CHAPTER XIV

THE EPIC OF ST. GEORGE’S DAY, 1918

“ ... Let a plain statement suffice.”--_Rudyard Kipling._

It may be well to emphasise at the outset that the forces which participated in the raids on Ostend and Zeebrugge on the night of April 22nd-23rd, did not set out with the mere intention of giving the world an exhibition of gallantry and dash--a sort of grim Naval and Military Tournament for the benefit of newspaper readers. The enterprise had three clearly defined military objectives: the first of which was the blocking of the Bruges ship canal at its entrance into the sea at Zeebrugge; the second, the bottling up of Ostend harbour from the sea; and thirdly, the infliction of the maximum damage possible in the time upon the enemy in occupation of these two ports. The casualties, considering the desperate nature of the undertaking, were light and scarcely to be compared with those along the British front during a single night of trench raids; and those among that gallant band of volunteers who did not return, died in the knowledge that they had added to history a page as fair as any the Navy has yet contributed.

The heavily fortified coastline between these two nests of the enemy forms the base of a triangle with Bruges at the apex, affording protection to a number of German torpedo-craft and submarines within easy striking distance of the British coast and commerce routes. The scheme adopted for sealing the two exits of this system was roughly as follows.

It was proposed that obsolete craft filled with concrete and manned by volunteers should proceed under their own steam and be sunk in the entrances of the canal opening into Zeebrugge harbour, and of the port of Ostend. A storming force was to disembark on Zeebrugge mole with demolition materials, bombs, and machine-guns, and destroy the seaplane sheds and other establishments. Simultaneously with the disembarkation of this force the viaduct connecting the curved arm of the mole to the mainland was to be blown up, thus preventing the enemy from despatching reinforcements to support the guns’ crews and defenders of the mole. While these assaults were in progress, a force of monitors and aerial bombing squadrons were detailed to maintain a furious bombardment by sea and air of all coastal batteries and works of military importance in the neighbourhood.

The broad outline of the plan having been decided upon, the necessary blocking craft were selected from the Knackers’ Yards of the Navy, ships whose names conjure up forgotten commissions in tropic seas and a Navy fast passing into legend. _Thetis_, _Intrepid_, and _Iphigenia_ for Zeebrugge, _Sirius_ and _Brilliant_ for Ostend. To carry the assaulting parties to the mole, H.M.S. _Vindictive_ was brought from distant waters, and two Mersey ferry-craft, the _Iris_ and _Daffodil_, were commissioned to pass down to posterity as her consorts in this desperate undertaking.

The ships were easier to select than the men. Invitations were sent to the Grand Fleet, the Home Port Depots, and the “Red” and “Blue” Marines to supply the requisite volunteers; the Royal Australian and Canadian Navies claimed their right to participate, and were also invited to send representatives. The response would have furnished a force sufficient to block half the ports of Germany had such an enterprise been contemplated.

Eventually, however, the selections were made, and the flower of the Sea Service set its hand to the task. Acting Captain A. F. B. Carpenter, R.N., was appointed in command of the _Vindictive_, Commander Valentine Gibbs, R.N., to the _Iris_, and Lieutenant H. G. Campbell, R.N., to the _Daffodil_. In these three ships the storming and demolition parties were to embark, and the latter was also charged with the duty of pushing the _Vindictive_ alongside the mole and holding her there if her specially designed mole-anchors failed to grapple.

The commands of the various blockships were distributed as follows: _Thetis_, Commander R. S. Sneyd, D.S.O., R.N.; _Intrepid_, Lieutenant S. S. Bonham Carter, R.N.; _Iphigenia_, Lieutenant E. W. Billyard-Leake, R.N. The officer originally placed in command of the last-named ship, and who actually superintended the early preparations of all the blockships, was Lieutenant I. B. Franks, R.N. After weeks of labour and indefatigable enthusiasm, this officer was laid low by appendicitis two days before the actual attack, and he had in consequence to be removed to a neighbouring hospital.

