CHAPTER VI
YANK BOAT _versus_ U-BOAT
It was the turn of the tide and the turn of the day on the "quiet waters of the River Lee." Pale blue columns of smoke rose above the verdant boskiness which masked the squat brown cabins where the peat fires smouldered, and along the straggling stone wall which crowned the ridge the swaying heads of home-returning cows showed intermittently against the glowing western sky. The peacefulness of it was almost palpable. You seemed to breathe it, and could all but reach out with the hand and touch it.
It permeated even to the long lines of lean destroyers in the stream, and it was the subtly suggestive influence of it which had deflected homeward the minds of the motley-clad sailors who were lounging at ease about the stern of the first of a "cluster" of three of these--like a sheaf of bright multi-coloured arrows the trim craft looked, with the level rays of the setting sun striking across them where they lay moored alongside each other--and set tongues wagging of the little things which, magnified by distance, loom large in the imaginations of men in exile.
They were deep in the "old home town" stuff when I sauntered inconsequently aft on the off-chance of picking up a yarn or two, but as there appeared to be no one present from my part of the country, no immediate opportunity to break in presented itself. Equally an outsider was I when the flow of discussion turned to woollen sweaters and socks and mufflers, and the golden trails of romance leading back from the names and messages sewed or knitted into them.
No fair unknowns had ever sent _me_ any of these soft comforts, and after I had heard a lusty youngster from Virginia tell how a "sweater address" he had written what he described as a "lettah that was good and plenty w'am, b'lieve me," replied that she was "jest goin' twelve years," and that her mother didn't think she ought to be thinking of marriage just yet--after that I didn't feel quite so bad over not having had a chance to open one of these "woolly" correspondences. There was some solace, too, in hearing a pink-cheeked young ex-bank clerk tell how the "abdominal bandage" (they name them, as a rule, after the garment that starts the correspondence), with whom he had exchanged something like a dozen letters of cumulative passion, brought the affair to a sudden and violent end by some indirect and inadvertent admission which showed that she remembered when Grant was President.
But when the talk drifted, as it always does in the end, to baseball and baseballers, I knew that there was going to be an opening for me presently, and stood by to take advantage of it. A three-year absentee from the bleachers, I was not sufficiently up on last season's pennant race "dope" to do more than make frequent sapient observations on this or that big-leaguer's stickwork or fielding as he was mentioned; but when they began to discuss, or rather to wrangle over, for discuss is far too polite a term, the theory of the game and to grow red in the face over such esoterics (or "inside stuff," to put it in "Fanese") as how and when a "squeeze" ought to be pulled off, I showed them the bulbous first joint of the little finger of my right hand--which there is no other way of acquiring than by the repeated telescopings of many seasons on the diamond--and was welcomed at last on equal terms. A seat was offered me on a depth-charge, across the business end of which an empty sack had been thrown to prevent a repetition of what came near happening the time a stoker, who was proving that Hans Wagner could never again be a popular idol now that we were at war with the Huns, punctuated his argument by hammering with a monkey-wrench on the firing mechanism.
They were not as impressed as they should have been when I told them that I learned the game under the tutelage of the mighty Bill Lange (this, of course, because the incomparable "Big Bill" was at his zenith long before their time); but they were duly respectful when I said I had played three years' Varsity baseball, and became quite deferential when I assured them I had also survived a season of bush-league in the North-West. There was some kind of electrician rating in the crowd who had been a bush-league twirler before his "wing went glass," as he put it, and he, it soon transpired, had played in one place or another with a number of my old team mates of the Montana League. Deep in reminiscence of those good old days, I quite forgot my subtle scheme of using baseball as a stalking-horse for destroyer yarns, when the arrival of some callers from a British sloop lying a mile or two farther down the harbour recalled it to me. They had been in the _Moonflower_, the man next me said, when she put a U-boat out of business not long before, and one of them--he had some sort of decoration for his part in the show--spun a cracking good yarn about it if you got him started. This latter I managed to do by asking him how it chanced that the _Moonflower_ was allowed to sport a star on her funnel. The story he told, the while he rolled cigarettes and worked his jaws on Yankee chewing-gum, revealed rather too much that may be used in some future surprise party to make it possible to publish just yet, but it had the desired effect of turning the current of reminiscence U-boatward. That was what I wanted, for, now that men from several other destroyers had come aboard and sauntered aft to join the party, the opportunity for finding out at firsthand just what the American sailors thought of the anti-submarine game at the end of a year and a half of it was too good to be missed.
