitting on the eddy of the zigzag, throws up a feather that calls for frequent scrutiny. We have no lack of unofficial assistance in our look-out. From early morning, the passengers are astir--each one entrammelled in a life-jacket that reminds them continually of danger. For the children, it is a new game--a source of merriment--but their elders are gravely concerned. Gazing constantly outboard and around, they add eyes to our muster. Every hour that passes without event seems to increase the tension; the size and numbers of enemy vessels grow with the day. A telegraph-cable ship at work is hailed as 'a raider in sight'--a Boston sea-tug, towing barges south, is taken for a supply-ship with submarines in tow.

The wireless operator reports from time to time. The 'humming bird' (whoever he is) has ceased jamming. The air is full of call and counter-call. Halifax is working with an unknown sea-station--long messages in code. Coastal stations are joined in the 'mix-up.' Cape Cod is offering normal 'traffic' to the American steamer _St. Paul_, as though there was no word of anything happening within reach of the radio. It is all very perplexing. Perhaps the Bermuda message was a hoax; some 'neutral' youth on the coast may have been working an unofficial outfit, as had been done before. Anon, an intercepted message comes through. A Hollands steamer sends out '_S.O.S._ . . . _S.O.S._. . .' but gives no name or position. Then there is silence; nothing working, but distant mutterings from Arlington.

Throughout the day we swing through calm seas, shying at each crazy angle of the zigzag in a turn that slows the measured beat of the engines. Night coming and the haze growing in intensity, we use the lead--sounding at frequent intervals--and note the lessening depth that leads us in to the land. At eight, we reach six fathoms--the limit of American territorial waters. It is with no disguised relief we turn north and steer a straight course.

Although now less concerned with the possibility of enemy interference, we have anxiety enough in the navigation of a coastal area in hazy weather. We reduce speed. The mist has deepened to a vapour that hangs low in the direction of the shore. House lights glimmer here and there, but only by the lead are we able to keep our distance. A glow of light over Atlantic City shews itself mistily through a rift in the haze and gives an approximation of our latitude, but it is Barnegat's quick-flashing lighthouse beam that establishes our confidence and enables us to proceed at better speed. We shew no lights. For all we are in American waters, we have not forgotten _Gulflight_ and _Nebraskan_ and other international 'situations'; we look for no consideration from the enemy and preserve a keen look-out. Vessels pass us in the night bound south with their deck lights ablaze, but we stand on up the coast with not a glimmer to show our presence. Turning wide out to the shoal-water off Navesink, we sight the pilot steamer lying to. We switch on all lights and steer towards her.

It is not often one finds the New York pilots unready, but our sudden arrival has taken them aback. We have to wait. Daybreak is creeping in when the yawl comes alongside with our man. He is an old Swedish-American whom we had long suspected of pro-German leanings, but the relief and enthusiasm on his honest old face is undisguised. "Gott! I am glat to see yo, Cabtin," he calls. "Dere vas a rumour dat yo vas down too! Yoost now, ven yo signal de name of de ship, I vas glat--glat!" He is full of his news; there are rumours and rumours. 'The White Star mailboat is down,' 'a Prince liner is overdue,' 'there are fears for a Lamport and Holt boat.' In view of our safe arrival, he is prepared to discount the rumours. What is certain is that U 53 has arrived in these waters, and has already sunk six large ships off Nantucket.

* * * * *

A day later we turn to the commercial pages of the _New York Herald_. Our arrival is reported, and it seems that the sovereign is now worth $4.72 1/16!

IX

INDEPENDENT SAILINGS

UNTIL nearly three years of war had gone on, we sailed independently as 'single' ships, setting our speeds and courses and conforming only to the general route instructions of the Admiralty. The submarine menace did not come upon us in a sudden intensity. Its operation was gradually unfolded and counter-measures were as methodically advanced to meet it. The earliest precaution took the form of a wide separation of the ships, branching the sea-routes apart on the sound theory that submarines would have voyaging to do to reach their victims. While this was a plan of value on the high seas, it could not be pursued in the narrower waters of the channels. Destroyers in sufficient numbers not being available to patrol these waters, fishing craft--trawlers and drifters--were commissioned to that service. Being of moderate speed, their activities were not devoted to a mass operation, by which they could group the merchantmen together for protection. The custom was still to separate them as widely as possible, each zigzagging on her own plan. Until the convoy system was established, measures for our protection did not take the form of naval escorts sailing in our company: such vessels were only provided for transports or for ships on military service: vessels on commercial voyages were largely left to their own resources when clear of harbour limits.

That all sea-going vessels should carry a wireless installation was one of the first measures enforced by Admiralty. The magnificent resources of the Marconi Company, though strained, were equal to the task. There was a life-labour alone in the technical education of their operators, but they drilled the essentials of their practice into landward youths in a few months--blessed them with a probationer's licence--and sent them to sea. It is idle to speculate on what we could have done without this communication with the beach: it is inconceivable that we could have served the sea as we have done. Throughout the length of channel waters, we were constantly in visual touch with the patrols, but in the more open seas we relied on the wireless to keep us informed of enemy activities. At first, we were lavish in its use. The air was scored by messages--'back chat' was indulged in by the operators. An _S.O.S._ (and they were frequent) was instant signal for a confusion of inquiries--a battery of call and counter call--that often prevented the ready succour of a vessel in distress. We grew wiser. We put a seal on the switch. Regulations came into force to restrain unnecessary 'sparking'; we sat in to listen and record, and only to speak when we were spoken to.

Codes were issued by the Admiralty for use at sea. Their early cryptogram was easily decoded by friend and enemy alike. Knowing that certain words would assuredly be embodied in the text of a message (words such as, _from_--_latitude_--_report_--_submarine_--_master_), it was not difficult to decipher a code of alphabetical sequence. There were famous stories of traitors and spies, but our authoritative simplicity was responsible for the occasional leakage of information. At this date, 1915-16, wireless position-detectors came into use by the enemy. A spark-group, repeated after an interval, could give a fair approximation of distance and course and speed. More than ever it was necessary to maintain silence when at sea. Withal, the air was still in strong voice. At regular periods the great longshore radios threw out war warnings to guide us in a choice of routes and warn us away from mined areas. Patrols and war craft kept up an incessant, linking report. Distress signals hissed into the atmosphere in urgent sibilance, then faltered and died away. On occasion, the high note of a _Telefunken_ set invited a revealing confidence that would lead us, 'chicky-chicky,' to the block. We were well served by Marconi.

Extension of the power of enemy submarines brought new practice to our seafaring. We had made the most of a passage by the land, steering so close that the workers in the fields paused in their toil and waved us on; but the new under-water craft crept in as close, and mined the fairways. We were ordered to open sea again, to steer the shortest course by which we could reach a depth of water that could not be mined. Zigzag progress now assumed the importance that was ever its right. It had been but cursorily maintained. The 'shortest distance between two points' had, for so long, been our rule that many masters were unwilling to steer in tangents. On passage in the more open sea, they were soon converted to a belief in the efficacy of a crazy course. Statistics of our losses proved the virtue of the tangent: of a group of six vessels sunk in a certain area only one--a very slow vessel--was torpedoed while maintaining a zigzag. Extracts from the diary of a captured submarine commander were circulated among us, giving ground for our confidence, in the frequent admissions of failure--"owing to a sudden and unexpected alteration of course."

Still, we were unarmed. If, by zigzag and a keen look-out, we were fortunate in evading torpedo attack, the submarine had by now mounted a surface armament, and we were exposed to another equally deadly offence. For our protection, Admiralty placed a new type of warship on the routes approaching the channels. Built originally for duty as minesweepers, the sloops were faster and more heavily armed than the drifters. They patrolled in a chain of five or six over the routes that we were instructed to use. During the daylight hours we were rarely out of sight of one or other of the vessels forming the chain. Our route orders were framed towards a definite point of departure into the high seas when darkness came. There, the patrol of the sloops ended: we had the hours of the night to make our offing and, by daybreak again, were assumed to be clear of the 'danger zone.' But the 'danger zone' was being extended swiftly; it was not always possible to traverse the area in the dark hours of a night: only the fast liners could stretch out a speed that would serve. Profiting by experience that was constantly growing, the _Reichsmarineamt_ constructed larger submarines capable of remaining long at sea, and of operating in ocean areas that could not adequately be patrolled. Twelve, fifteen--then twenty degrees of longitude marked their activity advancing to the westward: they went south to thirty-five: in time the Mediterranean became a field for their efforts. Gunfire being the least expensive, they relied on their deck armament to destroy unarmed shipping. The patrols were but rarely in sight; the submarine became a surface destroyer. There was no necessity for submergence on the ocean routes: under-water tactics were held in reserve for use against fast ships--the slower merchantmen were brought-to in a contest that was wholly in favour of the U-boat. In a heavy Atlantic gale, _Cabotia_ was sunk by gunfire, 120 miles from land. She had not the speed to escape. Despite the heavy seas that swept over the submarine and all but washed the gunner from the deck, the enemy was able to keep up a galling fire that ultimately forced the master to abandon his ship. _Virginia_ was fired upon at midnight when steering for the Cerigo Channel. Notwithstanding the courage of Captain Coverley, who remained on board to the last, there could be but one end to the contest. _Virginia_ was sunk. A strong ship; the enemy had to expend two of his torpedoes to destroy her.

Against such attacks only one measure could be advocated--the measure we had for so long been demanding. It was impossible to patrol adequately all the areas of our voyaging. Guns were served to us and we derived a confidence that the enemy quickly appreciated. We did not expect wholly to reduce his surface action, but we could and did expose him to the risk he had come so far out to sea to avoid. On countless occasions our new armament had effect in keeping him to his depths, with the consequent waste of his mobile battery power. Even in gun action he could no longer impose his own speed power on a slow ship. Under conditions that he judged favourable to his gunnery, the submarine commander still exercised his ordnance--usually after a torpedo had failed to reach its mark. Many of the hazards were against us, but our weapons brought the contest to a less unequal balance. If we did present the larger target, we had--in our steady emplacement--a better platform from which to direct our fire. From the first it was a competition of range and calibre. Six-pounders led to twelves; these in turn gave way to 4.7's. Anon, the enemy mounted a heavier weapon, to which we replied by a new type of 4-inch, sighted to 13,000 yards.

Thus armed and equipped, we were in better condition to meet the enemy in our independent sailings. He was again obliged largely to return to the use of his torpedoes, with all the maze of under-water approach that that form of attack involved. If outranged in a surface action, we had our smoke-producing apparatus to set up a screen to his shell-fire, and that form of defence had the added value of forcing him to proceed at a high and uneconomical speed to press an attack. Some of our gun actions resulted in destruction of a sea-pest, but all--however unsuccessful--contributed to lessen his power of offence. Every torpedo fired, every hour of submergence, every knot of speed expended in a chase, was so far a victory for us as to hasten the date when he would be obliged to head back to his base. His chances of survival in that passage through the patrols and the nets and mines could not be considered as good.

X

BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK

"_All vessels are prohibited from approaching within four miles of Rathlin Island between sunset and sunrise_"

IN view of Admiralty instructions, we are 'proceeding as requisite'--turning circles, dodging between Tor Point and Garron Head--and awaiting daybreak to make a passage through Rathlin Sound. Steering south from the Clyde, we had reached Skullmartin when the wireless halted us. Enemy activity off the south coast of Ireland had become intensified, and all traffic from west-coast ports was ordered to proceed through the North Channel. In groups and singles, the ships from Liverpool and the Bristol Channel join us, and we make a busy channel-way of the usually deserted coastal waters. We show no lights, but the moon-ray reveals us, sharply defined, as we pass and repass on the lines of our courses. We keep well within the curve of the coast until the light grows in the east, then turn finally to the north. The sun comes up as we reach Fair Head, and we stand on towards the entrance of the Sound.

In the first hour of official clearance, the North Channel is busy with the traffic. Outside as well as within, ships have been gathering in anticipation of Admiralty sunrise. The seaway over by the mainland shore is scored and lined by passage of the inward-bound vessels, all pressing on at their best speed to make their ports before nightfall. A strong ebb tide runs through, favouring our company of outward-bounders. We swing past Rue Point in a rip and whirl that gives the helmsman cause for concern, cross the bight of the Bay at a speed our builders never contemplated, and round the west end of the Island before the sun has risen high.

It is fine weather in the Atlantic. Only the slight heave of an under-running swell, and the rips and overfalls of the tide, mark the smooth surface of the sea: the light north airs that come and go have no strength to ruffle the glassy patches. Everything promises well for speedy progress. The engines are opened out to their utmost capacity. Already we have drawn ahead of the press of shipping that marked time with us on the other side of the channel. Our only peer, a large Leyland liner, has opened out abeam of us and the whirl of black smoke at his funnel-tip shows that he is prepared to make and keep the pace. 'To proceed at such a time as to reach 56° 40' North, 11° West, by nightfall'--is the reading of our new route orders. We shall have need of the favour of the elements if we are to reel off 200 miles between now and 10 p.m. Anon, we pass Oversay and the Rhynns of Islay and head for a horizon that has no blue mountain-line to break the level thread of it. Our sea-mates of the morning are hull down behind us--the slower vessels already turning west on the inner arms of the fan formation that is devised to keep us widely separated in the 'danger area.' Only the Leyland boat remains with us. We steer on a similar mean course, but the angles of our independent zigzags make our progress irregular in company. At times we sheer a mile or more apart, then close perceptibly to crossing courses. She has perhaps the better speed, but her stoking is irregular. Drawing ahead for a term, she shows us her broad sternwash in a flurry of disturbed water; then comes the cleaning of the fires--we pull up and regain a station on her beam.