The two ships destined for Ostend, _Brilliant_ and _Sirius_, were commanded respectively by Commander A. E. Godsal, R.N., and Lieutenant-Commander H. N. M. Hardy, D.S.O., R.N. The attempt to block Ostend proved only partly successful, as it transpired, and on a later date Commander Godsal made a second effort to close the entrance that cost him his life. The _Vindictive_, patched and battle-scarred, was used for the second venture, and lies, at the time of writing, amid the silt at the entrance of Ostend harbour, a fitting monument to the sturdy spirit who took and left her there.

The Naval storming and demolition forces, under the command of Captain H. C. Halahan, D.S.O., R.N., and the Marine storming force under Lieutenant-Colonel B. N. Elliott, Royal Marines, were distributed between the _Vindictive_, _Iris_, and _Daffodil_. The Naval storming party was in charge of Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Harrison, R.N., and the demolition force under the orders of Lieutenant C. C. Dickinson, R.N.

Finally the two submarines which, filled with high explosive and manned by volunteers, were to be launched against the viaduct to blow it up, were assigned to Lieutenant Aubrey C. Newbold, R.N., and Lieutenant R. D. Sandford, R.N., and escorted by a picket-boat commanded by the latter’s brother, Lieutenant-Commander F. H. Sandford, D.S.O., R.N., who personally organised this most desperate coup.

An attack of this nature, involving the use of very light craft, smoke screens, air-craft, and a disembarkation alongside a pier in an open seaway, necessarily depended for success upon a variety of factors. Sea, tides, wind, and visibility all played their part, a conjunction of ideal conditions being such that it could only occur at rare intervals, and then by chance. The ships and men having been selected, and the entire scheme rehearsed, perfected, and elaborated, ships and men settled down to the long wait. The men in the front-line trench waiting to go “over the bags” are not expansive in describing their sensations. Something of that tense grim anticipation should have found a place on board those crowded ships. Nevertheless, a spirit of pure picnic appears to have reigned, coupled with a discipline maintained by the awesome threat of not being allowed to participate in the “show” when it came off.

The day came at length, and on May 22nd--St. George’s Eve--the force proceeded from its place of assembly and, escorted by destroyers and air-craft, passed up Channel. It was a brave and unusual array that swept to the north-east as the light faded from the sky. Modern destroyers steamed on the wings of the columns, one of which flew the flag of Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.V.O., the old _Vindictive_ in the van of the centre column with the _Iris_ and _Daffodil_ in tow, for all the world like veteran hound on the trail with her two puppies on her flanks; the five valiant blockships followed, each with specially detailed parties below stoking for all they were worth, that their old ships’ last voyage should be made at a seemly speed. A cloud of motor launches filled the waterways between the columns, and the two obsolete submarines, with their escorting picket-boat, proceeded in tow of destoyers.

Meanwhile, from far and wide below the misty horizon the storm was gathering. Monitors, supported by British and French destroyers, moved quietly towards their allotted stations preparatory to the attack. From the Grand Fleet’s eyrie in the far north to the base of the East Coast Striking Force, covering and supporting squadrons were under weigh as the night wore on. The destroyer flotillas swung into position like cats round a mouse-hole lest any of the enemy’s torpedo-craft should be tempted to bolt for the open when the attack began. The night air was resonant with the drone of aerial craft on the wing.

Once the motley little fleet stopped, while the surplus steaming parties were disembarked, with many a fierce hand-grip and the muttered “Good luck, mate!” that is the fighting man’s _Ave atque vale_! At the prearranged parting of the ways the force divided, steering separate courses for Ostend and Zeebrugge, where, under the respective commands of Commander Ion Hamilton Benn, M.P., R.N.V.R., and Captain Ralph Collins, R.N., the motor launches were already close inshore, trailing their smoke screens across the eyes of an uneasy and apprehensive enemy. A cloud of Coastal Motor Boats, under the command of Lieutenant Welman, R.N., had preceded them and were busily laying smoke floats and aids to navigation.