There was a considerable variety of opinions expressed in that last hour of the second dog-watch on the intricate inside stuff of the anti-U-boat game, just as there had been about baseball, but there was one point on which they were practically agreed: that Fritz, especially during the last six months, was not giving them a proper run for their money. This is the way one of them, a bronzed seaman gunner, with the long gorilla-like arms of a Sam Langford, and gnarled knots of protuberant muscles at the angles of his jaws, epitomized it: "We sees Fritzie, or we don't. Mostly we don't, for he ducks under when he pipes our smoke. If he's stalkin' a convoy there's jest a chance of him givin' us time for a rangin' shot at him on the surface. Then we waltzes over to his grease and scatters a bunch of 'cans' round his restin'-place. An' if the luck's with us, we gets him; an' if the luck's with him, we don't. If we crack open his shell, down he goes; if we jest start him leakin', up he comes. Only dif'rence is that, in one case, it's all hands down, and in t'other, all hands up--'Kamerad!' In both cases, no fight, no run for our money. Now when we first come over, an' 'fore we'd put the fear o' God into Fritzie's heart, he wasn't above takin' a chance at a come-back now an' again. _Then_ there was occas'nal moments of ple'surabl' excitement, like the time when"--and he went on to tell of how an enterprising U-boat commander slipped a slug into the _Courser_ abreast her after superstructure, and "beat it" off before that stricken destroyer had a chance to retaliate. Only the fact that, by a miracle, the torpedo failed to detonate her depth-charges saved the _Courser_ from destruction, and even as it was, rare seamanship had been required to take her back to port. And he also told of the unlucky _John Hawkins_, which a U-boat had actually put down, and the grim situation which confronted the sailors when they found themselves sinking in a ship which carried a number of depth-charges set on the "ready." But all that, he said, with the air of an old man speaking of his departed youth, was before they had begun to learn Fritzie's little ways, and before Fritz, perhaps as a consequence, had begun to lose his nerve. Now, far from being willing to put up a fight with a destroyer, it was only "once in a blue moon that he's got the guts to put up a scrap even to save his own hide."
A slender fair-haired lad, with a quick observant eye which revealed him as a signalman even before one looked at his sleeve, cut in sharply at this juncture.
"Then there must have been a blue moon shedding its light over these waters last month," he said decisively. "I quite agree with you that Fritz hasn't got the nerve--or it may be because he's got too much sense--to take a chance at a destroyer any more. But in the matter of putting up a fight for his life--yes, even for giving a real run for the money--well, all I can say is that if you'd been out on the _Sherill_ about three weeks ago, you wouldn't be making that complaint about one particular Fritz at least. If going eighteen hours, with two or three destroyers and a sloop or two doing everything they know how to crack in his shell all the time, without chucking his hand in, and very likely getting clear in the end--if that isn't putting up a fight for life and giving a run for the money, I don't know what is."
I had heard this astonishing "battle of wakes and wits," as someone had christened it, referred to on several occasions, but had never had the chance to hear any of the details from one who had had anything like the opportunities always open to a signalman to follow what is going on. "Most of the bunch have heard all they want to hear of it already," the lad replied with a laugh when I asked him to tell me the story; "and, besides, a more or less long-winded yarn of the kind I suppose you want would tire 'em to tears anyway. If you really want to hear something of it, come over to the _Sherill_ (that's her stern there, just beyond the _Flossie_) any time after eight bells. I go on watch then, but it's a 'stand easy' in port, and there'll be time for all the yarning you want."
