Chapter 27

If von Tirpitz sent his fleet out he, too, might find himself in a trap of mines and submarines. He was losing submarines and England was building more. His naval force rather than Sir John's was suffering from attrition. The blockade was complete from Iceland to the North Sea. While the world knew of the work of the armies, the care that this task required, the hardships endured, the enormous expenditure of energy, were all hidden behind that veil of secrecy which obviously must be more closely drawn over naval than over army operations.

From the flagship the campaign was directed. One would think that many offices and many clerks would be required. But the offices and the clerks were at the Admiralty. Here was the execution. In a room perhaps four feet by six was the wireless focus which received all reports and sent all orders, with trim bluejackets at the keys. "Go!" and "Come!" the messages were saying; they wasted no words. Officers of the staff did their work in narrow space, yet seemed to have plenty of room. Red tape is inflammable. There is no more place for it on board a flagship prepared for action than for unnecessary woodwork.

At every turn compression and concentration of power were like the guns and the decks, cleared for action, significant in directness of purpose. The system was planetary in its impressive simplicity, the more striking as nothing that man has ever made is more complicated or includes more kinds of machinery than a battleship. One battleship was one unit, one chessman on the naval board.

Not all famous leaders are likeable, as every world traveller knows. They all have the magnetism of force, which is quite another thing from the magnetism of charm. What the public demands is that they shall win victories, whether personally likeable or not. But if they are likeable and simple and human and a sailor besides--well, we know what that means.

Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe is not a great man. It is not for a civilian even to presume to judge. We have the word of those who ought to know, however, that he is. I hope that he is, because I like to think that great commanders need not necessarily appear formidable. Nelson refused to be cast for the heavy part, and so did Farragut. It may be a sailor characteristic. I predict that after this war is over, whatever honours or titles they may bestow upon him, the English are going to like Sir John Jellicoe not alone for his service to the nation, but for himself.

Admiral Jellicoe is one with Captain Jellicoe, whose cheeriness even when wounded kept up the spirits of the others on the relief expedition of Boxer days. "He could do it, too!" one thought, having in mind Sir David Beatty's leap to the deck of a destroyer. Spare, of medium height, ruddy, and fifty-seven--so much for the health qualification which the Admiralty Lords dwelt upon as important. After he had been at sea for a year he seemed a human machine, much of the type of the destroyer as a steel machine--a thirty-knot human machine, capable of three hundred or five hundred revolutions, engines running smoothly, with no waste energy, slipping over the waves and cutting through them; a quick man, quick of movement, quick of comprehension and observation, of speech and of thought, with a delightful self-possession--for there are many kinds--which is instantly responsive with decision.

A telescope under his arm, too, as he received his guests. You liked that. He keeps watch over the fleet himself when he is on the quarter- deck. You had a feeling that nothing could happen in all his range of vision, stretching down the "avenues of Dreadnoughts" to the light- cruiser squadron, and escape his attention. It hardly seems possible that he was ever bored. Everything around interests him. Energy he has, electric energy in this electric age, this man chosen to command the greatest war product of modern energy.

Fastened to the superstructure near the ladder to his quarters was a new broom which South Africa had sent him. He was highly pleased with the present; only the broom was Tromp's emblem, while Blake's had been the whip. Possibly the South African Dutchmen, now fighting on England's side, knew that he already had the whip and they wanted him to have the Dutch broom, too.

He had been using both, and many other devices in his campaign against von Tirpitz's "unter See" boats, as was illustrated by one of the maps hung in his cabin. Quite different this from maps in a general's headquarters, with the front trenches and support and reserve trenches and the gun-positions marked in vari-coloured pencillings. Instantly a submarine was sighted anywhere, Sir John had word of it, and a dot went down on the spot where it had been seen. In places the sea looked like a pepper-box cover. Dots were plentiful outside the harbour where we were; but well outside, like flies around sugar which they could not reach.

Seeing Sir John among his admirals and guests one had a glimpse of the life of a sort of mysterious, busy brotherhood. I was still searching for an admiral with white hair. If there were none among these seniors, then all must be on shore. Spirit, I think, that is the word; the spirit of youth, of corps, of service, of the sea, of a ready, buoyant definiteness--yes, spirit was the word to characterize these leaders. Sir John moved from one to another in his quick way, asking a question, listening, giving a direction, his face smiling and expressive with a sort of infectious confidence.

"He is the man!" said an admiral. I mean, several admirals and captains said so. They seemed to like to say it. Whenever he approached one noted an eagerness, a tightening of nerves. Natural leadership expresses itself in many ways; Sir John gave it a sailor's attractiveness. But I learned that there was steel under his happy smile; and they liked him for that, too. Watch out when he is not smiling, and sometimes when he is smiling, they say.