So, till afternoon, we keep in company--pressing through the calm seas at a speed that augurs well for our timely arrival in 11° West. We sight few vessels. A lone drifter on patrol speaks us and reports no enemy sighted in the area: an auxiliary cruiser with a destroyer escorting her passes south on the rim of the landward horizon. A drift of smoke astern of us hangs in the clear air, then resolves to a fast Cunarder that speedily overhauls and passes us. As though impressed by the mail-boat's progress, our sea-mate puts a spurt on and maintains a better speed than any she has shown since morning. She draws ahead and we are left with clear water to exercise the cantrips of our zigzag.

An _allo_ is intercepted by the wireless in the dog-watch. (We have coined a new word to report an enemy submarine in sight, a word that cannot offer a key to our codes.) It comes from the Cunarder, now out of sight ahead. We figure the radius on the chart, and bear off six points on a new course to keep well clear of the area. The Leyland liner is by now well ahead and we note she has turned to steer west. There is a slight difference in our courses and we draw together again as we steam on. The wireless operator now reports that a vessel near at hand has acknowledged the Cunarder's _allo_. Shortly a man-o'-war sloop appears in sight and passes north at high speed, steering towards the position we are avoiding.

The second officer keeps a keen look-out. He has had bitter experience of the power of an enemy submarine and is anxiously desirous that it should not be repeated. A 'check' on the distant sea-line (that we had taken for the peak of a drifter's mizen) draws his eye. He reports a submarine in sight--broad on the port bow. The circle of our telescope shows the clean-cut horizon ruling a thread on the monotint of sea and sky. Sweeping the round, a grey pinnacle leaps into the field of view. It is over-distant for ready recognition. Only by close scrutiny, observing a hair-line that rises and falls on either side of the grey upstanding point, are we able to recognize our enemy. He is pressing on at full speed, trusting to our casual look-out, that he may secure a favourable position to submerge and attack. Our fine confidence with which we have anticipated such a meeting gives place to a more sober mood. Though not yet in actual danger, there is the former _allo_ to be thought of--the possibilities of a combination. Quick on recognition, we alter course, steering to the north again. The gun, already manned, is brought to the 'ready,' and the intermittent crackle of the wireless sends out an urgent warning. The Leyland steamer starts away at first sight of our signals: ahead, grey smoke on the horizon marks where the patrol sloop has gone hull-down.

A spurt of flame throws out from the distant submarine. He has noted our sudden alteration of course and knows that he has now no prospect of reaching torpedo range unobserved. His shell falls short by about a thousand yards. We reply immediately at our extreme elevation, but cannot reach him. The next exchange is closer--he is evidently overhauling us at speed. Mindful of our limited fifty rounds, we telephone to the gun-layer to reserve his fire until he has better prospect of a hit. Two shots to our one; the enemy persists though he does not now seem to be closing the range. Our seventh shot pitches close to him, and ricochets. There is a burst of flame on his deck--whether from his gun or the impact of our shell we shall never know; when the spume and spray fall away he has dived.

Suddenly, it is recalled to us that we have been, for over half an hour, steering into the radius of the Cunarder's _allo_. The patrol sloop has turned to close us and is rapidly approaching. A decision has quickly to be made. If we stand on to keep outside torpedo range of our late antagonist, we may blunder into the sights of number two. North and east and west are equally dangerous: we may turn south-east, but our course is for the open sea. The sloop sheers round our stern and thunders up alongside. Receiving our information, her helm goes over and she swings out to investigate the area we have come from. We decide to steer to the north-west as the shortest way to the open sea.

We have the luck of the cast. As we ease helm to our new course, the ship jars and vibrates--a thundering explosive report comes to our ears. The Leyland liner close on our starboard quarter has taken a torpedo and lies over under a cloud of spume and debris.

XI

ON SIGNALS AND WIRELESS

FOR war conditions our methods and practice of signalling were woefully deficient. In sailing-ship days the code was good enough; we had no need for Morse and semaphore. We had time to pick and choose our signals and send them to the masthead in a gaudy show of reds and blues and yellows. Our communications, in the main, were brief and stereotyped. "What ship? Where from? How many days out? Where bound? Good-bye--a pleasant passage!" Occasionally there was a reference to a coil of rope or a tierce of beef, but these were garrulous fellows. The ensign was dipped. We had 'spoken'; we would be reported 'all well!'

Good enough! There were winches to clean and paint, bulwarks to be chipped and scaled, that new poop 'dodger' to be cut and sewn. "Hurry up, there, you sodgerin' young idlers! Put the damned flags in the locker, and get on with the _work_!"

With steam and speed and dispatch increasing, we found need for a quicker and more instant form of signal correspondence. New queries and subjects for report grew on us, and we had to clip and abbreviate and shorthand our methods to meet the lessening flag-sight of a passing ship. We altered the Code of Signals, adding vowels to our flag alphabet. We cut out phrases like 'topgallant studding sail boom' and 'main spencer sheet blocks,' and introduced 'fiddley gratings' and 'foo-foo valve.' Even with all our trimming, the book was tiresome and inadequate. We began to fumble with Morse and semaphore, with flashlights and wig-wags and hand-flags.

We did it without a proper system. As a titbit to our other 'snippings,' medicine, the Prayer Book, the law, ship's business, the breeches buoy, ship-cookery! Fooling about with flags and tappers and that, was all very well for the watch below, but there was _work_ to be done--the binnacles to be polished, the sacred _suji-mudji_ to be slapped on and washed off!

Hesitating and slipshod and inexact as we were, at least we made, of our own volition, a start; a start that might, under proper and specialized direction, have made an efficient and accurate addition to the sum of our sea-lore. But we were wedded to titbits. Late on the tide, as usual, the Board of Trade woke up to what was going on. They added a 'piece' to our lessons, without thought or worry as to the provision of facilities for right instruction. We crammed hard for a few days, fired our shot at the right moment, and forgot all about it.

Withal, in our own amending way, we were enthusiastic. We learned the trick of _Ak_ and _Beer_ and _Tok_ and _Pip_. We slapped messages at one another (in the dog-watches), in many of which a guess was as good a translation as any. Our efforts received tolerating and amused recognition from naval officers (secure in possession of scores of highly trained signal ratings). If we came, by chance, across an affable British warship, she would perhaps masthead an E (exercise), to show that there was no ill-feeling. Then was the time to turn out our star man, usually the junior-est officer, and set him up to show that we were not such duffers, after all! Alas! The handicaps that came against us! The muddled backgrounds (camouflage, as ever was!), the fatal backthought to a guess at the last word! The call and interfering counter-call from reader to writer, and writer to reader, and, finally, the sad admission--an inevitable _Eye_, _emmer_, _eye_ (I.M.I.--please repeat), when our scrawl and jumble of conjectural letters would not make sense! We have yet a mortifying memory of such an incident, in which a distant signalman spelt out to us, clearly and distinctly, "_Do you speak English?_"

Under the stress of war we have improved. Fear for the loss of important information has spurred us to keener appreciation. If you promise not to flirt the flags backhanded (a most damnably annoying habit of superior, _flic-flac_ Navy men) we can read you in at ten or twelve words a minute. For single-ship work, that was good enough; if we had a press of signalling to attend, we could make up for our busy time in leisurely intervals. But convoy altered that. In the Naval Service a signalman has nothing whatever to do in the wide world but attend to signals. It is his only job: a highly trained speciality. With us the demands of ship work on our bare minimum crews do not allow of a duty signaller; he must bear a hand with the rest to straighten out the day's work. In convoy, with signals flying around like crows at the harvest, we found our way of it unworkable. It resolved itself to what used to be called a 'grand rally' in pantomime--all hands on the job, and the officer of the watch neglecting a keen look-out to see that note of the message was kept properly.

The naval authorities took counsel. The experiment had been a 'try on,' in which they (with their large staff of special signalmen) had assessed our ability as greater than their own! It was decided to train signalmen--R.N.V.R.--for our service. Pending their formation and development, we were given skilled assistance from the crews of our ocean escorts. But for our gun ratings, and they mostly R.N.R., we had no experience of the regular Navy man in our muster. He spun a bit, trimming the grass, before he found rest and a level. With us only for a voyage, we did not get to know him very well, but in all he was competent enough.

One we had, from H.M.S. _Ber--Sharpset_, Private Henry Artful, R.M.L.I. Drouthy, perhaps, but a good hand. At the end of sailing day, when the flags were made up and stowed, he came on the bridge.

"Fine night, sir!" We assented, curiously; democratic and all as we are, it is rather unusual for our men to be so--so sociable. "Larst capt'in I wos with, sir, 'e allus gimme a drink after th' flag wos stowed."

We stared, incredulous. "What! Do you say the captain of _Sharpset_ gave you a drink when your work was done?" He started in affright. "Not the capt'in o' _Sharpset_, sir! Oh no, sir!--Gawd!--No! Th' capt'in o' th' larst merchant ship wot I wos signallin' in!"

His horror, genuine and unconcealed, at our suggestion of such an unheard-of transaction, gave illustration alike of the discipline in His Majesty's ships and, sadly, the lack of it in ours.

In time our quickly trained R.N.V.R.'s joined. They came from Crystal Palace, these new shipmates. Clean fellows--smart. Bacon-curers, Cambridge men, lawyers, shopmen, clerks, haberdashers--trimmed and able and willing to carry on, and lacking only a little ship practice, and a turn of sea-legs, to fit them for a gallant part in delivering the goods. With their coming we are introduced to a line of longshore life that had escaped us. There is talk and ado of metropolitan habits and styles, of 'Maudlen' and high life, of music scores, the latest revue, the quips of the music-halls. ("When Pa--says--_turn_" is now the correct aside, when Commodore gives executive for a new angle on the zigzag!)

At the first we were somewhat concerned at the apparent 'idleness' of our signalman. He was on our books for but one employment--the business of flags and signals. In intervals of his special duties he made an odd picture on the bridge of a merchant ship--a man without a 'job.' The firemen, on deck to trim ventilators, would take a peep at him as at some strange alien; seamen, passing fore and aft on their reliefs, would nod confidently. "Still diggin' wet sand, mate? . . . Wish I 'ad your job!" There were days when he was busy enough--'windmilling' with the hand-flags, or passing hours in hoist and rehoist when Commodore was sharpening the convoy to a precision in manoeuvre, but on open sea his day was not unduly crowded. There were odd hours of 'stand-by' under screen of the weather-cloth, intervals of leisure which he might use as he liked, provided he kept a ready ear for the watch officer's call. Reading was usual. In this his taste was catholic. _Tit-Bits_ and _My Dream Novelettes_ found favour; one had back numbers of the _Surveyor and Municipal and County Engineer_, old volumes of _Good Words_ from the Bethel box found a way to the bridge; we saw a pocket volume of Greek verse that belonged to the bold lad who altered our signalled 'will' to 'shall'!

For all his leisured occupation he was quick enough when the call of "_Signals_" brought him to business. His concentration on the speciality of the flags brought an accuracy to our somewhat haphazard system of signalling. We benefited in more than his immediate work by promoting his instruction of our young seamen. Spurred, perhaps, by the knowledge of our quondam haberdasher's efficiency, the boys improved rapidly under his tuition. We paid a modest bonus on results. We are looking forward. We shall not have our duty signalman with us when there is 'peace bacon' to be cured.

Another new shipmate who has signed with us is the wireless operator, the lieutenant of Signor Marconi, our gallant _salvator_ in the war at sea. If we may claim for our sea-service a foremost place in national defence, it is only by grace of our wireless we register a demand. Without it, we were undone. No other system of communication would have served us in combat with the submarine; _spurlos versenkt_, without possibility of discovery, would have been the triumph of the enemy. If to one man we seamen owe a debt unpayable, Marconi holds the bond.

Unthinking, we did not accept our new shipmate with enthusiasm. Before the war he could be found on the lordly liners, tapping out all sorts of messages, from the picture-post-card-like greetings of extravagant passengers to the deathless story of _Titanic_ and _Volturno_. We looked upon him as a luxury, only suited to the large passenger vessels. We could see no important work for him in the cargo-carriers; we could get on very well without a telegraph to the beach. A week of war was sufficient to alter our views; we were anxious to have him sign with us. Although he is now an important member of the crew, his reception at first was none too cordial. The apparent ease and comfort of his office rankled in contrast to the rigours of the bridge and the hardships of the engine-room. His duties--specialized to one operation--we deemed unfairly light in comparison with our jack-of-all-trades routine. In port, he was a lordling--no man his master--able to come and go as the mood took him. Frankly, we were jealous. Who was this to come among us with the airs of a full-blown officer, and yet not a dog-watch at sea? Messed in the cabin too, and strutted about the decks with his hands in his pockets, as bold and unconcerned as any first-class passenger! We were puzzled to place him. He talked airily of ohms and static leaks, ampere-hours and anchor-gaps, and yet, in an unguarded moment, had he not told us of his experiences in a Manchester broker's office, that could have been no more than six months ago? The airs of him! Absurd assumption of an official confidence between the Old Man and himself, as if _he_ had the weight of the ship's safety on his narrow shoulders! As for his baby-brother assistant--that kid with the rosy cheeks--everybody knows that all he does is to screw up his 'jimmy fixin's' and sit down good and comfortable to read "The Rosary," with his dam mufflers on his ears! _Huh!_

But we are wiser now! Here is a text for our conversion. It is a record of a wireless conversation between a merchantman attacked and a British destroyer steaming to her assistance from somewhere out of sight.