I closed with that offer at once, and eight bells had not long gone before I had picked my precarious way over to the _Sherill_, and climbed the ladders to her snug little bridge. My man was there already, whiling away the time by rewriting an old college football song (he had been in his freshman year at Michigan when America came into the war) to fit destroyer work in the North Atlantic. I found him stuck at the end of the second line of the first verse, because the only rhymes he could think of for flotilla were Manila and camarilla, neither of which seemed sufficiently opposite to be of use, and he was rather glad of an excuse for putting the job by to await later inspiration.
I gave him a "lead" for the U-boat yarn he had lured me there to hear, and he launched into it at once. This is the story the young signalman of U.S.S. _Sherill_ told me, the while the red squares of the cottagers' windows blinked blandly along the bank in the lengthening twilight and the purple shadows of the western hills piled deeper and duskier upon the "quiet waters of the River Lee."
* * * * *
"We were out on convoy," he said, speaking the first words slowly between the teeth which held the string of the tobacco sack from which the gently manipulated paper in his hand had been filled. "It was some kind of a slow convoy--probably a collier or an oiler or two--and there were only two of us on the job--the _McSmall_ and the _Sherill_. It was just the usual ding-dong sort of a drudge up to about four in the afternoon of the first day out, when the _McSmall_ made a signal that she had sighted a submarine on the starboard bow of the convoy, distant about five miles, and immediately stood off to the west to see if anything like a strafe could be started. She was more than hull-down on the horizon when I saw, by the way the angle of her funnels was changing, that she was manoeuvring to shake loose a few 'cans' into the oil-slick she had run into, but I remember distinctly that I felt the jolt of the under-water explosions stronger than from many we had kicked loose from the _Sherill_, and which had detonated only a hundred yards or so off. It's just a little trick the depth-charge has. The force of it seems to shoot out in streaks, just like an explosion in the air, and you may feel it strong at a distance and much less at fairly close range. So far as we ever learned, this opening salvo did not find its target.
"Meanwhile the _Sherill_ was escorting to the best of her ability alone. Or at least we thought we were alone. About half an hour after the _McSmall_ had laid those first 'cans,' however, one of the quartermasters reported sighting a periscope on the port quarter of the convoy, about five hundred yards distant, and headed away. We signalled its presence to the convoy, turned eight points to port, and drove at full speed for the point where the wake of the moving finger had pinched out.
"We had received a report that morning to the effect that two submarines were operating in these waters, and there is just the chance, therefore, that this was a joint attack. Everything considered, however, we have been inclined to believe that the Fritz we were now starting to make the acquaintance of was the same one which the _McSmall_ was still assiduously hunting some miles off to the westward. It was a mighty smart piece of 'Pussy-wants-a-corner' work, shifting his position like that under the circumstances; but it was quite possible if the Fritz only had the guts for it, and that I think you'll have to admit this particular one had.
"It's seconds that count in a destroyer attack on a U-boat, and the captain hadn't lost a tick in jumping into this one. The dissolving 'V' which the ducked-in periscope had left behind it was still visible in the smooth water when the _Sherill's_ forefoot slashed into it, and it was only a few hundred yards beyond that a slow undulant upcoiling of currents marked, faintly but unmistakably, the under-water progress of the game we were after. There was no oil-slick, understand, because an uninjured submarine only leaves that behind--except through carelessness--when it dives after a spell on the surface running under engines. Then the exhausts cough up a lot of grease and oil, and a layer of this, sticking to the stern, leaves a trail that rises for some little time after submergence, and which almost any kind of a dub who has been told what to look for can follow.
"The spotting of the surface wake of a deep-down submarine, and the holding of it after it almost disappears with the slowing down of the screws that make it, is quite another thing. _That_ takes a man with more than a keen eye--it takes instinct, mixed with a lot of common sense. It's a common thing to say of a successful look-out that he has a 'quick nose for submarines.' The expression is used more or less figuratively, of course; and yet the nose--the sense smell--is by no means a negligible factor in detecting the presence, and even the bearing, of a hunted U-boat. I will tell you shortly how it figured in this particular instance.