For failure is never excused in the fleet, as more than one commander knows. It is a luxury of consideration which the British nation cannot afford by sea in time of war. The scene which one witnessed in the cabin of the Dreadnought flagship could not have been unlike that of Nelson and his young captains on the Victory, in the animation of youth governed with one thought under the one rule that you must make good.

Splendid as the sight of the power which Sir John directed from his quarter-deck while the ships lay still in their plotted moorings, it paled beside that when the anchor chains began to rumble and, column by column, they took on life slowly and, majestically gaining speed, one after another turned toward the harbour's entrance.

XXXI Simply Hard Work

Besides the simple word spirit, there is the simple word work. Take the two together, mixing with them the proper quantity of intelligence, and you have something finer than Dreadnoughts; for it builds Dreadnoughts, or tunnels mountains, or wins victories.

In no organization would it be so easy as in the navy to become slack. If the public sees a naval review it knows that its ships can steam and keep their formations; if it goes on board it knows that the ships are clean--at least, the limited part of them which it sees; and it knows that there are turrets and guns.

But how does it know that the armour of the turrets is good, or that the guns will fire accurately? Indeed, all that it sees is the shell. The rest must be taken on trust. A navy may look all right and be quite bad. The nation gives a certain amount of money to build ships which are taken in charge by officers and men who, shut off from public observation, may do about as they please. The result rests with their industry and responsibility. If they are true to the character of the nation by and large that is all the nation may expect; if they are better, then the nation has reason to be grateful. Englishmen take more interest in their navy than Americans in theirs. They give it the best that is in them and they expect the best from it in return. Every youngster who hopes to be an officer knows that the navy is no place for idling; every man who enlists knows that he is in for no junket on a pleasure yacht. The British navy, I judged, had a relatively large percentage of the brains and application of England.

"It is not so different from what it was for ten years preceding the war," said one of the officers. "We did all the work we could stand then; and whether cruising or lying in harbour, life is almost normal for us to-day."

The British fleet was always on a war footing. It must be. Lack of naval preparedness is more dangerous than lack of land preparedness. It is fatal. I know of officers who had had only a week's leave in a year in time of peace; their pay is less than our officers'. Patriotism kept them up to the mark.

And another thing: once a sailor, always a sailor, is an old saying; but it has a new application in modern navies. They become fascinated with the very drudgery of ship existence. They like their world, which is their house and their shop. It has the attraction of a world of priestcraft, with them alone understanding the ritual. Their drill at the guns becomes the preparation for the great sport of target practice, which beats any big-game shooting when guns compete with guns, with battle practice greater sport than target practice. Bringing a ship into harbour well, holding her to her place in the formation, roaming over the seas in a destroyer--all means eternal effort at the mastery of material, with the results positively demonstrated.

On one of the Dreadnoughts I saw a gun's crew drilling with a dummy six-inch; weight, one hundred pounds.

"Isn't that boy pretty young to handle that big shell?" an admiral asked a junior officer.

"He doesn't think so," the officer replied. "We haven't anyone who could handle it better. It would break his heart if we changed his position."

Not one of fifty German prisoners whom I had seen filing by over in France was as sturdy as this youngster. In the ranks of an infantry company of any army he would have been above the average of physique; but among the rest of the gun's crew he did appear slight. Need more be said about the physical standard of the crews of the fighting ships of the Grand Fleet?

You had an eye to more than guns and machinery and to more than the character of the officers. You wanted to get better acquainted with the personnel of the men behind the guns. They formed patches of blue on the decks, as one looked around the fleet, against the background of the dull, painted bulwarks of steel--the human element whose skill gave the ships life--deep-chested, vigorous men in their prime, who had the air of men grounded in their work by long experience. I noted when an order was given that it was obeyed quickly by one who knew what he had to do because he had done it thousands of times.

There are all kinds of bluejackets, as there are all kinds of other men. Before the war some took more than was good for them when on shore; some took nothing stronger than tea; some enjoyed the sailor's privilege of growling; some had to be kept up to the mark sharply; an occasional one might get rebellious against the merciless repetition of drills.

The war imparted eagerness to all, the officers said. Infractions of discipline ceased. Days pass without anyone of the crew of a Dreadnought having to be called up as a defaulter, I am told. And their health? At first thought, one would say that life in the steel caves of a Dreadnought would mean pasty complexions and flabby muscles. For a year the crews had been prisoners of that readiness which must not lose a minute in putting to sea if von Tirpitz should ever try the desperate gamble of battle.