Half an hour before the Zeebrugge force arrived at its destination, star-shell began to curve skyward from the menaced harbour, fruitlessly searching the darkness and artificial mist that enveloped the mole and batteries. A little later, however, the wind (on which the smoke screen depended for its success) wavered, died down, and awoke lightly again from a contrary direction. Groping through the white billows of fog rolling back upon her, the _Vindictive_ came out into a clear space lit by star-shell, and saw, a cable ahead, her destination. A single gun on the mole opened fired with a bark like a challenge, and the next instant loosed a hellish uproar of guns from ship and shore. Through a tornado of shrapnel and machine-gun fire, Captain Carpenter brought his veteran command alongside the mole, and before St. George’s Day was a minute old the _Vindictive_, blazing defiance from battery and top, was grating against her fenders in the swell that surged across the outer wall.

According to the carefully thought-out scheme, Lieutenant Campbell in the _Daffodil_ thrust the bows of his ship against the _Vindictive’s_ quarter and held her bodily alongside, enabling the already splintered and shattered “brows,” or gangways, to reach the mole.

By this time the point-blank fire had taken heavy toll amid the closely packed ranks awaiting disembarkation. Colonel Elliot and Major Cordner, the two senior officers of the Royal Marine storming parties, and Captain Halahan, Royal Navy, were already dead. Commander Valentine Gibbs brought the _Iris_ alongside in the wake of the _Vindictive_ and endeavoured to grapple; Lieutenant Hawkins, R.N., reached the mole, secured the grappling anchor, and died. He was instantly followed by Lieutenant-Commander Bradford, R.N., who was swung from a derrick with a second anchor, and succeeded in securing it before he, too, was killed, his riddled body falling into the water. A number of his men laboured with fruitless devotion to recover his corpse, one, Petty Officer Hallihan, giving his life in the attempt.

No sooner had the two foremost brows been launched from the _Vindictive_ than the storming parties, led by Lieutenant Commanders A. L. Harrison and B. F. Adams, and Major B. G. Waller, Royal Marines, hurled themselves across. The men were burdened with Lewis guns, bombs, and demolition impedimenta; the scend of the swell caused the _Vindicitve_ to plunge heavily, and the brows rocked above a dizzy 30 feet drop, rising and falling as the ship rolled. Yet the landing was accomplished in the face of a gusty machine-gun fire that swept the face of the mole like the breath of Death.

The first stormers of the mole found themselves on a pathway about nine feet wide inside, and about four feet below the parapet of the mole. Two German destroyers were alongside the mole on the harbour side, but showed no activity, and the handful of the enemy found on the mole who subsequently attempted to regain these vessels were killed, the destroyers being liberally bombed. One of these craft was torpedoed alongside by a Coastal Motor Boat.

Followed by his men, Lieutenant-Commander Adams captured the look-out station on the mole, and was joined here by Wing-Commander F. A. Brock, R.N.A.S., who had come in search of certain information, risking the hazard of that bullet-swept mole to gain it. This gallant and public-spirited officer was missed shortly after, and not seen again.

In the meanwhile Lieutenant-Commander Harrison led a desperate rush to the westward against a machine-gun that was causing heavy casualties. He was killed at the head of his men, and all old Rugby Internationals will mourn that gallant forward who led his last rush to the muzzle of a German gun. Lieutenant-Commander Adams subsequently returned and searched for his body without avail amid the dead and litter of the shrapnel-spattered causeway.

Details of that wild brave hour’s work on Zeebrugge mole will doubtless come to us, as such details do, piecemeal in the years ahead; and many, all too many, will for ever go unrecorded. In all the dashing gallantry of that deathless assault none played a finer part than the Royal Marines, the Corps that wears a laurel wreath in its proud crest. And when the work was done and the syren eventually hooted the Recall through the din and crashing uproar of bursting shell, it was the Marines, shoulder to shoulder, who covered the retreat.

Of the retirement itself mere imagination tells enough to stir the blood and quicken a man’s heart. The enemy had concentrated the fire of every gun that would bear upon the mole and brows leading to the _Vindictive_: back through this savage barrage came the remnants of those gallant companies, reeling along with their wounded on their backs, to be struck down and to rise again and stagger on with their burdens, turning every now and then to shake bloody fists at the flaming docks and town beneath its pall of smoke....