"That wake was swirling up so strong when we struck it that it was plain the submarine was still only on the way down, and it was no surprise when, a few seconds later, the distinct form of it was visible, close aboard under the starboard side of the bridge.
"I don't mean that it was distinct in the sense that you could see details such as the bow or stern rudders, or even the conning-tower, but only that a moving cigar-shaped blob of darker green could be plainly made out. The for'ard end was rather more sharply defined than the after, probably because the swirl from the propellers made uneven refraction about the tail. It was doubtless a good deal deeper than it looked, and the fact that it could be seen at all must have been almost entirely due to the fact that the absence of wind left the surface quite unrippled.
"The appearance of the submarine abreast the bridge was our cue to get busy, and I won't need to tell you that we went to it good and plenty. We were primed for just that kind of an emergency, and we slapped down a barrage in a way that looked more like chucking coppers for kids to scramble after than the really scientific planting of high explosives that it was. For a minute or two the little old _Sherill_, dancing down the up-tossed peaks of the explosions, jolted along like the canoe you are dragging over a 'corduroyed' portage. Then the going grew smooth again, and under a hard-over right rudder we turned back rejoicing to gather in the sheaves. Yes, it looked quite as simple as harvesting on the old home farm, and it didn't seem that there could be anything left to do but to go back and pick up with the rake what the mower had brought low. And so it would have been on an ordinary occasion, which, unluckily, this was not. From the first to last, indeed, it was quite the contrary.
"The whole map of that little opening brush was spread out before us as we came back, and almost as clearly, for the moment, as though modelled in coloured clay. The _Sherill's_ wake, though it had obliterated that of the submarine, coincided with the tell-tale swirl of the latter we had followed, while the round patches of spreading foam made the dizzily dancing buoys temporarily superfluous as markers of the spots where the depth-charges had exploded. Like every other story that is writ in water, this one was rapidly dissolving; but, from all that we needed to learn from it, the record was as complete as a bronze relief.
"That there was to be another chapter to the story became evident before we had doubled back half the length of that part of the wake we had sprinkled with 'cans.' At about the point where two-thirds of that sheaf of depth-charges had been expended a clearly defined wake of oil and bubbles turned sharply off to the left. The presence of that little trail cleared up several important points right then and there without following it any farther, though I will hardly need to tell you that we didn't drop anchor to hold a court of inquiry over it. The vital thing it told us was that--strange as it seemed--our under-water bombardment had not sent the U-boat to the bottom, nor even injured it sufficiently to compel it to come to the surface. But that it was injured, and probably fairly badly, was proved by the wake of oil and bubbles. Don't ever let any one delude you with that yarn about the way Fritz sends up oil and bubbles to baffle pursuit. There may be circumstances under which he could work that particular brand of foxiness with profit, but if there is one place where you could be sure he would _not_ try anything of that kind on, it is when a destroyer has got his nose on his trail, with her eye and ears a-cock for just that kind of little first-aid to 'can-dropping.' For a submarine voluntarily to release air or oil when a destroyer is ramping round overhead would be just about like a burglar scattering a trail of confetti to baffle the pursuit of the police. Fritz is as full of ways that are dark and of tricks that are vain as Ah Sin, but--with the hounds at his heels--nothing so foolish as that oil and bubble stunt of popular fiction.
"The first few of the 'cans' had evidently burst near enough to this Fritz to buckle his shell and release the oil and air, but his sharp right-angled turn to the left had taken him quite clear of the last of the charges, which had only been thrown away. Wounded and winged as he appeared to be, the next thing in order was to polish him off. Slowing down slightly, the captain steadied the _Sherill_ on the wake.
"As we passed the point where this was rising, the rate at which it was extended gave the approximate speed of the U-boat, and the fact that this was not above three knots seemed only another indication that all was not well with him. Holding on past the 'bubble fount,' we passed over the point below which the U-boat must have been moving, but now he was so much more deeply submerged than before that no hint of his outline was visible on either side. We knew he was there, however, and when we hit the proper place shook loose another shower of 'cans' over him.