After a turn in the trenches the soldiers can at least stretch their legs in billets. A certain number of a ship's company now and then get a tramp on shore; not real leave, but a personally conducted outing not far from the boats which will hurry them back to their stations on signal. However, all that one needs to keep well is fresh air and exercise. The blowers carry fresh air to every part of the ship; the breezes which sweep the deck from the North Sea are fresh enough in summer and a little too fresh in winter. There is exercise in the regular drills, supplemented by setting-up exercises. The food is good and no man drinks or eats what he ought not to, as he may on shore. So there is the fact and the reason for the fact: the health of the men, as well as their conduct, had never been so good.

"Perhaps we are not quite so clean as we were before the war," said an officer. "We wash decks only twice a week instead of every day. This means that quarters are not so moist, and the men have more freedom of movement. We want them to have as much freedom as possible."

Waiting, waiting, in such confinement for thirteen months; waiting for battle! Think of the strain of it! The British temperament is well fitted to undergo such a test, and particularly well fitted are these sturdy seamen of mature years. An enemy may imagine them wearing down their efficiency on the leash. They want a fight; naturally, they want nothing quite so much. But they have the seaman's philosophy. Old von Tirpitz may come out and he may not. It is for him to do the worrying. They sit tight. The men's ardour is not imposed upon. Care is taken that they should not be worked stale; for the marksman who puts a dozen shots through the bull's-eye had better not keep on firing, lest he begin rimming it and get into bad habits.

Where an army officer has a change when he leaves the trench for his billet, there is none for the naval officer, who, unlike the army officer, is Spartan-bred to confinement. The army pays its daily toll of casualties; it lies cramped in dug-outs, not knowing what minute extinction may come. The Grand Fleet has its usual comforts; it is safe from submarines in a quiet harbour. Many naval officers spoke of this contrast with deep feeling, as if fate were playing favourites, though I have never heard an army officer mention it.

The army can give each day fresh proof of its courage in face of the enemy. Courage! It takes on a new meaning with the Grand Fleet. The individual element of gallantry merges into gallantry of the whole. You have the very communism of courage. The thought is to keep a cool head and do your part as a cog in the vast machine. Courage is as much taken for granted as the breath of life. Thus, Cradock's men fought till they went down. It was according to the programme laid out for each turret and each gun in a turret.

Smith, of the army, leads a bomb-throwing party from traverse to traverse; Smith, of the navy, turns one lever at the right second. Army gunners are improving their practice day by day against the enemy; all the improving by navy gunners must be done before the battle. No sieges in trenches; no attacks and counter-attacks: a decision within a few hours--perhaps within an hour.

This partially explains the love of the navy for its work; its cheerful repetition of the drills which seem such a wearisome business to the civilian. The men know the reason of their drudgery. It is an all- convincing bull's-eye reason. Ping-ping! One heard the familiar sound of sub-calibre practice, which seems as out of proportion in a fifteen- inch gun as a mouse-squeak from an elephant whom you expect to trumpet. As the result appears in sub-calibre practice, so it is practically bound to appear in target practice; as it appears in target practice, so it is bound to appear in battle practice. It was on the flagship that I saw a device which Sir John referred to as the next best thing to having the Germans come out. He took as much delight in it as the gun-layers, who were firing at German Dreadnoughts of the first line, as large as your thumb, which were in front of a sort of hooded arrangement with the guns of a British Dreadnought inside-- the rest I censor myself before the regular censor sees it.

When we heard a report like that of a small target rifle inside the arrangement a small red or a small white splash rose from the metallic platter of a sea. Thus the whole German navy has been pounded to pieces again and again. It is a great game. The gun- layers never tire of it and they think they know the reason as well as anybody why von Tirpitz keeps his Dreadnoughts at home.

But elsewhere I saw some real firing; for ships must have their regular target practice, war or no war. If those cruisers steaming across the range had been sending six or eight-inch shrapnel, we should have preferred not to be so near that towed square of canvas. Flashes from turrets indistinguishable at a distance from the neutral-toned bodies of the vessels and the shells struck, making great splashes just beyond the target, which was where they ought to go.

A familiar scene, but with a new meaning when the time is one of war. So far as my observation is worth anything, it was very good shooting, indeed. One broadside would have put a destroyer out of business as easily as a "Jack Johnson" does for a dug-out; and it would have made a cruiser of the same class as the one firing pretty groggy--this not from any experience of being on a light cruiser or any desire to be on one when it receives such a salute. But it seems to be waiting for the Germans any time that they want it.