The blockships in the meanwhile had made the entrance, and led by _Thetis_ crashed through the obstruction at the mouth of the harbour. _Thetis_, finding that her propellers were foul of wires and nets, and that she was rapidly losing way, signalled to her two consorts to pass to starboard of her by firing a green rocket. She then grounded, and riddled by gunfire from shore batteries and enemy craft in the harbour, firing on her at almost point-blank range, took a heavy list. Plastered with high explosives and gas, helpless and immovable, she nevertheless engaged the nearest shore battery with her forecastle gun until her own smoke made it impossible to continue firing. Engineer-Lieutenant-Commander Boddie fearlessly stuck to his post in the engine-room and succeeded in restarting one engine. This swung her head into the dredged channel of the canal, up which the _Intrepid_ and _Iphigenia_ had already passed cheering wildly and blazing fury from every gun. Here the _Thetis_ quietly sank. A motor launch under command of Lieutenant H. A. Littleton, R.N.V.R., who had followed devotedly at her heels, embarked the surviving members of the ship’s company and, turning, ran the gauntlet of the harbour mouth and regained the outer sea.

The _Intrepid_, on passing the _Thetis_, made for the canal mouth, which was clearly visible in the pale unearthly light of the star-shell. The enemy fire at this moment being concentrated on the upper works of the _Vindictive_ alongside the mole and the already disabled _Thetis_, _Intrepid_ was enabled to reach the mouth of the canal, where Lieutenant Bonham Carter calmly manœuvred her into position and fired the charges which sank her.

It will be remembered that the additional steaming parties carried by the blockships had disembarked before the ships neared the zone of operations. A number of _Intrepid’s_ party, however, determined to participate in the coming fight, had contrived to remain on board. These surplus ratings, with the whole of the _Intrepid’s_ crew, then coolly abandoned the ship in two cutters and a skiff. In these boats they rowed down the canal and were picked up in the harbour by a British destroyer and a motor launch in command of Lieutenant P. T. Dean, R.N.V.R. Lieutenant Bonham Carter, together with his First Lieutenant and Sub-Lieutenant, and four petty officers, remained behind to ensure that the ship was sunk properly. The seven then launched the Carley float, and in this unwieldy craft, lit by searchlights and with machine-gun fire spurting all round them, paddled calmly down the canal and across the harbour. They were also picked up by Lieutenant Dean, whose handling of the crowded motor launch under a withering fire, and blinded by searchlights, was described by Lieutenant Bonham Carter (whose standard of gallantry may be presumed to be no mean one) as “simply magnificent.”

This motor launch subsequently picked up the survivors of the _Iphigenia_, and succeeded in conveying her freight of over one hundred survivors in addition to her crew outside the harbour and alongside the destroyer flying Admiral Keyes’ flag. Of all the officers and men who formed _Intrepid’s_ ship’s company (and never surely was a ship’s name more happily chosen), only one man, Stoker Petty Officer H. L. Palliser, was killed.

H.M.S. _Iphigenia_, the third of the blockships to enter the harbour under heavy shrapnel fire, followed in the wake of the _Intrepid_. The steam-pipe of her syren was severed, enveloping the bridge in steam and rendered navigation no easy matter. She rammed a dredger with a barge in tow, crashed clear, and drove the barge ahead of her into the canal. Lieutenant Billyard-Leake caught sight of the _Intrepid_ aground with a gap between herself and the eastern bank, and manœuvred his ship into the vacant space. He then cleared the engine-room of its heroic complement, fired the sinking charges, and abandoned ship in the only remaining cutter. The motor launch that had already picked up _Intrepid’s_ crew dashed in to the rescue, finally backing out stern first (her bows being badly holed) and losing half her little complement of deck hands from machine-gun fire ere she reached comparative safety.

As has already been said, the _Brilliant_ and _Sirius_ failed to block Ostend completely, but were sunk where they grounded. The rescues of officers and men were effected by motor launches with the same fearless dash as was shown by the officers commanding these little craft at Zeebrugge. Lieutenant K. R. Hoare, D.S.O., R.N.V.R., embarked practically all the men from the _Sirius_ and sixteen from the _Brilliant’s_ whaler, sunk by gunfire. The remainder of the _Brilliant’s_ crew were taken off by Lieutenant R. Bourke, R.N.V.R.