"There is nothing deeply mysterious about the calculations in dropping depth-charges, for in no sense of the term can it be called an instrument of precision. Indeed, it is of the bludgeon rather than the rapier type. If you have a wake to guide, you approximate his speed and course from that, guess at his depth, set the charge at the corresponding depth from which you judge its explosion will do most good, and then, allowing for your own speed and course, release it at a point which you reckon the target will have reached by the time the charge gets down on a level with it. It is something like bomb-dropping from an aeroplane, only rather less accurate, because you don't see your target as a rule.
"This is more than compensated for, however, by the greater vulnerability of its target and the fact that the force of an under-water explosion is felt over a wider area than that of an air-bomb. That's about all there is to it. Success in 'can-dropping' depends about half on the skill and judgment of the man directing it, and about half on luck. Or perhaps I should say that fifty-fifty was about the way it stood when we started in at the game. Naturally, as we have accumulated experience, skill and judgment begin to count for more and luck for less, though we are a long way from reaching the point where the latter is eliminated entirely.
"Again we circled back to pick up the pieces, and again we found only a wake of oil and bubbles angling sharply off from where the 'cans' had been dropped. It was encouraging to note that both oil and bubbles were rising faster than before, but there was surprise and disappointment in the fact that they were now streaming along at a rate which indicated Fritz was hitting an under-water speed of six or seven knots.
"By now it was plain what his method was, however. This was to steady on his course till his hydrophones, which all U-boats are fitted with, of course, told him we were bearing down on him, and then to start making 'woggly' zigzags. The captain was doing some deep thinking as we headed in for the next attack, and I noticed him following his stopwatch with more than usual care as he jiggled off the 'cans.'
"One of the detonations had a different kick from the others, and I was just speculating if it had been a hit, when up comes Fritz, rolling like a harpooned whale.
"We were just turning sharp under left rudder and, not wanting to take any chances, the captain gave orders for all guns fearing to open fire. No. 1 and No. 2 of the port battery got off about five rounds apiece, and when the splashes from the exploding shells had subsided Fritz had gone. It looked like a hundred to one that we had finished him--until we ran into another of those darn wakes of oil and bubbles reeling off at a good five or six knots.
"Again we 'canned' him, and again the thickening trail of grease gave promise that, if nothing else, we were at least bleeding him hard, perhaps to death. As there was no doubt that he was still a going concern, however, the captain decided on a change of tactics, to try attrition, so to speak, instead of direct assault.
"There is, of course, a limit to the number of 'cans' a destroyer can carry, and those which still remained he wanted to husband against a better chance to use them with effect. The several remaining hours of daylight would be enough, if the U-boat could be kept running at maximum speed, to exhaust its batteries in and force it to come to the surface for lack of power to keep going submerged. A submarine, you understand, unless it can lie on the bottom, which was impossible here on account of the depth, must keep under weigh to maintain its bouyancy, so it follows that the exhaustion of its batteries leaves no alternative but coming up. That was what we were now driving at with this one.
"About this time, hearing the radio of the _Cushman_ close aboard, the captain sent a signal requesting her help in clearing up the job in hand. She hove in sight presently, accompanied by the _Fanny_, which was out with her on some special stunt of their own. They had an hour to spare for us, and in that time we played just about the merriest little game of hide-and-seek that any of our destroyers have had with a Fritz since the Yanks came over.
"He wasn't left time to sit and think for a single minute. Now a destroyer would come charging up his wake from astern and shy a 'can' at his tail; now one would ambush him from ahead and try and have one waiting where his nose was going to be.
"It was a good deal like when three or four of us kids used to spear catfish in a muddy pool. We were always grazing one, but never quite getting it. And, believe me, the wake of one of those catfish didn't have anything on the wake of that Fritz for sinuosity.
"He was zigzagging constantly, and just after charges had been dropped on him he twice broached surface. It was only for a few seconds though, and never long enough to offer a target for even a ranging shot. Once we tried to ram, but he turned as he submerged, and the forefoot cut into nothing more solid than his propeller swirl.