"Are you torpedoed?"

"Not yet. . . . Shots in plenty hitting. Several wounded. Shrapnel, I believe. Broken glass all round me."

"Keep men below. Stick it, old man!"

"Yes, you bet. Say, the place stinks of gunpowder. Am lying on the floor. . . . I have had to leave 'phones. My gear beginning to fly around with concussion. . . . Captain is dead. . . ."--an interval--"Submarine has dived! Submarine has dived!"

Yes, we are wiser now! We admit him to full fellowship at sea. And on land, too! We admit him the right to trip it in Kingsway or the Strand, with his kid gloves, and his notebook, and his neat uniform, for his record has shown that it does not require a four-years' apprenticeship to build up a stout heart; that on his 'jimmy fixin's' and their proper working depends a large measure of our safety; and if the crack does come and the air is thick with hurtling debris, broken water and acrid smoke, our first look will be aloft to see if his aerial still stands. We do him and baby brother the honour that we shall not concern ourselves to wonder whether they be ready at their posts!

XII

TRANSPORT SERVICES

THE first State control of the merchants' ships began with the transports employed to convey the Expeditionary Force to France in the early days of August 1914. Vessels of all sizes and classes were commandeered at the dockside to serve in the emergency. The comparatively short distance across the channels did not call for elaborate preparation and refitment: the times would admit of no delay. Ships on the point of sailing on their trading voyages were held in dock, their cargo discharged in quantity to make space for troops and their equipment. Lining-up on the quays and in the littered dock-sheds, troops awaited the stoppage of unloading operations. With the last sling of the 'tween-deck lading passed to the shore, they marched on board. As the tide served, the vessels steamed out of dock and turned, away from their normal routes, towards the coast of France.

To serve as ballast weight, the stowage of cargo in the lower holds was frequently left in place for the term of the vessel's troop service. Months, perhaps a year later, the merchandise arrived at its destination. Consignees would wonder at its tardy delivery--they could see no record of its itinerary as shewn by the bills of lading, unless they read into the fine prefix--'War: the King's Enemies: restraints of Rulers and Princes'--the romance of its voyaging with the heroes of Mons.

To transport the overseas troops from India and Canada and Australia, different measures were necessary. The ships requisitioned for this service had to be specially fitted for the longer voyage. The State was lavish and extravagant under the sudden pressure of events. The many-handed control at the ports made for an upheaval and dislocation of shipyard labour that did not hasten the urgent dispatch of the vessels. The hysteria of the times gave excuse for a squandering of valuable ship-tonnage that was without parallel. Large liners, already fitted for carriage of passengers, were employed as prison and internment ships. Curious situations arose in the disposal of others. At the north end, a large vessel might suddenly be requisitioned and taken from her trade--with all the consequent confusion and relay; by day and night the work of fitting her would go on. South, a vessel of similar size and build might be found, having her troop-fittings removed, in preparation for an ordinary trading voyage. Still, if the end justifies the means, the ultimate results were not without credit. The garrison troops from Malta and Egypt and Gibraltar and South Africa were moved with a celerity that is unexampled; a huge contingent from India was placed on the field in record time. A convoy of thirty-one merchantmen brought Canadian arms to our assistance: Australians, in thirty-six ships, crossed the Indian Ocean to take up station in Egypt. The unsubsidized and singular enterprise of the merchants was proving its worth: as vital to the success of our cause as the great war fleet, the merchants' ships aided to stem the onrush in France and Flanders.

Considerations of economy followed upon the excited measures with which the first transport of available troops was effected. In the period of training and preparation for the long offensive, the Transport Department had opportunity to organize their work on less stressful lines. It was well that there was breathing-space at this juncture. Enemy interference, that had so far been almost wholly a surface threat to our communications, grew rapidly to a serious menace from under water. The engagement and organization of naval protection underwent an immediate revisal. Heavily armed cruisers and battleships could afford little protection against the activity of the German submarines, now at large in waters that we had thought were overdistant for their peculiar manoeuvres. Destroyers and swift light craft were needed to sail with the transports.

The landing at Gallipoli, under the guns of the enemy, was a triumph for the Transport Service. In the organization and disposal of the ships, the control and undertaking that placed them in sufficient numbers in condition for their desperate venture, the Department redeemed any earlier miscalculations. The efficient service of the merchant masters and seamen was equally notable. Under heavy fire from the batteries on shore they carried out the instructions given to them in a manner that was "astonishingly accurate" and impressed even the firebrands of the naval service. Strange duties fell to the merchant seamen on that day. Compelled by the heavy draught of their ships to remain passive spectators of the deeds of heroism on the beach, they saw ". . . whole groups swept down like corn before a reaper, and to realize that among these groups were men who only a short time before had bid us good-bye with a smile on their lips, was a bitter experience.

"Our vessel was used to re-embark the wounded, and we stood close inshore to make the work of boating them off less hazardous. We had three doctors on board, but no nurses or orderlies, and the wounded were being brought on board in hundreds, so it was a relief to us to doff our coats and lend a hand. We had to bury the dead in batches; officers and men were consigned to the deep together. On one occasion the number was exceptional, and the captain broke down while reading the service. . . ." It was surely a bond of real brotherhood that brought the shattered remnants of the complement she had landed earlier in the day to meet their last discharge at the hands of the troopship's seamen--their committal to the deep at the broken words of the vessel's master.

While the transport of troops in the Channel and the narrow seas was not, at any time, seriously interfered with, the movements of the larger ocean transports were not conducted without loss. _Royal Edward_ was the first transport to be torpedoed. She went down with the sacrifice of over a thousand lives. The power of the submarine had been over-lightly estimated by the authorities: measures of protection were inadequate. Improved U-boats were, by now, operating in the Mediterranean, and their commanders had quickly acquired a confidence in their power. More destroyers were required to escort the troopships.

By a rearrangement of forces a more efficient measure of naval protection was assured. Although the provision of a swift escort did not always prevent the destruction of ships, the loss of life on the occasion of the sinking of a transport was sensibly reduced by the presence of accompanying destroyers. The skill and high gallantry of their commanders was largely instrumental in averting complete and terrible disaster. As the numbers of ships were reduced by enemy action there came the need to pack the remaining vessels to a point of overloading. Boat equipment on the ships could not be other than inadequate when the certified complement of passengers was exceeded by 100 per cent. In any case, the havoc of a torpedo left little time to put the huge numbers of men afloat. With no thought of their own hazard--bringing up alongside a torpedoed vessel and abandoning the safeguard of their speed and manoeuvring power--the destroyer men accepted all risks in an effort to bring at least the manning of their charge to port.

Every casualty added grim experience to the sum of our resources in avoiding a great death-roll. Life-belts that we had thought efficient were proved faulty of adjustment and were condemned: methods of boat-lowering were altered to meet the danger of a sudden list: the run of gangway and passage to the life-apparatus was cleared of impediment. When on a passage every precaution that could be taken towards a ready alert was insisted upon. Despite the manly grumbling of the very young military officers on board, certain irksome regulations were enforced. Life-belts had to be worn continuously; troops were only allowed below decks at stated hours; systems of drill, constantly carried through, left little leisure for the officers and men. Although no formal drill can wholly meet the abnormal circumstances of the new sea-casualty, we left nothing undone to prepare for eventualities. That our efforts were not useless was evident from the comparatively small loss of life that has resulted from late transport disasters.

The system of escort varies largely in the different seas. Homeward from Canada and, latterly, from the United States the troopships are formed in large convoys under the ocean escort of a cruiser. On arrival at a position in the Atlantic within working distance of the destroyers' range of steaming, the convoy is met by a flotilla of fast destroyers who escort the ships to port. For transport work in the Mediterranean no such arrangement could be operated. Every sea-mile of the great expanse is equally a danger zone. Usually, vessels of moderate speed are accompanied by sloops or armed drifters, but the fast troopships require destroyers for their protection. The long courses call for relays, as the destroyers cannot carry sufficient fuel. Marseilles to Malta, Malta to Suda Bay, Suda Bay to Salonika--a familiar voyage of three stages--required the services of no less than five destroyers. The numbers of our escorting craft were limited: it called for keen foresight on the part of the Naval Staff and unwearying sea-service on that of the war craft to fit their resources to our demands.

In the narrow seas, with the patrols more numerous and closely linked, the short-voyage transports proceed on a time-table of sailings that keeps them constantly in touch with armed assistance. The vessels are mostly of light draught and high speed. Whilom railway and pleasure craft, they make their voyages with the exactitude of the rail-connections they served in the peaceful days. Although many of them are built and maintained (and certificated by the Board of Trade) for smooth-water limits only, the emergency of the times has given opportunity of proof that their seaworthy qualities are underestimated by the authorities. The high gales and dangerous short seas of the Channel are no deterrent to their voyages; under the pressure of the continual call for reinforcements on the Western Front, and serving the line of route from England to the Continent, to Marseilles and beyond, they stand no hindrance. They are specially the objects of enemy attention. Their high speed and rapid turning power enables them to run moderately free of torpedo attack--though the attempts to sink them by this weapon are frequent enough--but in the German sea-mines they have a menace that cannot so readily be evaded. Many have fallen victims to this danger, but the ready succour of the patrols has prevented heavy loss of life. Though armed for defence, they have not had many opportunities for gun action. Their keen stems are weapon enough, as Captain Keith considered when he drove _Queen Alexandra_ at full speed into an enemy submarine, sinking him, and nipping a piece of his shorn hull for trophy.

Southampton is the principal base for the smaller transports. Large vessels--the _Olympic_ and her sisters--come and go from the port, but it is by the quick turns of the smaller vessels that the huge traffic of the base is cleared. Tramping through the streets of the ancient town to turn in at the dock gates, company after company of troops file down the quayside to embark on the great adventure. The small craft are berthed at the seaward end of the docks, and the drifting white feathers at their funnel-tips marks steam up in readiness for departure. The drab-grey of their hulls and decks is quickly lined by ochre tint of khaki uniforms. There is no halt to the long lines of marching men, save on the turn of the stream to another gangway. By long practice, the Naval Transport Staff and the embarkation officers have brought their duties to a finished routine. There is not here the muster, the enumeration, the interminable long-drawn march and counter-march on the wharf-side, that is the case with the larger ocean transports. Crossing the gangway, carrying pack and equipment, the troops settle down on the decks in a closely packed mass.

Anon, with no undue advertisement, the transports unmoor from the quay and steam down Southampton Water. Off St. Helens, the night covers them and they steal out swiftly on the Channel crossing.

INTERLUDE

BUT for the flat-topped dwellings, the domes and minarets, of the town that stands in the alluvial valley, Suda Bay is not unlike a Highland loch in its loneliness and rugged grandeur. The high surrounding mountains, the lofty snow-capped summit of Psiloriti standing up in the east, the bare hill-side sloping to the water with no wooded country to break the expanse of rock and heath, the lone roadway by the fringe of the sea that leads to the wilds, are all in likeness to the prospect of a remote Sutherland landscape. The darkling shadows on the water, the play of sun and cloud on the distant uplands, completes the picture; sheep on the hill-side set up plaintive calls that echo over the Bay.

The heavy westerly gale that was reason for our being signalled in from sea has blown itself out, and the water of the Bay stands still and placid. All that is left of the furious squalls of yesterday has not strength to keep us wind-rode in the anchorage, and we cast about to the vagaries of the drift.

We were bound down from Salonika to Marseilles when ordered in. We had expected to meet the relieving escort of destroyers at the Cerigo Channel, but the bad weather had prevented them from proceeding at any but a slow speed, and there was no prospect of their arrival at the rendezvous. So we turned south to seek protection behind the booms at Suda Bay. We are a packed ship. The shortage of transports has had effect in crowding the vessels in service to a point far beyond the limits of their accommodation. We have had to institute a watch-and-watch system among our huge complement. While a proportion are seeking rest below, others crowd the upper decks, passing the time as best they may until their turn of the hammocks comes round.

The fine weather after the late gale has brought every one on deck. The doings of the ships in the anchorage have interest for the landsmen. Naval cutters and whalers are out under oars for exercise, and thrash up and down the Bay with the long steady sweep of practised rowers. Our escort of two destroyers arrives--their funnels white-crusted from the heavy weather they have experienced on passage from Malta. They engage the flagship with signals, then steam alongside an oiler to take fuel for the return voyage. A message from the senior officer is signalled to us to have steam raised, to proceed to sea at midnight.

Standing in from the Gateway, a British submarine comes up the Bay. She moves slowly, as though looking for the least uncomfortable berth in the anchorage. The oil-ship, having already the two destroyers alongside, cannot offer her a place: she will have to lie off and await her turn. We put a signal on her, inviting her people to tie up alongside and come stretch their legs on our broad decks. Instant compliance. She turns on a long curve, rounds our stern, and her wires are passed on board.