After leaving the _Sirius_ an officer and a number of men were found to be missing; a Coastal Motor Boat, commanded by Sub-Lieutenant P. B. Clarke, R.N.R., with Lieutenant-Commander Hardy, R.N., and Lieutenant E. L. Berthon, D.S.C., R.N., on board, thereupon returned, boarded the ship under a heavy and accurate fire, and searched for their missing comrades. They found no signs of life in either ship, but the missing officer and men were subsequently picked up by a British cruiser thirteen miles out to sea, still pulling gamely.

The part played by the submarine which destroyed the viaduct, and by her attendant picket-boat, must not be overshadowed by the deathless tale unfolding in the bullet-whipped waters of the adjoining harbour, and along the bloodstained parapet of the mole. It is deserving of a Saga all its own, but until that is written, the tale is best told simply, halting though the prose. Owing to a breakdown, only one submarine reached Zeebrugge, under the command of Lieutenant Sandford, R.N. The mole was sighted silhouetted against the blaze of guns and searchlights: and under a heavy fire of 4-inch shell the craft, with her cargo of high explosives, was launched at full speed at the rows of piers supporting the viaduct. She struck at right angles, riding up on to the horizontal girders and penetrating up to the conning-tower. The crew then launched the skiff, ignited the fuses, and pulled clear, while a company of riflemen on the viaduct above opened fire upon them with machine-guns, rifles, and pompoms. They continued pulling against a strong tide, and although nearly all were wounded (Lieutenant Sandford twice) and the boat only kept afloat by use of a specially designed pump, succeeded in getting about 300 yards clear before the explosion took place. As was anticipated, a gap of 150 feet was blown in the viaduct: concrete, girders, men, guns, and searchlights being hurled to the skies in a column of flame. The attendant picket-boat then swooped down and rescued the occupants of the skiff, transferring them later to one of the destroyers in the offing. The rescue was carried out under most hazardous conditions, and the little steamboat, manned by a crew of volunteers, with her fore compartment full of water, returned to England under her own steam, and thus completed a journey of 170 miles.

One British destroyer which lost herself in the smoke, found herself, when a gust of wind blew the smoke clear, well inside Zeebrugge harbour; she had time, however, to discharge all her torpedoes at the vessels alongside the mole before she was disabled by shell fire. She struggled a couple of hundred yards outside the entrance to the harbour and lay there a helpless log, sinking fast. A sister destroyer, under command of Lieutenant-Commander H. E. Gore-Langton, R.N., swooped down upon her and circled round until she was enveloped in smoke, under cover of which the crew were disembarked. Attempts were made to take her in tow, but the hawser was twice shot away. Her Captain, Lieutenant-Commander K. C. Helyar, R.N., remained on his shattered bridge to the last, and only abandoned her when she was sinking under him.

Back across the Channel as the day was breaking came the _Vindictive_, _Iris_, and _Daffodil_, their task accomplished, and their names flashing proudly to the uttermost outposts of the Empire.

Commander Valentine Gibbs, R.N., who had been struck by a shell while the _Daffodil_ was getting clear, died during the passage, but recovered consciousness before the end to ask faintly if all went well. They eased the passing soul with the assurance that all had gone very well; and in that comfortable knowledge his brave spirit fled.

The dawn broadened into day and lit the smouldering docks and debris-strewn mole and the motionless outstretched figures still lying where they fell. It lit the shell-torn upper works of five of His Majesty’s ships which had finished their last commissions: _Thetis_, _Sirius_, _Brilliant_, _Intrepid_ and _Iphigenia_, lying at the gates of the enemy that none might pass out.

To these, at a later date, was added the _Vindictive_, and though in time the enemy may dredge and blast the passages clear, though weed and rust will creep over the battered hulls, something will long remain for a testimony of the achievement; something--because of the blood which once stained the splintered decks--

“That is for ever England.”

EPILOGUE

The shadows were lengthening across the smooth lawns and terrace, and the rooks in the elms behind the stable buildings had begun their evening wrangle for roosting-places when the Ford car came rocking and hooting up the avenue.