Oh, that towed square of canvas! It is the symbol of the object of all building of guns, armour, and ships, all the nursing in dry dock, all the admiral's plans, all the parliamentary appropriations, all the striving on board ship in man's competition with man, crew with crew, gun with gun, and ship with ship. One had in mind some vast factory plant where every unit was efficiently organized; but that comparison would not do. None will. The Grand Fleet is the Grand Fleet. Ability gets its reward, as in the competition of civil life. There is no linear promotion indulgent to mediocrity and inferiority which are satisfied to keep step and harassing to those whom nature and application meant to lead. Armchairs and retirement for those whose inclinations run that way; the captain's bridge for those who are fit to command. Officers' records are the criterion when superiors come to making promotions. But does not outside influence play a part? you ask. If professional conscience is not enough to prevent this, another thing appears to be: that the British nation lives or dies with its navy. Besides, the British public has said to all and sundry outsiders: "Hands off the navy!" All honour to the British public, much criticized and often most displeased with its servants and itself, for keeping its eye on that canvas square of cloth! The language on board was the same as on our ships; the technical phraseology practically the same; we had inherited British traditions. But a man from Kansas and a man from Dorset live far apart. If they have a good deal in common they rarely meet to learn that they have. Our seamen do meet British seamen and share a fraternity which is more than that of the sea. Close one's eyes to the difference in uniform, discount the difference in accent, and one imagined that he might be with our North Atlantic fleet.

The same sort of shop talk and banter in the wardroom, which trims and polishes human edges; the same fellowship of a world apart. Securely ready the British fleet waits. Enough drill and not too much; occasional visits between ships; books and newspapers and a lighthearted relaxation of scattered conversation in the mess. One wardroom had a thirty-five-second record for getting past all the pitfalls in the popular "Silver Bullet" game, if I remember correctly.

XXXII Hunting The Submarine

Seaplanes cut practice circles over the fleet and then flew away on their errands, to be lost in the sky beyond the harbour entrance. With their floats, they were like ducks when they came to rest on the water, sturdy and a little clumsy looking compared to those hawks the army planes, soaring to higher altitudes.

The hawk had a broad, level field for its roost; the duck, bobbing with the waves after it came down, had its wings folded as became a bird at rest, after its engines stopped, and, a dead thing, was lifted on board its floating home with a crane, as cargo is swung into the hold.

On shipboard there must be shipshapeness; and that capacious, one-time popular Atlantic liner had undergone changes to prepare it for its mothering part, with platforms in place of the promenades where people had lounged during the voyage and bombs in place of deck-quoits and dining-saloons turned into workshops. Of course, one was shown the different sizes and types of bombs. Aviators exhibit them with the pride of a collector showing his porcelains. Every time they seem to me to have grown larger and more diabolical. Where will aerial progress end? Will the next war be fought by forces that dive and fly like fishes and birds?

"I'd like to drop that hundred-pounder on to a Zeppelin!" said one of the aviators. All the population of London would like to see him do it. And Fritz, the submarine, does not like to see the shadow of man's wings above the water.

Seaplanes and destroyers carry the imagination away from the fleet to another sphere of activity, which I had not the fortune to see. An aviator can see Fritz below a smooth surface; for he cannot travel much deeper than thirty or forty feet. He leaves a characteristic ripple and tell-tale bubbles of air and streaks of oil. When the planes have located him they tell the hunters where to go. Sometimes it is known that a submarine is in a certain region; he is lost sight of and seen again; a squall may cover his track a second time, and the hunters, keeping touch with the planes by signals, course here and there on the look out for another glimpse. Perhaps he escapes altogether. It is a tireless game of hide and seek, like gunnery at the front. Naval ingenuity has invented no end of methods, and no end of experiments have been tried. Strictest kept of naval secrets, these. Fritz is not to be told what to avoid and what not to avoid.

Very thin is the skin of a submarine; very fragile and complicated its machinery. It does not take much of a shock to put it out of order or a large charge of explosives to dent the skin beyond repair. It being in the nature of submarines to sink, how does the hunter know when he has struck a mortal blow? If oil and bubbles come up for some time in one place, or if they come up with a rush, that is suggestive. Then, it does not require a nautical mind to realize that by casting about on the bottom with a grapnel you will learn if an object with the bulk and size of a submarine is there. The Admiralty accept no guesswork from the hunters about their exploits; they must bring the brush to prove the kill.

With Admiral Crawford I went to see the submarine defences of the harbour. It reminded one of the days of the drawbridge to a castle, when a friend rode freely in and an enemy might try to swim the moat and scale the walls if he pleased.

"Take care! There is a tide here!" the coxswain was warned, lest the barge should get into some of the troubles meant for Fritz. "A cunning fellow, Fritz. We must give him no openings."

The openings appear long enough to permit British craft, whether trawlers, or flotillas, or cruiser squadrons, to go and come. Lying as close together as fish in a basket, I saw at one place a number of torpedo boats home from a week at sea.