The commander of the submarine gazes about curiously as he comes on board. He confesses that he has had no intimate acquaintance with merchants' ships. The huge number of our passengers impresses him, accustomed as he is to the small manning of his own vessel. Standing on the navigation bridge, we look out over the decks below at the khaki-clad assembly. The ship seems brimming over with life and animation. There is no corner but has its group of soldiers. They are everywhere; in the rigging, astride the derricks, over the top of boats and rafts they are stretched out to the sun. Mess-cooks with their gear push their way through the crowds; there is constant movement--the men from aft barging forward, the fore-end troops blocking the gangways as they saunter aft. Noisy! Snatches of song, hails, and shouts--the interminable games of 'ouse with '_Clikety-clik_ and _blind-forty_' resounding in the many local dialects of the varied troops. High in spirit! We are the leave-ship, and they are bound home for a long-desired furlough after the deadly monotony of trench-keeping on the Doiran Front.

"Gad! What a crowd," he says. "I had no idea you carried so many. They look so big--and so awkward in a ship. Of course, on a battleship we muster a lot o' men, twelve hundred in the big 'uns, but--somehow--one never sees them about the decks unless at divisions or that. Perhaps it's khaki does it; one gets accustomed to blue in a ship."

A 'diversion' has been arranged for the afternoon. Dinner over, all troops are mustered to a boat drill that includes the lowering of the boats. Since leaving Salonika there has been no such opportunity as now offers. Despite foreknowledge of the time of assembly it is a long proceeding. Our complement is made up of small details--a handful of men from every battalion on the Front. Officers set to their control are drawn from as many varied branches of the service. The valued personal 'grip' of non-commissioned officers is not at our disposal. There is no such order and discipline as would be the case if we were manned by complete battalions. The routine of military movements seems dull and lifeless at sea, however efficient it may prove on land. We are long on the job.

By dint of check and repetition the grouping of the men at their boat stations is brought to a moderate proficiency. The seamen at the boats swing out and lower, and we set the boats afloat, each with a full complement of troops. Embarked, and left to their own resources--with only one ship's rating to steer--the men make a better show. The division of the mass into smaller bodies induces a rivalry and spirit of competition: they swing the oars sturdily and make progress to and fro on the calm water of the Bay.

With the boats away full-loaded, we take stock of the numbers still mustered on the deck. Considerably reduced, they are still a host. The boat deck, the forecastle head, the poop--are all lined over by the waiting men: the empty boat-chocks and the dangling falls inspire a mood of disquiet. Standing at ease, they seem to be facing towards the bridge. Doubtless they are wondering what we think of it all. The submarine's commander has been with us at our station during the muster. We look at one another--thoughtfully.

'THE MAN-O'-WAR 'S 'ER 'USBAND'

A SENSE of security is difficult of definition. Largely, it is founded upon habit and association. It is induced and maintained by familiar surroundings. On board ship, in a small world of our own, we seem to be contained by the boundaries of the bulwarks, to be sailing beyond the influences of the land and of other ships. The sea is the same we have known for so long. Every item of our ship fitment--the trim arrangement of the decks, the set and rake of mast and funnel, even the furnishings of our cabins--has the power of impressing a stable feeling of custom, normal ship life, safety. It requires an effort of thought to recall that in their homely presence we are endangered. Relating his experiences after having been mined and his ship sunk, a master confided that the point that impressed him most deeply was when he went to his room for the confidential papers and saw the cabin exactly in everyday aspect--his longshore clothes suspended from the hooks, his umbrella standing in a corner as he had placed it on coming aboard.

Soldiers on service are denied this aid to assurance. Unlike us, they cannot carry their home with them to the battlefield. All their scenes and surroundings are novel; they may only draw a reliance and comfort from the familiar presence of their comrades. At sea in a ship there is a yet greater incitement to their disquiet. The movement, the limitless sea, the distance from the land, cannot be ignored. The atmosphere that is so familiar and comforting to us, is to many of them an environment of dread possibilities.

It is with some small measure of this sense of security--tempered by our knowledge of enemy activity in these waters--we pace the bridge. Anxiety is not wholly absent. Some hours past, we saw small flotsam that may have come from the decks of a French mail steamer, torpedoed three days ago. The passing of the derelict fittings aroused some disquiet, but the steady routine of our progress and the constant friendly presence of familiar surroundings has effect in allaying immediate fears. The rounds of the bridge go on--the writing of the log, the tapping of the glass, the small measures that mark the passing of our sea-hours. Two days out from Marseilles--and all well! In another two days we should be approaching the Canal, and then--to be clear of 'submarine waters' for a term. Fine weather! A light wind and sea accompany us for the present, but the filmy glare of the sun, now low, and a backward movement of the glass foretells a break ere long. We are steaming at high speed to make the most of the smooth sea. Ahead, on each bow, our two escorting destroyers conform to the angles of our zigzag--spurring out and swerving with the peculiar 'thrown-around' movement of their class. Look-out is alert and in numbers. Added to the watch of the ship's crew, military signallers are posted; the boats swung outboard have each a party of troops on guard.

An alarmed cry from aloft--a half-uttered order to the steersman--an explosion, low down in the bowels of the ship, that sets her reeling in her stride!

The upthrow comes swiftly on the moment of impact. Hatches, coal, shattered debris, a huge column of solid water go skyward in a hurtling mass to fall in torrent on the bridge. Part of a human body strikes the awning spars and hangs--watch-keepers are borne to the deck by the weight of water--the steersman falls limply over the wheel with blood pouring from a gash on his forehead. . . . Then silence for a stunned half-minute, with only the thrust of the engines marking the heart-beats of the stricken ship.

Uproar! Most of our men are young recruits: they have been but two days on the sea. The torpedo has gone hard home at the very weakest hour of our calculated drill. The troops are at their evening meal when the blow comes, the explosion killing many outright. We had counted on a proportion of the troops being on the deck, a steadying number to balance the sudden rush from below that we foresaw in emergency. Hurrying from the mess-decks as enjoined, the quick movement gathers way and intensity: the decks become jammed by the pressure, the gangways and passages are blocked in the struggle. There is the making of a panic--tuned by their outcry, "_God!_ _O God!_ _O Christ!_" The swelling murmur is neither excited nor agonized--rather the dull, hopeless expression of despair.

The officer commanding troops has come on the bridge at the first alarm. His juniors have opportunity to take their stations before the struggling mass reaches to the boats. The impossibility of getting among the men on the lower decks makes the military officers' efforts to restore confidence difficult. They are aided from an unexpected quarter. The bridge-boy makes unofficial use of our megaphone. "Hey! Steady up you men doon therr," he shouts. "Ye'll no' dae ony guid fur yersels croodin' th' ledders!"

We could not have done it as well. The lad is plainly in sight to the crowd on the decks. A small boy, undersized. "Steady up doon therr!" The effect is instant. Noise there still is, but the movement is arrested.

The engines are stopped--we are now beyond range of a second torpedo--and steam thunders in exhaust, making our efforts to control movements by voice impossible. At the moment of the impact the destroyers have swung round and are casting here and there like hounds on the scent: the dull explosion of a depth-charge--then another, rouses a fierce hope that we are not unavenged. The force of the explosion has broken connections to the wireless room, but the aerial still holds and, when a measure of order on the boat-deck allows, we send a message of our peril broadcast. There is no doubt in our mind of the outcome. Our bows, drooping visibly, tell that we shall not float long. We have nearly three thousand on board. There are boats for sixteen hundred--then rafts. Boats--rafts--and the glass is falling at a rate that shows bad weather over the western horizon!

Our drill, that provided for lowering the boats with only half-complements in them, will not serve. We pass orders to lower away in any condition, however overcrowded. The way is off the ship, and it is with some apprehension we watch the packed boats that drop away from the davit heads. The shrill ring of the block-sheaves indicates a tension that is not far from breaking-point. Many of the life-boats reach the water safely with their heavy burdens, but the strain on the tackles--far beyond their working load--is too great for all to stand to it. Two boats go down by the run. The men in them are thrown violently to the water, where they float in the wash and shattered planking. A third dangles from the after fall, having shot her manning out at parting of the forward tackle. Lowered by the stern, she rights, disengages, and drifts aft with the men clinging to the life-lines. We can make no attempt to reach the men in the water. Their life-belts are sufficient to keep them afloat: the ship is going down rapidly by the head, and there remains the second line of boats to be hoisted and swung over. The chief officer, pausing in his quick work, looks to the bridge inquiringly, as though to ask, "How long?" The fingers of two hands suffice to mark our estimate.

The decks are now angled to the deepening pitch of the bows. Pumps are utterly inadequate to make impression on the swift inflow. The chief engineer comes to the bridge with a hopeless report. It is only a question of time. How long? Already the water is lapping at a level of the foredeck. Troops massed there and on the forecastle-head are apprehensive: it is indeed a wonder that their officers have held them for so long. The commanding officer sets example by a cool nonchalance that we envy. Posted with us on the bridge, his quick eyes note the flood surging in the pent 'tween-decks below, from which his men have removed the few wounded. The dead are left to the sea.

Help comes as we had expected it would. Leaving _Nemesis_ to steam fast circles round the sinking ship, _Rifleman_ swings in and brings up alongside at the forward end. Even in our fear and anxiety and distress, we cannot but admire the precision of the destroyer captain's manoeuvre--the skilful avoidance of our crowded life-boats and the men in the water--the sudden stoppage of her way and the cant that brings her to a standstill at the lip of our brimming decks. The troops who have stood so well to orders have their reward in an easy leap to safety. Quickly the foredeck is cleared. _Rifleman_ spurts ahead in a rush that sets the surrounding life-boats to eddy in her wash. She takes up the circling high-speed patrol and allows her sister ship to swing in and embark a number of our men.

It is when the most of the life-boats are gone we realize fully the gallant service of the destroyers. There remain the rafts, but many of these have been launched over to aid the struggling men in the water. Half an hour has passed since we were struck--thirty minutes of frantic endeavour to debark our men--yet still the decks are thronged by a packed mass that seems but little reduced. The coming of the destroyers alters the outlook. _Rifleman's_ action has taken over six hundred. A sensible clearance! _Nemesis_ swings in with the precision of an express, and the thud and clatter of the troops jumping to her deck sets up a continuous drumming note of deliverance. Alert and confident, the naval men accept the great risks of their position. The ship's bows are entered to the water at a steep incline. Every minute the balance is weighing, casting her stern high in the air. The bulkheads are by now taking place of keel and bearing the huge weight of her on the water. At any moment she may go without a warning, to crash into the light hull of the destroyer and bear her down. For all the circling watch of her sister ship, the submarine--if still he lives--may get in a shot at the standing target. It is with a deep relief we signal the captain to bear off. Her decks are jammed to the limit. She can carry no more. _Nemesis_ lists heavily under her burdened decks as she goes ahead and clears.

Forty minutes! The zigzag clock in the wheelhouse goes on ringing the angles of time and course as though we were yet under helm and speed. For a short term we have noted that the ship appears to have reached a point of arrest in her foundering droop. She remains upright as she has been since righting herself after the first inrush of water. Like the lady she always was, she has added no fearsome list to the sum of our distress. The familiar bridge, on which so many of our safe sea-days have been spent, is canted at an angle that makes foothold uneasy. She cannot remain for long afloat. The end will come swiftly, without warning--a sudden rupture of the bulkhead that is sustaining her weight. We are not now many left on board. Striving and wrenching to man-handle the only remaining boat--rendered idle for want of the tackles that have parted on service of its twin--we succeed in pointing her outboard, and await a further deepening of the bows ere launching her. Of the military, the officer commanding, some few of his juniors, a group of other ranks, stand by. The senior officers of the ship, a muster of seamen, a few stewards, are banded with us at the last. We expect no further service of the destroyers. The position of the ship is over-menacing to any approach. They have all they can carry. Steaming at a short distance they have the appearance of being heavily overloaded; each has a staggering list and lies low in the water under their deck encumbrance. We have only the hazard of a quick out-throw of the remaining boat and the chances of a grip on floating wreckage to count upon.

On a sudden swift sheer, _Rifleman_ takes the risk. Unheeding our warning hail, she steams across the bows and backs at a high speed: her rounded stern jars on our hull plates, a whaler and the davits catch on a projection and give with the ring of buckling steel--she turns on the throw of the propellors and closes aboard with a resounding impact that sets her living deck-load to stagger.

We lose no time. Scrambling down the life-ropes, our small company endeavours to get foothold on her decks. The destroyer widens off at the rebound, but by clutch of friendly hands the men are dragged aboard. One fails to reach safety. A soldier loses grip and goes to the water. The chief officer follows him. Tired and unstrung as he must be by the devoted labours of the last half-hour, he is in no condition to effect a rescue. A sudden deep rumble from within the sinking ship warns the destroyer captain to go ahead. We are given no chance to aid our shipmates: the propellors tear the water in a furious race that sweeps them away, and we draw off swiftly from the side of the ship.

We are little more than clear of the settling fore-end when the last buoyant breath of _Cameronia_ is overcome. Nobly she has held afloat to the debarking of the last man. There is no further life in her. Evenly, steadily, as we had seen her leave the launching ways at Meadowside, she goes down.

XIII

THE SALVAGE SECTION

THE TIDEMASTERS

IF Royal Canute, King of England and Denmark, with his train of servile earls and thanes, could revisit the scene of his famous object-lesson, he would learn a new value in the tide. Suitably, he might improve his homily by presentation of the salvage tidemasters, harnessing the rise and fall of the stubborn element to serve their needs and heave a foundered vessel to sight and service. He would note the cunning guidance of strain and effort, their exact timing of the ruled and ordered habits of the sea. As a moral, he could quote that, if tide may not be ordered to command, it can at least be governed and impressed to performance of a mighty service.