“Just as well we didn’t go to meet ’em,” murmured Aughtlone on the threshold of the entrance hall, smiling above his half-rolled cigarette. “I don’t see much of the place these days, but I’m expected to hold to speed limits and consider my tenants’ nerves on the King’s highway when I _am_ here. Lorton, of course, is an outlaw by instinct”--Lorton was the chauffeur. “He’s been enjoying himself. To-morrow I shall be requested to restock the poultry yards of four villages and subscribe largely to the cottage hospital, after his devastating passage.”

Brakespear, sitting on the top step with his arms about an aged setter, chuckled softly. “You always had a veneration for the law, Tony,” he said, “even in the far-off days when we were cadets and discussed the theory of war----” He raised one finger. “Hark! That’s Jerome. I recognise his dulcet tones.” He stood up shading his eyes. “They’re all there--Mayhew, Longridge, Foster; where’s Jerome? I can hear him.... Oh, there he is! At least, there are his feet sticking up out of the stern-sheets. We’re going to have our dinner-party after all, Tony.”

The car swung round the last curve with a splutter of gravel, and slowed down as it approached the door. The occupants of the back seats appeared to be engaged with a struggling object in the bottom of the car, but gradually the turmoil subsided, and four flushed, grinning faces appeared over the side. The car stopped and the passengers emerged, disentangling suit-cases, fishing-rods, and golf-clubs from the rugs. The chauffeur sat like a graven image with the expression of a man who has done his best to instruct and entertain an audience without hope of either recompense or acknowledgment on this side of the grave.

“_Nous sommes arrivés_,” crowed the stout Jerome, still panting from his exertions; together they passed through into the lofty panelled hall in a babble of chaff and laughter. “The stars in their courses fought for us. We are reunited, my children, after--how many years is it? Very clever of you to arrange it.” “Tony,” said another, “that chauffeur of yours flicked your old bus along to some tune. He’s a star-turn.”

Aughtlone nodded resignedly. “He’s supposed to be suffering from shell-shock and a piece of shrapnel in the apex of the heart. You wouldn’t somehow suspect it, would you? Bag anything?”

“Only a hen,” said Foster, surrendering his suit-case to the butler and exploring amid decanters and a siphon on a side table. “D.D.[5] She lost her nerve and tried to nip across the road. Say when, Jerry....”

The stout one accepted the long tumbler. “Thanks.... Heigh-ho! Very nice too.... Yes, that was all the damage.” He contemplated their host over the rim of his glass. “You appear to own half the county, Tony---- don’t grudge us a hen.”

“I grudge you nothing,” replied Aughtlone. He surveyed his guests affectionately. “It’s so jolly good getting you all together like this--at least, all of us that are----”

“Quite ...” said Foster, with a sudden note of seriousness in his tone.

“You look hot,” said Brakespear, changing the conversation, himself immaculate in white flannels, with sleekly brushed head.

“All very fine for you to talk,” said the fat man with the eagle of the Navy-that-Flies on the sleeve of his monkey-jacket. “Only crossed over from Dunkirk this morning by the destroyer. Fell in with these--Thugs at Waterloo, and spent the best part of the journey under the seat.”

“We had to strafe him,” explained Longridge. “Twice in the train and once in the car. He would try and kiss his hand to all the loveliest of God’s creatures we saw.”

Their host groaned. “What was she like--the last one, I mean?”

“In a governess cart,” said Mayhew, “with two kids and a pink hat.”

The Flying Man put down his glass. “The pink hat may have been hers,” he said, “but I’m blowed if----”

“No,” said Aughtlone quickly. “No, they’re her nieces. That’s the vicar’s daughter. ‘Mr. Jerome, you’ll get me ’ung,’ as Harker used to say.”

“Not ’tall,” said the graceless one. “She was much too busy looking after the fat pony to notice _us_. ’Sides----”

Mayhew glanced at his watch. “What time’s dinner, Tony? Because what I’d like to do is ‘strip right down an’ ’ave a barf. I can’t really talk till I’ve had a tub.”

“Me too,” chimed in Longridge. “Chops and I have come straight down from the Northern Base, travelling all night.”