"After the _Cushman_ and _Fanny_ left us to resume their own job the _Sherill_ took up the chase again on her own account. There were still about three hours to go till dark, and two of these we spent in keeping our quarry on the jump by every trick we knew. Then we stood away, and gave him a chance to come up and start charging on the surface. When it finally became evident that he was not going to take advantage of our consideration on this score, we closed in again, picked up his wake, sent down another 'can' or two to tell him what we thought of him.
"The last of these must have been near to a hit, for it brought up oil bubbles three feet in diameter, with smaller bubbles of air inside of them. The oil-slick left behind by his wake was so heavy that, even in the failing light, it was visible for several miles. He was now making about five knots. We followed that broad slick of oil for some time after darkness had fallen, and it was not till a little before midnight that we lost it.
"There wasn't much hope of regaining touch before daybreak, but on the off-chance the captain started circling in a way that would cover a lot of sea, and yet not take us too far from the centre of interest.
"It was a little after one in the morning that one of the look-outs--perhaps 'sniff-outs' would be a better term under the circumstances--reported an oil smell to windward. The captain promptly ordered her headed up into the wind, with sniffers stationed to port and starboard, fore and aft. Every man on watch was sniffing away on his own, of course, and you can bet it would have been a funny sight if there had only been enough light for us to see one another in. Nosing--I can use the term literally this time--slowly along, turning now to port, now to starboard, as the oil smell was strongest from this side or that, within ten minutes we picked up a slick which, even in the darkness, it was evident was trending to south'ard. For an hour and a half we zigzagged up along that wake, keeping touch by smell until just before three o'clock, when the new well-risen moon showed it up distinctly to the eye. No," answering my frivolous interruption, "I don't recall noticing at the time that it was a _blue_ moon.
"Ten minutes later we came up to where the wake turned to south-westward, and had a brief glimpse of Fritz trying to evade detection by running down the moon-path. He was plainly near the end of his juice, and taking every chance that offered to charge on the surface. He ducked under before there was time for a shot, but, knowing that he could hardly stay there for long, we continued following down his wake.
"It was broad daylight when, at half-past four, we sighted him again, running awash about five hundred yards ahead and slightly on the starboard bow. Ordering the bow gun to open fire, the captain put the _Sherill_ at full speed and headed in to ram. The shots fell very close, but no hit was observed.
"He turned sharply to port, preparing to dive. We tried to follow with full left rudder, but missed by twenty feet. His conning-tower and two periscopes showed not over thirty feet from the port side as we swept by. It was too close for a torpedo, nor was there a fair chance for a depth-charge. The port battery was opening on him as he submerged.
"The strengthening breeze began kicking up the surface about this time, making it difficult to follow the wake. It was six o'clock before we circled into it again, to find that Fritz was now trying to blind pursuit by steering his course so that the wake led away straight toward the low morning sun. It was probably by accident rather than design that his now reversed course also laid his wake across some of the zigzags of his old oil-slick. At any rate, between that and the sun, we got off the scent again, and did not get in touch till an hour later, when a thin blue-white vapour to the eastward revealed the blow-off of his exhaust where he had resumed charging on the surface.
"He was a good five miles away, but we turned loose at him with the bow gun and started closing at full speed. At almost the same time, the British sloop _Moonflower_--the same one we were talking about this evening--stood in from eastward, also firing at the enemy, who was about midway between us.
"Fritz disappeared under the foam-spouts thrown up by the fall of shot, and, although two more destroyers joined in the hunt, which was continued all that day and on to nightfall, no further trace of him was discovered. Even if he did not sink at once, the chances are all against his being in shape ever to get back to base. But just the same," he concluded, with a wistful smile, "it would have been comforting to have had something more tangible than the memory of an oil smell and thirty-six hours without sleep as souvenirs of that little brush."
* * * * *
It had been dark for an hour where the waters of the River Lee were streaming seaward with the ebbing tide, but the tree-tops along the crest of the eastward hills were silvering in the first rays of the rising moon. The signalman was looking at it when I bade him good night and started down the ladder to the main deck.
"I hope it isn't a blue one," he said with a grin; "we're expecting to go out again tomorrow."