Recovery of ships, their gear and cargo, is no longer wholly an application of practised seamanship. The task is burdened and complicated by powers and conditions that call for auxiliary arts. It is true that the salvage officer's ground, his main asset, is the knowledge and ability to do a seamanlike 'job o' work' when the time and tide are opportune; he must have a seaman's training in the ways of the wind and the sea and be able properly to assess the weather conditions under which alone his precarious work is possible. A scientist of a liberal and versatile type (not perhaps exhaustive in his scope and range), he is able to draw the quantum of his needs from a wide and varied summary. Together with his medical exemplar, he has developed a technique from crude remedies and imperfect diagnoses to application of fine science. He must have a sure knowledge of the anatomy of his great steel patients, be versed in the infinite variety and intricacy of ship construction, and the valves and arteries of their power; be able to pen and plan his formulæ for weight-lifting--the stress and strain of it, down to the calibre of the weakest link. A super-tidesman, he must know to an inch the run of bottom, the swirl and eddy, the value of flood and ebb and springs, for the tide--Canute's immutable recalcitrant--is his greatest assistant, a familiar _Genius maris_ whom he conjures from the deeps of ocean to do his bidding. Shrewd! He is a keen student of the psychology of the distressed mariner; again, like the medical man, he must set himself to extract truth from the tale that is told. His treatment must be prescribed, not to meet a case as presented, but as his skilled knowledge of the probabilities warrants. Tactful, if he is to meet with assistance in his difficult work, he must assume the sympathy of one seaman to another in distress. What, after all, does it matter if he agree heartily that "the touch was very light, we were going dead slow," when, from his divers' reports, he knows that the whole bottom is 'up'?

In the handling of his own men there must be a combination of rigour and reason. Salvage crews are a hardy, tempestuous race who have no ordinary regard for the niceties of law and order; their work is no scheduled and defined occupation with states and margins; they are servants to tide and weather alone; they are embarked on a venture, on a hazard, a lottery. To such men, administering, under his direction, the heroic but destructive remedies of high explosive and compressed air, there cannot be a normal allowance for the economic use of gear and material. He must know the right and judicial discount to be made that will meet the conflicting demands of the expenses department and the results committee. Above all, he must be of an infinite patience, of the mettle that is not readily discouraged. In the great game of seafaring his hand holds the king of disappointment and the knaves of frustration and discouragement. But he has other cards; he holds an ace in stability and determination.

Calm days and smooth seas may lure him to surpassing effort, to work through the tides in feverish energy, making the most of favoured opportunity. The scattered and interrupted work of months has perhaps been geared and bound, the tackle rigged and set for a final dead lift. Buoyancy is figured out and assured; the pumps are in place, throbbing and droning out, throwing steady streams from the weight of water that so long has held the foundered wreck in depth. The work has been long and trying, but an end to difficulty is in sight. Given a day or two of continued fine weather, the sea and the rocks will have to surrender their prisoner.

Comes a darkling to windward and the sea stirs uneasily; jets and spurts of broken water appear over the teeth and spit of rocky ledges. The salvors look around with calculating eyes and note the signs of a weather break. Still, there is no slackening of effort; there may be time to complete the work before the sea rises to interfere; if anything, the omens only call for another spur to the flank, a new sting to the lash.

Beaten to the knees, the gear and tackle swaying perilously in breaking seas, the lifting-barges thundering at their curbs, the pumps groaning and protesting their inability to overcome the lap of blue water, there is no alternative but to abandon the work and return to harbour. From the beach the salvage officer may watch his labour of weeks--or months--savagely undone in an hour or two of storm and fury of the sea!

It is a great catalogue, that schedule of virtues and accomplishments. To it must be added, as a supplement, that he must be a 'made' man--made in a long hard pupilage in a stern school that appraises strictly on results. It is of little use to show that, in theory, a certain course was right and proper, when the broad but damning fact remains that the property is still in Davy Jones his locker, and likely--there to remain. Many are called, but few are chosen. The salvage service has no room for the merely mediocre officer: the right man goes inevitably to his proper place, the wrong one goes back to a junior, and less responsible, post at sea.

It is doubtful if the Naval Service could produce the type required. Their candidate would be, to a degree, inelastic. He would be an excellent theorist, a sound executant, a strict disciplinarian; but his training and ideas would fit ill to the wide range of conflicting interests, and the shutting out of all manoeuvre, however skilled and stimulating--but that of securing a maximum of result by a minimum of effort. Perhaps it was for these reasons our salvage services before the war were almost wholly mercantile and commercial. Certainly, most Admiralty efforts in this direction were confined to ports and harbours where method could be ordered and controlled by routine; their more arduous and unmanageable cases on the littoral were frequently handed over to the merchantmen--not seldom after naval efforts had been unavailing. Among the protestations of our good faith to the world in time of peace, it may be cited that we made no serious provision for a succession of maritime casualties; there was no specially organized and equipped Naval Salvage Service. True, there were the harbour gear, divers, a pump or two, and appliances and craft for attending submarine accidents, but their energies were bent largely to humane purposes--to marine first aid. Of major gear and a trained personnel to control equipment and operation there was not even a nucleus. Salvage was valued at a modest section of the "Manual on Seamanship" (written by a mercantile expert), and a very occasional lecture at the Naval College. At war, and the toll of maritime disaster rising, the need grew quickly for expert and special service. There was no longer a relative and profitable balance to be struck between value of sea-property and cost of salvage operations. A ship had become beyond mere money valuation; as well assess the air we breathe in terms of finance. No cost was high if a keel could be added to our mercantile fleets in one minute less than the time the builders would take to construct a new vessel. The call was for competent ship-surgeons who could front-rank our maritime C Threes. By whatever skill and daring and exercise of seamanship, the wrecks must be returned to service. Happily, there was no necessity to go far afield; the merchants' salvage enterprise, like the merchants' ships and the merchants' men, was ready at hand for adoption.

The Salvage Section, Admiralty, is a dignified caption and has an almost imperial address, but, camouflages and all, it is not difficult to see the hem of old sea-worn garments of our mercantile companies peeping out below the gold braid. If in peace-time they did wonders, war has made their greatest and most successful efforts seem but minor actions compared to their present-day victories. The practice and experience gained in quick succession of 'cases' has tuned up their operations to the highest pitch of efficiency. New and more powerful appliances have come to their hands; a skilled and technical directorate has liberated initiative. Strandings, torpedo or mine damage, fire, collisions--frequently a compound of two or three--or all five--provide them with occasion for every shift of ingenuity, every turn of resource. There is no stint to the gear, and no limits to invention, or device, if there is a possibility of a damaged ship being brought to the dry docks. Is it not on record that an obstinate, stranded ship, driven high on the beach, was finally relaunched on the crest of an artificially created 'spring' tide, the wash and suction of a high-speed destroyer, plying and circling in the shallows?

Many new perils are added to the risks and hazards of their normally dangerous work. Casualties that call for their service are rarely located in safe and protected waters; open coast and main channels are the marches of the Salvage Section, where the enemy has a keen and ready eye for a 'potting' shot by which he may prevent succour of a previous victim. The menace of sea-mines is particularly theirs; the run and swirl of Channel tides has strength to weigh a stealthy mooring and carry a power of destruction up stream and down. They have a new and deadly danger to be guarded against in the ammunition and armament of their stricken wards. Many have gone down at 'action stations,' and carry 'hair-sprung' explosive charges, the exact condition and activity of which are usually a matter for conjecture. It calls for a courage of no ordinary measure to grope and stumble under water amid shattered wreckage for the safety-clutch of the charges, or grapple in the mud and litter for torpedo firing-levers. This the pioneer of the divers must do, as the first and most important of his duties.

With skill enhanced by constant and encouraged practice, they set out to bind the wounds and raise our damaged ships to a further lease of sea-activity. So definite and sure are their methods, so skilled and rapid their execution, they steam ahead of reconstruction and crowd the waiting-room at the dry-dock gates. Lined up at the anchorage awaiting their turn, the recovered vessels may be crippled and bent, and showing torsion and distress in the list, and staggering trim with which they swing flood and ebb. They may rest, halting, on the inshore shallow flats, but, laid by for a term of repair, their day is to come again. The Salvage Section has reclaimed their rent and stranded hulls from the misty sea-Front; the Repair Section, working day and night, will hammer and bind and reframe the gaps of their steel; the Sea Section will take them out on the old stormy road, sound and seaworthy, with the flag at the peak once more.

A DAY ON THE SHOALS

THE rigger was engaged at second tucks of a five-inch wire-splicing job, and hardly looked in the direction we indicated. "Them," he said. "Them's crocks wot we don't want nothin' more t' do with! Two on 'em's got frozen mutton. High? Excelsi-bloody-or! . . . an' that feller as is down by th' 'ead--Gawd! 'e don't 'arf smell 'orrible!" A pause, while he hammered down the strands and found fault with his assistant, gave us time to disentangle the negatives of his opening. "Grain, she 'as--an' of all th' ruddy messes wot I ever see--she gets it! We 'ad four days at 'er--out there 'n th' Padrig Flats, an' she sickened nigh all 'ands! . . . Now we're well quit o' 'er, an' th' longshore gangs is unloadin' th' bulk, in nosebags an' gas 'elmets, t' get 'er a-trim for th' dry dock!"

As we passed alee of the grain-carrier there was no doubt of the truth of the rigger's assurance. Steam-pumps on her fore-deck were forcing a sickly mixture of liquid batter through hoses to a barge alongside, and the overpowering stench of the mess blew down to us and set eyes and noses quickening with instant nausea. The men on the barges were garbed in odd headgear, high cowls with staring circular eyepieces, and each carried a knapsack cylinder on his back. Clouds of high-pressure steam from the winches and pumps threw out in exhaust, and the hooded, ghost-like figures of the labourers passed and repassed in drifts of white vapour. To the hiss and rumble of machines, clamour of block-sheaves and chain and piston joined action to make a setting of _Inferno_, the scene might well be imagery for a stage of unholy rites.

Past her, we turned to the clean salt breeze again and stood on to the open sea. The salvage officer, a Commander, R.N.R., joined us at the rail. "What about that now? Sa--lubrious?" he said.

We wondered how men could be got to work in such an atmosphere, how it was possible to handle such foul-smelling litter in the confined holds.

"Oh! We go through that all right. A bit inconvenient and troublesome, perhaps, working in a restricting gas-rig; but now, the chemists have come to our assistance and we can sweeten things up by a dose of anti-stink. . . . But you won't see that to-day. Our 'bird' has got no cargo, only clean stone ballast--a soft job."

The 'soft job' had had a rough time, a combination and chapter of sea and war hazard. Inward bound from the United States with a big cargo, a German torpedo had found a mark on her. She settled quickly by the stern, but the undamaged engines worked her gallantly into a small seaport where she brought up with her main deck awash. There she was lightened of her precious load, temporary baulks and patches were clamped and bolted to her riven shell-plate, and she set off again on a short coastwise voyage to the nearest port where definite and satisfactory repair could be effected. Off the Heads, the enemy again got sights on her. Crippled, and steaming at slow speed to ease strain on the bulkheads, she made a 'sitting' target for a second torpedo, that shattered rudder and stern-post and sheared the propellor from the shaft.

"We came on her just before dark," said the commander. . . . "Some of the crew were in the boats, close by, but the captain and a Trinity pilot and others were still aboard. She was down astern to the counter and up forward like a ruddy unicorn. We got fast and started to tow. Tow?--Might as well have taken on the Tower Bridge. There was no way of steering her, and a strong breeze from the south'ard blew her head down against all we could do. . . . Anyway, we hung on, and at daylight in the morning the wind let up on us a bit, and we guided her drift--that's about all we could do--inshore, till she took the bottom on good ground a little north of the Westmark Shoal. We filled her up forrard as the weather was looking bad--a good weight of water to steady her through a gale. She's lain out there for two months now. We've had a turn or two at her occasionally--shoring up the after bulkheads and that, while we had weather chances. _Titan_ has been out at her since yesterday morning. . . . It looks good and healthy now." He cast an eye around appreciatively at the calm sea and quiet sky, the gorse-banked cliffs dimmed by a promising summer haze, at seagulls lazily drifting on the tide or becking and bowing in the glassy ripples of our wash. "Good and healthy; I like to see these old 'shellbacks' sitting low and not shrilling overhead with all sail set. . . . If this weather holds I shouldn't wonder if we get the old bus afloat on high tide to-day!"

Clear of harbour limits and heading out to the shoals, a brisk rigging of gear and tackle brings action to the decks of the salvage steamer. Already we had thought the narrow confines from bulwark to bulwark congested by the bulk of appliances, but, from hole and corner and cunning stowage, further coils and shoots and lengths of flexible, armoured hose are dragged and placed in readiness for operations. Derricks are topped up and purchases rove for handling the heavy twelve-inch motor-pumps. Hawsers are uncovered and coiled clear, stout fenders thrown over in preparation for a grind alongside the wreck. Mindful of possibilities, the engineer-lieutenant and his artificers go over the insulation of their power leads in minute search for a leak in the cables that may occasion a short circuit later on. The terminals and couplings are buffed and polished with what seems exaggerated and needless precision--but this is salvage, where sustained effort is only possible in the rare and all-too-brief union of favourable tide and weather conditions. A cessation of the steady throw of the pumps, however instant and skilful the adjustment, may mean the loss of just that finite measure in buoyancy that could spring the weight of thousands in tons. Second chances are rarely given by a grudging and jealous sea; there must be no hitch in the gear, no halt in weighing the mass.

A drift of lazy smoke on the sea-rim ahead marks our rendezvous, where _Titan_ and a sisterly tug-boat are already at work on the wreck. A screen of motor-patrols are rounding and lining out in the offing, with a thrust of white foam astern that shows their speed. Coastwise, a convoy of merchant ships zigzag in confusing angles on their way to sea, guarded by spurring destroyers and trawler escort. Seaplanes are out, hawking with swoop and wheel for sight of strange fish. The seascape is busy with a shipping that must remind the coastguard and lightkeepers of old and palmy days when square sail was standard at sea. The Westmark Shoal lies some distance from the normal peace-time track of direct steaming courses. It lies in the bight of a bay, where rarely steamers closed the land. Sailing ships, close-hauled and working a tack inshore, or fisher craft on their grounds, had long been the only keels to sheer water in the deeps, but war practice has renewed our acquaintance with many old sea-routes and by-paths, and we are back now to charts and courses that have long been out of our reckoning.

The tide is at low-water slack, and whirls and eddies mark the run over shallows. At easy speed and handing the lead, we approach the wreck. Her weathered hull, gilt and red-rusted by exposure to sun and wind and sea, stands high and bold against the deep blue of a summer sky. Masts and rigging and cordage are bleached white, like tracery of a phantom ship. The green sea-growth on her underbody fans and waves in the tide, showing long voyaging in the crust and stage of it. She lies well and steadily, with only a slight list to seaward that marks the gradient on which she rests. Through fracture on the stern and counter, the twisted and shattered frames and beams and angles can be seen plainly. Sunlight, in slanting rays, shines through the rents and fissures of the upper deck, and plays on the free flood that washes in and out of the exposed after hold; seaweed and flotsam surges on the tide, clinging to the jagged, shattered edges of the plating, and breaking away to lap in the dark recesses. To eyes that only know the lines and mould of sightly, seaworthy vessels, she seems a hopeless and distorted mass of standing iron--a sheer hulk, indeed, fit only for a lone sea-perch to gull and gannet and cormorant. It appears idle for the salvors to plan and strive and wrestle for such a prize, but their keen eyes are focused to values not readily apparent. "A fine ship," says the commander, now happily assured that his 'soft job' has suffered no worse than a weathering on the ledge that his skill has secured her. "A job o' work for the repairers, certainly . . . but they will set her up as good as new in a third of the time it would take to build a substitute!"

We anchor at a length or two to seaward. There is not yet water alongside for our draught, but _Titan_, drawing less, is berthed at her stern and their men are taking advantage of low water to pin and tomp and strengthen the rearmost bulkhead that must now do duty for the demolished stern section. A boat from _Titan_ brings the officer in charge, and he greets his senior with no disguised relief. A serious leak has developed in one of the compartments that they had counted on for buoyancy. . . . "Right under the bilge, and ungetatable, with all that rubble in th' holds. A good job you brought out these extra pumps. We should manage now, all right!"

Technical measures are discussed and a plan of operations agreed. At half-flood there will be water for us alongside, and a 'lift' can be tried. Number one hold is good and tight, but still has a bulk of water to steady her on the ledge; number two is clear and buoyant; three has the obstinate leak; the engine-room is undamaged, but water makes through in moderate quantity. Number four--"the bulkhead is bulged in like the bilge of a cask, but that cement we put down last week has set pretty well, and the struts and braces should hold." Number five? There is no number five, most of it lies on deep bottom off the Heads, some miles away!

With his colleague, the commander puts off to the wreck, to assess the prospects, and we have opportunity to note the inboard trim of her derelict posts and quarters. Davits, swung outboard as when the last of her crew left her, stand up in unfamiliar dejection, the frayed ends and bights of the boat-falls dangling overside and thrumming on the rusty hull. The boat-deck shows haste and urgency in the litter of spars and tackle thrown violently aside: a seaman's bag with sodden pitiful rags of apparel lies awry on the skids, marking some cool and forethinking mariner denied a passage for his goods. Living-rooms and crew quarters show the indications of sudden call, in open desks--a book or two cast side, quick-thrown bedspreads, an array of clothing on a line; the range-guards in the cook's galley have caught the tilt of pots and mess-kits as they slid alee in the grounding. The bridge, with chart and wheelhouse open to the wind and spray, and sea-gear adrift and disordered, strikes the most desolating note in the abandon of it all. Tenantless and quiet, the same scene would be commonplace and understood in dock or harbour, with neighbourly shore structures to point a reason for absence of ship-life, but out here--the clear horizon of an open sea in view around, with vessels passing on their courses, the desertion of the main post seems final and complete, with no navigator at the guides and no hand at the wheel.

The flood tide making over the shoals sets in with a _thrussh_ of broken water alee of the wreck. The salvors' cutter, from which the mate is sounding and marking bottom, spins in widening circles in the eddies and shows the strength of early springs. As yet the stream binds the wreck hard to the bank, setting broad on from seaward, but relief will come when the spent water turns east on the last of the flood. Survey completed, the salvage officers clamber to the deck again. The leak in number three is their only concern; if that can be overcome, there seems no bar to a successful programme. The commander questions the mate as to the depth of water alongside, is assured of draught, and signals his vessel to heave up and come on. The strength and onrush of the tidal race makes the manoeuvre difficult, and it is on second attempt, with a wide sweep and backing on plane of the current, she drives unhandily to position. The impact of her boarding, for all the guardian fenders, jars and stirs the wreck, but brings a confident look to the salvors' faces; as readily shaken as that, they assure themselves the responding hull will come off with 'a bit of a pinch' on the angle of withdrawal that they have planned on the tidal chart.

With hawsers and warps barely fast, the great pumps are hove up in air and swung over the hatchway of the doubtful hold. But for the general order to carry on, there are few directions and little admonition. Every man of the busy group of mechanics and riggers has 'a brick for the wall,' and the wriggling lengths of armoured hose are coupled and launched over the coamings as quickly as the massive motors are lowered. Foundering with splash and gurgle, like uncouth sea-monsters in their appanage of tortuous rubber tentacles, the sheen of their polished bulk looms through the green translucent flood of solid seawater, the grave and surely augmented tide that they are trimmed to master. Again, the seeming hopelessness of the task, the handicap of man against element, presents a doubt to one's mind. Two shell-like casings of steel, a line of piping and cab-tyre coils for power leads--to compete with the infiltration of an ocean; there are even small fish darting in the flood of it, a radiating Medusa floats in and out the weltering 'tween-decks, waving loathsome feelers as though in mockery of human efforts!

Like a war-whoop to the onslaught the dynamos of the salvage vessel start motion, and hum in _crescendo_ to a high tenor tone; the vibrations of their speed and cycle are joined in conduct to the empty hull of the wreck, and she quickens with a throb and stir as of her arteries coursing. There is no preparatory trickle at outboard end of the hose ejections; with a rush and roar, a clean, solid flood pours over, an uninterrupted cascade at seven tons from each per minute!

The carpenter sounds the depth with rod and chalked lanyard, then lowers a tethered float to water-level of the flooded compartment. In this way he sets a starting mark for the competition, a gauge for the throw of the pumps. In interest with the issue, the salvage men gather round the hatchway, and all eyes are turned to the bobbing cork disc to note the progress of the contest. Stirring and drifting to slack of the line, the float seems serenely indifferent to its important motion; wayward and buoyant, it trims, this way and that, then steadies suddenly on a taut restraint; slowly it seems to rise in the water as though drawn by an invisible hand. It spins a little to lay of the cord, then hangs, moisture dropping and forming rings on the glassy surface of the well! By no seeming effort but the pulse-like quiver of the hose, the level falls away. A bolt-head on the plating shows under water, then tips an upper edge above; a minute later the round is exposed and drying in a slant of the sun.

The tense regard with which we have scanned the guide-mark gives way to jest and relief when it is seen that drainage is assured; a facetious mechanic at the hose-end makes motions as of pulling a bar handle to draw a foaming glass. "Sop it up, old sport!" says the rigger, patting the pipes. "Sop it up an' spit! Ol' Neptune ain't arf thusty!"

During our engagement, _Titan_ has not been idle. There remains only an hour or two of flood tide and much has to be done. Leaving steam-pumps to cope with the more moderate leakage at the after section, she has hauled forward on the rising tide on the shoal side of the wreck. At the bows she has applied suction to the prisoned water in the fore holds, and a new stream pours overside in foaming ejection. The roar and throb of her power motors adds further volume and vibration to the rousing treatment by which the nerves of the stranded hulk seem braced. Stirred by the new life on her, the old ship may well forget she has no stern and only part a bottom. Already the decks, gaunt and red-rusted as they are, take on a cheering look of service and animation. The seamen in the rigging and workmen crowded round the hatchways might be the dockers boarded for a day's work on the loading, and only the thunder of the motors and crash of the sluicing torrent remain foreign to a normal ship-day.

The sun has gone west when the tidal current surging past shows a change in direction. We throw sightly flotsam overboard and note the drift that takes the refuse astern. No longer the green slimy plates of the hull show above water, the tide has lapped their sea-growth and ripples high on a cleaner surface. With high water approaching we draw near the point of balance in buoyancy, and the salving tenders tighten up headfasts and stern ropes in readiness for a slip or drag. The sea-tug that has till now been a quiet partner in operations, smokes up and backs in astern to pass a hawser to the wreck. She drops away with a good scope, and lies handy to tow at orders.

Tirelessly, droning and throbbing with insistent monotony, the pumps continue their labour and draw the weight of water that holds the wreck down. At number three hold the flood below is no longer a still and placid well. The penned and mastered water seethes and whirls in impotent fury at the suction that draws and churns only to expel. Some solid matter, seaweed perhaps, has drifted to the leak and stems a volume of the incoming water; there seems a prospect that a single pump may keep the level.

In somewhat tense expectancy, we await a crisis in the operations. There is a feeling that all these masterly movements should lead to a spectacular resurrection--a stir and tremor in the frame of her, reviving sea-throes, a lurch, a list, a mighty heave, and a staggering relaunch to the deeps.

Precise and businesslike, modern salvage avoids such a flourishing end to their labours. As skilful surgeons, they object strongly to excitement. Their frail and tortured sea-patients can rarely stand more than gentle suasion. As surely as the tide they work by, the factors of weight and displacement and trim have been figured and calculated. . . . The commander draws our attention to a quiet and steady rise in the bows, the knightheads perceptibly edging nearer to a wisp of standing cloud. Without a jar or surge the wreck becomes a floating ship; she lists a little, as the towing hawser creaks and strains, and we draw off gently to seaward.

THE DRY DOCK

A DOWNPOUR of steady, insistent rain makes quagmire of the paths on the dockside, and the half-light of a cheerless early morning gives little guidance to progress among the raffle of discarded ship-gear that lies about the yard. Stumbling over shores and stagings, skirting gaunt mounds of damaged plates and angles, we reach the sea-gate where the ship victims of mine and torpedo are moored in readiness for treatment in the great sea-hospital. In the uncertain light and under wet lowering skies, they make a dismal picture. The symmetry of conventional docking--ships moored in line and heading in the same direction--that is an orderly feature of the harbours, is not possible in the overcrowded basin. There is need to pack the vessels closely. They lie at awkward angles, the stern of one overhanging the bows of another. Masts and funnels and deck erections, upstanding at varied rakes, emphasize the confused berthing and draw the eye to the condition of the mass of damaged shipping. Not all of the vessels are shattered hulks. A number are here for hull-cleaning or overhaul, but their high sides with the rust and barnacles and weedy green scum, make as drab a feature in the combination as the listed hulls of the cripples.

Though nominally daylight, the arc-lamps of the pier-head still splutter in wet contacts and spread a sickly glow over the oilskin-clad group of dockmen and officials gathered to enter the ships. A chill breeze from the sea blows in and carries reek and cinder of north-country coal to thicken the lash of the rain. The waft comes from heeling dock tugs that strain at their hawsers, spurring the muddy tide to froth in their task of moving the helpless vessels in the basin. The long expanse of flooded dock, brimming to the uppermost ledge, lies open for their entry; the bruised and shattered stern of a large ship is pointed over the sill at an awkward angle that marks an absence of steam-power aboard to control her wayward sheer. The dockmaster, in ill mood with her cantrips, roars admonition and appeal to the smoking tugs to "lie over t' s'uth'ard and right her!" By check, and the powerful heave of a shore capstan, she warps in and straightens to the line of the docks. As she draws on to her berth the high bows of a second cripple swing over from the tiers, and the tugs back out to fasten on and drag her to the gate.

With entry of the ships, the glistening pier-head becomes thronged by tidesmen and their gear; like a drill-yard, with the lusty stamp of the marching lines of dockmen trailing heavy hawsers and handing check and hauling ropes. In an hour or so the gangs of the ship-repair section will be ready to 'turn to' at the new jobs, and the ships must be settled and ready against the wail of the starting 'buzzer.' Shrill whistle signals, orders and hails add to the stir of the labourers, and clatter of the warping capstan joins in with ready chorus. Not least of the medley is the bull roar of the harassed dockmaster, who finds a need in the press for more than one pair of hands at the reins to guide and halt his tandem charges.

The ships are marked in company, to settle bow to stern, with no room to spare, in the length of the dock. Conduct must be ruled in duplicate to exact the full measure of utility from every foot of space. On the last tide a pair of sound ships were floated out to service, braced and bound and refitted for further duty as stout obverse to the 'Sure Shield.' Keel-blocks and beds for the new patients have been set up and rearranged in the brief interval of occupancy, and now, quick on the wash of the outgoers, are new cases for the shearing plate-cutters and the swing of hammers.

Mindful to conserve their precious dry-dock space to the limit of good service, the repair section select the vessels with rare judgment. It is no haphazard turn of the wheel that brings an American freighter, shattered in stern section, to the same operating-table as an east-coast tramp (having her engines in scrap, boilers fractured, and the frames of her midships blown to sea-bottom). The combined measure of their length and the similarity of extent in hull damage has brought them to the one line of blocks. Odd cases, and regular ship-cleaning and minor repairs may be allotted to single-ship dry docks, but here, in sea-hospital with a twin-berth, there is a need for parallel treatment. The two ships must be considered as one, and all efforts be promoted towards refloating them, when hull repairs are completed, on one opening of the sea-gate.

In this, strangely, they are assisted by the enemy. True, his accommodation could well be spared, but it does have an influence on repair procedure. The exact and uniformly graded proportions of the enemy explosive reproduces a correspondingly like extent and nature in ship damage. Location and sea-trim may vary the fractures in proportion to resistance but, with the vessels on the blocks together, working time may be adjusted to these conditions and a balance be struck that will further a simultaneous completion.

So the dockmaster ranges his pair on the centre line of the keel-blocks, sets tight the hawsers that hold them in position, and bars the sea-entry with a massive caisson. Presently he passes an order to the pumpman, and the power-house echoes to the easy thrust of his giant engine.

The keel-blocks have been set to meet the general lines of the vessels, with only a marginal allowance for the contour of damaged plating. To remedy any error divers, with their gear and escort, are ready on the dockside, and they go below with first fall in the water-level. The carpenters straggle out from sheltered corners and bear a hand. Riggers and dockmen have placed the ships, and it remains for the 'tradesmen' to bed them down and prop against a list by shores and blocks. They are ill content with the vile weather and their job in the open, where the rain lashes down pitilessly, soaking their working clothes. Doubtless they envy the dry divers their suits of proofed rubber, when they are called on to manhandle the heavy timber shores from the mud and litter of the dockside and launch them out towards the steel sides of the settling vessels. There the tide-workers on deck secure them by lanyards, and the spars hang in even order, sighted on doublings of the plates, ready to pin the ships on a steady keel when the water drains away.

With the timbers held in place, the carpenters split up to small parties and stand by to set a further locking strain by prise of block and wedge. The dockmaster blows a whistle signal at the far end of the basin, and casts up his hand as though arresting movement; the thrust of the main pump stills, and he swings his arm. At the sign, the carpenters ram home . . . the thunder of their forehammers on the hardwood wedges rings out in chorus that draws a quavering echo from the empty, hard-pressed hulls.

Settled and bedded and pinned, the ships are left till the water drains away and to await the coming of the shipwrights and repairing gangs. The carpenters shoulder their long-handled top-mauls and scatter to a shelter from the steady, continuous downpour. Up from the floors with their work completed, the divers doff their heavy head-gear and sit a while, _resting_ comfortably under the thrash of the same persistent rain. Anon, their awkward garb discarded, they walk off, striding with a crook at the knees, like farmer folk on ploughed land. The great pumps now pulsate at full speed, drawing water to their sluices in an eddying current that spins the flotsam and bares ledge after ledge of the solid dock masonry. From gaping wounds of the crippled vessels a full tide of seawater gushes and spurts to join the troubled wash below. The beams and side-planking, and temporary measures of the salvage section, uncover and come to sight, showing with what patience and laborious care the divers have striven to stem an inrush.

On the second ship the receding water-line exposes the damage to her engine- and boiler-rooms. A litter of coal and oily scum showers from angles of the wrecked bunker and stokehold to the floor of the dock, and leaves the fractured beams and tubes to stand out in gaunt twist and deformity. Through the breaches the shattered cylinders and broken columns of the engines lie distorted in a piled raffle of wrenched pipe sections, valves and levers, footplates, skeleton ladders, and shafting. The mass of distorted metal has still a shine and token of polish, and these signs of late care and attention only serve to make the ruin seem the more complete and irremediable.

An hour later a strident power syren sounds out from roof of the repair 'shops.' The workmen, hurrying to 'check in' at the gates, scarcely glance at their new jobs on the blocks of the dry-dock. To them it seems quite a commonplace that the round of their industry should suffer no halt, that the two seaworthy ships they completed yesterday should be so quickly replaced by the same type of casualty for their attention. The magnitude of the task--the vast extent of plating to be sheared and rebuilt, the beams to be withdrawn or straightened in place, the litter to be cleared--holds no misgivings. Short on the stroke of 'turn to' they straggle down the dockside to start the round anew. With critical eye, foremen and surveyors chalk off the cypher of their verdicts on the rusted displaced remnants; the gangs apportion and assemble with tools and gear; the huge travelling cranes rumble along on their railways, and lower slings and hooks in readiness for a load of damaged steel.

With the men lined out to the gangways and filing down the dock steps, chain linking in trial over the crane sheaves, and the bustle of preparation on ship and shore, everything seems set for an instant beginning--but no hammer falls as yet. There is, first, a sad freight to be discharged; not all the crew of the ship with the wrecked engines have gone to the pay-table. Three sombre closed wagons are waiting by the dockside, and towards them down the long gangways from the ship, the bodies of an engineer and some of the stokehold crew are being carried. The weltering flood that held them has drained to the dock, and busy hands have searched in the wreckage where they died at their post.

We have no flags to honour, no processional march to accompany our dead. Their poor bodies, dripping and fouled, are draped in a simple coarse shroud that hardly conceals the line of their mangled limbs. Awkwardly the carriers stumble on the sodden planking and rest arms and knees on the guiding hand-lines. The workmen pause on the ship and gangways and look respectfully, if curiously, at the limp burdens as they are carried by.

Here and there a man speaks of the dead, but the most are silent, with lowering looks, set teeth--a sharp intake of the breath. . . . Who knows? Perhaps the spirits of the murdered seamen may come by a payment at the hands of the shipwright gangs. The best monument to their memory will stand as another keel on the deep--a quick ripost to the enemy, in his victim repaired and strengthened and returned to sea.

Lowering looks, set teeth, a hissing intake of the breath are the right accompaniment to a blow struck hard home; the thunder of hammers and drills, the hiss and sparkle of shearing cutters, that breaks out when the wagons have gone, marks a start to their monument!

XIV

ON CAMOUFLAGE--AND SHIPS' NAMES

EARLY in the war the rappel of 'Business as usual' was as deadly at sea as elsewhere. Arrogant and super-confident in our pride of sea-place, we made little effort to trim and adapt our practice to rapidly altering conditions; there were few visible signs to disquiet us, we hardly deviated from our peaceful sea-path, and had no concern for interference. We carried our lights ablaze, advertised our doings in plain wireless, announced our sailings and arrivals, and even devoted more than usual attention to keeping our ships as span in brave new paint and glistening varnish as the hearts of impressionable passengers could desire.

We had difficulties with our manning. The seamen were off, at first tuck of drum, to what they reckoned a more active part in the great game of war--the strictly Naval Service--and we were left with weak crews of new and raw hands to carry on the sea-trade. So, from the very first of it, we engaged in a moral camouflage in our efforts to keep up appearances, and show the neutrals with whom we did business that such a thing as war could hardly disturb the smooth running of our master machine--the Merchants' Service!

Some there were among us who saw the peril in such prominence, and took modest (and somewhat hesitating) steps to keep out of the limelight, by setting lonely courses on the sea, restraining the comradely gossip of wireless operators, and toning down appearances from brilliant polish to the more sombre part suiting a sea in war-time. Deck lights were painted over and obscured, funnel and masts were allowed to grey to neutral tints, the brown ash that discomposes fine paint at sea was looked upon with a new and friendly eye. The bias of chief mates (in a service where promotion is the due for a clean and tidy ship) was, with difficulty, overcome, and a new era of keen look-out and sea-trim started.

There was but moderate support for these bold iconoclasts who dared thus to affront our high fetish. Ship painting and decoration and upkeep were sacrosanct rites that even masters must conform to; the enactments of the Medes and Persians were but idle rules, mere by-laws, compared to the formulæ and prescriptions that governed the tone of our pantry cupboards and the shades of cunning grain-work. We were peaceful merchantmen; what was the use of our dressing up like a parish-rigged man-o'-war? As to the lights--darkening ship would upset the passengers; there would be rumours and apprehension. They would travel in less 'nervous' vessels!

The mine that shattered _Manchester Commerce_ stirred the base of our happy conventions; the cruise of the _Emden_ set it swaying perilously; the torpedoes that sank _Falaba_ and _Lusitania_ blew the whole sham edifice to the winds, and we began to think of our ships in other terms than those of freight and passenger rates. Our conceptions of peaceful merchantmen were not the enemy's!

We set about to make our vessels less conspicuous. Grey! We painted our hulls and funnels grey. In many colours of grey. The nuances of our coatings were accidental. Poor quality paint and variable untimely mixings contributed, but it was mainly by crew troubles (deficiency and incapacity) that we came by our first camouflage. As needs must, we painted sections at a time--a patch here, a plate or two there--laid on in the way that real sailors would call 'inside-out'! We sported suits of many colours, an infinite variety of shades. Quite suddenly we realized that grey, in such an ample range--red-greys, blue-greys, brown-greys, green-greys--intermixed on our hulls, gave an excellent low-visibility colour that blended into the misty northern landscape.

Bolshevik now in our methods, we worked on other schemes to trick the murderer's eye. Convention again beset our path. The great god Symmetry--whom we had worshipped to our undoing--was torn from his high place. The glamour of Balances, that we had thought so fine and shipshape, fell from our eyes, and we saw treachery in every regular disposition. Pairs--in masts, ventilators, rails and stanchions, boat-groupings, samson posts, even in the shrouds and rigging--were spies to the enemy, and we rearranged and screened and altered as best we could, in every way that would serve to give a false indication of our course and speed. Freighters and colliers (that we had scorned because of ugly forward rake of mast and funnel) became the leaders of our fashion. We wedged our masts forward (where we could) and slung a gaff on the fore side of the foremast; we planked the funnel to look more or less upright; we painted a curling bow wash over the propellor and a black elaborate stern on the bows. We trimmed our ships by the head, and flattered ourselves that, Janus-like, we were heading all ways!

Few, including the enemy, were greatly deceived. At that point where alterations of apparent course were important--to put the putting Fritz off his stroke--the deck-houses and erections with their beamwise fronts or ends would be plainly noted, and a true line of course be readily deduced. With all our new zeal, we stopped short of altering standing structures, but we could paint, and we made efforts to shield our weakness by varied applications. Our device was old enough, a return to the chequer of ancient sea-forts and the line of painted gun-ports with which we used to decorate our clipper sailing ships. (That also was a camouflage of its day--an effort to overawe Chinese and Malay pirates by the painted resemblance to the gun-deck of a frigate.) We saw the eye-disturbing value of a bold criss-cross, and those of us who had paint to spare made a 'Hobson-jobson' of awning spars and transverse bulkheads.

These were our sea-efforts--rude trials effected with great difficulty in the stress of the new sea-warfare. We could only see ourselves from a surface point of view, and, in our empirics, we had no official assistance. During our brief stay in port it was impossible to procure day-labouring gangs--even the 'gulls' of the dockside were busy at sea. On a voyage, gun crews and extra look-outs left few hands of the watch available for experiments; in any case, our rationed paint covered little more than would keep the rust in check. We were relieved when new stars of marine coloration arose, competent shore concerns that, on Government instruction, arrayed us in a novel war paint. Our rough and amateurish tricks gave way to the ordered schemes of the dockyard; our ships were armed for us in a protective coat of many colours.

Upon us like an avalanche came this real camouflage. Somewhere behind it all a genius of pantomimic transformation blazed his rainbow wand and fixed us. As we came in from sea, dazzle-painters swarmed on us, bespattered creatures with no bowels of compassion, who painted over our cherished glass and teakwood and brass port-rims--the last lingering evidences of our gentility. Hourly we watched our trim ships take on the hues of a swingman's roundabouts. We learned of fancy colours known only in high art--alizarin and grey-pink, purple-lake and Hooker's green. The designs of our mantling held us in a maze of expectation. Bends and ecartelés, indents and rayons, gyrony and counter-flory, appeared on our topsides; curves and arrow-heads were figured on boats and davits and deck fittings; apparently senseless dabs and patches were measured and imprinted on funnel curve and rounding of the ventilators; inboard and outboard we were streaked and crossed and curved.

With our arming of guns there was need for instruction in their service and maintenance; artificial smoke-screens required that we should be efficient in their use; our Otters called for some measure of seamanship in adjustment and control. So far all governmental appliances for our defence relied on our understanding and operation, but this new protective coloration, held aloof from our confidence, it was quite self-contained, there was no rule to be learnt; we were to be shipmates with a new contrivance, to the operation of which we had no control. For want of point in discussion, we criticized freely. We surpassed ourselves in adjectival review; we stared in horror and amazement as each newly bedizened vessel passed down the river. In comparison and simile we racked memory for text to the gaudy creations. "Water running under a bridge.". . . "Forced draught on a woolly sheep's back.". . . "Mural decoration in a busy butcher's shop.". . . "Strike _me_ a rosy bloody pink!" said one of the hands, "if this 'ere don't remind me o' jaundice an' malaria an' a touch o' th' sun, an' me in a perishin' dago 'orspittel!"

While naming the new riot of colour grotesque--a monstrosity, an outrage, myopic madness--we were ready enough to grasp at anything that might help us in the fight at sea. We scanned our ships from all points and angles to unveil the hidden imposition. Fervently we hoped that there would be more in it than met our eye--that our preposterous livery was not only an effort to make Gargantuan faces at the Boche! Only the most splendid results could justify our bewilderment.

Out on the sea we came to a better estimate of the value of our novel war-paint. In certain lights and positions we seemed to be steering odd courses--it was very difficult to tell accurately the line of a vessel's progress. The low visibility that we seamen had sought was sacrificed to enhance a bold disruption of perspective. While our efforts at deception, based more or less on a one-colour scheme of greys, may have rendered our ships less visible against certain favouring backgrounds of sea and sky, there were other weather conditions in which we would stand out sharply revealed. Abandoning the effort to cloak a stealthy sea-passage, our newly constituted Department of Marine Camouflage decked us out in a bold pattern, skilfully arranged to disrupt our perspective, and give a false impression of our line of course. With a torpedo travelling to the limit of its run--striking anything that may lie in its course, range is of little account. Deflection, on the other hand, is everything in the torpedo-man's problem--the correct estimation of a point of contact of two rapidly moving bodies. He relies for a solution on an accurate judgment of his target's course; it became the business of the dazzle-painters to complicate his working by a feint in colour and design. The new camouflage has so distorted our sheer and disrupted the colour in the mass as to make our vessels less easy to hit. If not invisible against average backgrounds, the dazzlers have done their work so well that we are at least partially lost in every elongation.

The mystery withheld from us--the system of our decoration--has done much to ease the rigours of our war-time sea-life. In argument and discussion on its origin and purpose we have found a topic, almost as unfailing in its interest as the record day's run of the old sailing ships. We are agreed that it is a brave martial coat we wear, but are divided in our theories of production. How is it done? By what shrewd system are we controlled that no two ships are quite alike in their splendour? We know that instructions come from a department of the Admiralty to the dockyard painters, in many cases by telegraph. Is there a system of abbreviations, a colourist's shorthand, or are there maritime Heralds in Whitehall who blazon our arms for the guidance of the rude dockside painters? It can be worked out in fine and sonorous proportions:

For s.s. CORNCRIX

_Party per pale, a pale; first, gules, a fesse dancette, sable; second, vert, bendy, lozengy, purpure cottised with nodules of the first; third, sable, three billets bendwise in fesse, or: sur tout de tout, a barber's pole cockbilled on a sinking gasometer, all proper._ For motto: "_Doing them in the eye._"

One wonders if our old conservatism, our clinging to the past, shall persist long after the time of strife has gone; if, in the years when war is a memory and the time comes to deck our ships in pre-war symmetry and grace of black hulls and white-painted deck-work and red funnels and all the gallant show of it, some old masters among us may object to the change.

"Well, have it as you like," they may say. "I was brought up in the good old-fashioned cubist system o' ship painting--fine patterns o' reds an' greens an' Ricketts' blue, an' brandy-ball stripes an' that! None o' your damned newfangled ideas of one-colour sections for me! . . . _Huh!_. . . And black hulls, too! . . . Black! A funeral outfit! . . . No, sir! I may be wrong, but anyway, I'm too old now to chop and change about!"

If we have become reconciled to the weird patterns of our war-paint, every instinct of seafaring that is in us rebels against the new naming of our ships. Is it but another form of camouflage--like the loving Indian mother abusing her dear children for deception of a malicious listening Djinn? _War Cowslip_, _War Dance_, _War Dreamer!_ War Hell! Are our new standard ships being thus badly named, that the enemy may look upon them as pariahs, unworthy of shell or torpedo? Perhaps, as a thoughtful war measure, it may be chargeful of pregnant meaning; our new war names for the ships may be germane to some distant world movement, the first tender shoot of which we cannot yet recognize! More than likely, it is the result of the fine war-time frolic of fitting the cubest of square pegs in the roundest of holes. How is it done? Is there, in the hutments of St. James's Park, an otherwise estimable and blameless greengrocer, officially charged with the task of finding names for vessels, 015537-68 inclusive, presently on the Controller's lists and due to be launched?

We sailors are jealous for our vessels. Abuse us if you will, but have a care for what you may say of our ships. We alone are entitled to call them bitches, wet brutes, stubborn craft, but we will stand for no such liberties from the beach; strikes have occurred on very much less sufficient ground. Ridicule in the naming of our ships is intolerable. If _War_ is to be the prefix, why cannot our greengrocer find suitable words in the chronicles of strife? Can there be anything less martial than the _War Rambler_, _War Linnet_, _War Titmouse_, _War Gossamer_? Why not the _War Teashop_, the _War Picture House_, the--the--the _War Lollipop_? Are we rationed in ships' names? Is there a Controller of Marine Nomenclature? The thing is absurd!

If our controllers had sense they would see the danger in thus flouting our sentiment; they would value the recruiting agency of a good name; they would recognize that the naming of a ship should be done with as great care as that of an heir to an earldom. Is the torpedoed bos'n of the _Eumaeus_ going to boast of a new post on the _War Bandbox_? What are the feelings of the captain of a _Ruritania_ when he goes to the yards to take over a _War Whistler_? Why _War_? If sober, businesslike argument be needed, it is confusing; it introduces a repetition of initial syllable that makes for dangerous tangles in the scheme of direction and control.

It is all quite unnecessary. There are names and enough. Fine names! Seamanlike names! Good names! Names that any sailor would be proud to have on his worsted jersey! Names that he would shout out in the market-place! Names that the enemy would read as monuments to his infamy! Names of ships that we knew and loved and stood by to the bitter end.

XV

FLAGS AND BROTHERHOOD OF THE SEA

UNLIKE the marches of the land, with guard and counterguard, we had no frontiers on the sea. There were no bounds to the nations and their continents outside of seven or ten fathoms of blue water. We all travelled on the one highway that had few by-paths on which trespassers might be prosecuted. And our highway was no primrose path, swept and garnished and safeguarded; it had perils enough in gale and tempest, fog, ice, blinding snow, dark moonless nights, rock and shoal and sandbar. Remote from ordered assistance in our necessity, we relied on favour of a chance passer-by, on a fallible sea-wanderer like ourselves. So, for our needs, we formed a sea-bond, an International Alliance against our common hazards of wind and sea and fire, an assurance of succour and support in emergency and distress. Out of our hunger for sea-companionship grew a union that had few rules or written compacts, and no bounds to action other than the simply humane traditions and customs of the sea. There were no statutory penalties for infringement of the rules unwritten; we could not, as true seamen, conceive so black a case. We had no Articles of our Association, no charters, no covenants; our only documents were the International Code of Signals and the Rule of the Road at Sea. With these we were content; we understood faith and a blood-bond as brother seamen, and we put out on our adventures, stoutly warranted against what might come.

In the Code of Signals we had a language of our own, more immediate and attractive than Volapük or Esperanto. The dire fate of the builders of the Tower held no terror for us, for our intercourse was that of sight and recognition, not of speech. Our code was one of bright colours and bold striking design--flags and pendants fluttering pleasantly in the wind or, in calmer weather, drooping at the halyards with a lift for closer recognition. The symbol of our masonry was a bold red pendant with two vertical bars of white upon it. We had fine hoists for hail and farewell; tragic turn of the colours for a serious emergency, hurried two-flag sets for urgent calls, leisurely symbols of three for finished periods.

'_Can you_' required three flags to itself; _me_ or _I_ or _it_ came all within our range. We told our names and those of our ports by a long charge of four; we could cross our _t's_ and dot our _i's_ by beckon of a single square. We lowered slowly and rehoisted ('knuckles to the staff, you young fool!') our National Ensign, as we would raise our hat ashore. It was all an easy, courteous and graceful mode of converse, linguistically and grammatically correct, for we had no concern with accent or composition, taking our polished phrases from the book. It suited well the great family of the sea, for, were we a Turk of Galatz and you an Iceland brigantine, we could pass the time of day or tell one another, simply and intelligibly, the details of our ports and ladings. Distance, within broad limits, was small hindrance to our gossip; there were few eyes on the round of the sea, to read into our confidences. We could put a hail ashore, too. Passing within sight of San Miguel, we could have a message on the home doorsteps on the morrow, by hoisting our 'numbers'; the naked lightkeeper on the Dædalus could tell us of the northern winds by a string of colours thrown out from the upper gallery.

Good news, bad news, reports, ice, weather, our food-supply, the wages of our seamen, the whereabouts of pirates and cannibals, the bank rate, high politics (we had S.L.R. for Nuncio)--we had them all grouped and classed and ready for instant reference. Medicine, stocks, the law (G.F.H., King's Bench; these sharps who never will take a plain seaman's clear word on salvage or the weather, or the way the fog-whistle was duly and properly sounded!) Figures! We could measure and weigh and divide and subtract; we could turn your Greek _Daktylas_ into a Japanese _Cho_ or _Tcho_, or Turkish _Parmaks_ into the _Draas_ of Tripoli! Some few world measures had to be appendixed; a _Doppelzentner_ was Z.N.L. What is a _Doppelzentner_?

As evidence of our brotherly regard, our peaceful intent, we had few warlike phrases. True, we had hoists to warn of pirates, and we could beg a loan, by signal, of powder and cannon-balls--to supplement our four rusty Snyders, with which we could defend our property, but there was no group in our international vocabulary that could read, "I am torpedoing you without warning!" Seamanlike and simple, we saw only one form of warfare at sea, and based our signals on that. "Keep courage! I am coming to your assistance at utmost speed!". . . "I shall stand by during the night!". . . "Water is gaining on me! I am sinking!" . . . "Boat is approaching your quarter!" These, and others alike, were our war signals, framed to meet our ideas of the greatest peril we might encounter in our conflict with the elements.

Of all this we write in a sad past tense. Our sea-bond is shattered. There is no longer a brotherhood on the sea. The latest of our recruits has betrayed us. The old book is useless, for it contains no reading of the German's avowal, "Come on the deck of my submarine. I am about to submerge!" . . . "Stand by, you helpless swine in the boats, while I shell you and scatter your silly blood and brains!"

No longer will the receipt of a call of distress be the instant signal (whatever the weather or your own plight) for putting the helm over. We have shut the book! We are grown hardened and distrustful. S.O.S. may be the fiend who has just torpedoed a crowded Red Cross, and endeavours by his lying wireless to lure a Samaritan to the net. A heaving boat, or a lone raft with a staff and a scrap, may only be closed with fearful caution; they may be magnets for a minefield.

". . . still he called aloud, for he was in the track of steamers. And presently he saw a steamer. She carried no lights, but he described her form, a darker shape upon the sea and sky, and saw the sparks volley from her funnel.

"He shrieked till his voice broke, but the steamer went on and vanished. The Irishman was furiously enraged, but it was of no use to be angry. He went on calling. So did the other four castaways, but their cries were growing fainter and less frequent.

"Then there loomed another steamer, and she, too, went on. By this time, perhaps, an hour had gone by, and the Arab firemen had fallen silent. The Irishman could see them no longer. He never saw them again. A third steamer hove in sight, and she, too, went on. The Irishman cursed her with the passionate intensity peculiar to the seaman, and went on calling. It was a desperate business. . . ."

The shame of it!

_Lusitania_, _Coquet_, _Serapis_, _Thracia_, _Mariston_, _The Belgian Prince_, _Umaria_ . . .

". . . The commanding officer of the submarine, leaning on the rail of the conning-tower, looked down upon his victims.

"Crouched upon the thwarts in the sunlight, up to their knees in water, which, stained crimson, was flowing through the shell-holes in the planking, soaked with blood, holding their wounds, staring with hunted eyes, was the heap of stricken men.

"The German ordered the boat away. The shore was fifteen miles distant. . . ."

He ordered the boat away! The shame of it! The abasing, dishonouring shame of it!

Bitterly, tarnished--we realize our portion in the guilt, our share in this black infamy--that seamen should do this thing!

What of the future? What will be the position of the German on the sea when peace returns, let the settlement by catholic conclave be what it may?

Sailorfolk have long memories! Living a life apart from their land-fellows, they have but scant regard for the round of events that, on the shore, would be canvassed and discussed, consented--and forgotten. There is no busy competing commercial intrigue, no fickle market, no grudging dalliance on the sea. We stand fast to our own old sea-justice; we have no shades of mercy or condonation, no degrees of tolerance for this bastard betrayer of our unwritten sea-laws. No brotherhood of the sea can be conceived to which he may be re-admitted. Not even the dethronement of the Hohenzollern can purge the deeds of his marine Satraps, for their crimes are individual and personal and professional.

In the League of Nations a purged and democratic Germany may have a station, but there is no redemption for a Judas on the sea. There, by every nation, every seafarer, he will remain a shunned and abhorred Ishmael for all time.