The host pressed the bell. “Loads of time. Dinner’s not for another three-quarters of an hour. Have a cigarette and tell us about the Great Silent Navy. Remember, I’m only a dug-out East-coast Minesweeper--a humble country squire masquerading as a naval officer--and I want to hear about things. There wasn’t a Grand Fleet when I retired.”

“How long leave have you got, Tony?” asked Foster.

“A fortnight,” replied Aughtlone, and turned as the butler reappeared. “Hughes, take Mr. Mayhew and Mr. Longridge along presently and sand-and-canvas them. They can share one bathroom, and that’ll leave room for us. A fortnight,” he resumed, and extending his cigarette watched the steady smoke ascending. “Blown up last Tuesday, and thought it was a fair excuse to put in for some leave and fix up this dinner.... Nerves, you know, and all that.” He smiled.

“Of course,” said the fat man. “Very tryin’ work. We dropped six tons of explosives on Zeebrugge Monday night, and lost two machines. I got my leave all right though, thanks to a twitching eyelid.” He surveyed the company with an unmoved countenance. “Nerves are the devil unless you take ’em in time; and I’m getting old....” He chuckled fatly.

Hughes appeared on the threshold with the announcement that the baths were ready. He had known and suffered gladly most of that laughing assembly off and on for the past decade. “Put a nice cake of dog-soap in each one, Hughes,” said Brakespear, “and have their clothes baked.... They’re trying to come the ‘Back to-Blighty-from-the-Trenches’ on us, these heroic figures from the Battle Fleet and Battle Cruiser Fleet. Ask ’em to tell you about the Battle of Jutland, Hughes.”

* * * * *

Dinner, with the mellow candlelight half revealing the portraits of bygone Aughtlones on the walls, had reached the duck-and-green-peas stage when Retrospection laid a cold finger on the mind of the Battle Fleet’s representative. “Very nearly thought our leave was going to be kyboshed,” he observed to Longridge.

“Last Monday? Yes, so did I. Directly we got the steaming signal I thought all was over. We didn’t know the battleships were out till we got to sea: heard you chatting to the Admiralty on the H.P. wireless wave, and then we thought there was something on.” The Battle Cruiser Wireless Expert chuckled. “After a bit the Hun woke up and started bleating, and we got scraps of Telefunken from the south, mixed up with pats on the back to our destroyers from the Admiralty.”

The youngest modern destroyer commander in the service moved uncomfortably in his chair.

“And in the morning ‘Peace, perfect peace’ from the flagship and ‘Back to harbour,’” said the gunnery lieutenant from the Battle Fleet. “The usual weary stunt. You bagged a Zepp, though, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Inquisitive blighter. You’d have enjoyed that.”

“Twelve-inch?”

“Shrapnel.”

“Ah,” said Jerome complacently, “that was our little show. Glad you all enjoyed yourselves.”

“Yes,” cut in Brakespear quickly, “you flushed ’em very nicely down south that night. We Destroyers had a very pretty little dust-up.”

“What did you do, Jerry?” asked Aughtlone. “We all seem to have been more or less mixed up in the affair--Foster, were you embroiled?”

The Minelayer chuckled. “Indirectly,” he said, “but nothing very spectacular. We’ve usually got home and tucked each other up in by-bye when the fireworks start, in _our_ line of business!”

“Come on, Jerry,” said Mayhew; “what did you do in the Great War, daddy?”

“Well,” said the stout one, suffering Hughes to replenish his glass, “well, personally, I didn’t do a hell of a lot that night. But the--what d’ye call it?--cumulative effect wasn’t too bad. That was the night they sprang a new stunt on us. Things that looked like balls of fire--red-hot liquid stuff. I got a lump on my fuselage and it ran down the plane and dripped off--like phosphorus streaming off the blade of an oar in the dark.... I had a 530-lb. bomb tucked under my seat and I was nervous.... I’m getting old, anyway. Dam’ nearly thirty.”

“Start at the beginning,” said Aughtlone hungrily.

“No, no,” interrupted Longridge in a low voice. “Let him tell it in his own comic way. Jerry always begins somewhere near the end.”

The stout one assumed an injured expression. “What’s wrong? I _am_ starting at the beginning.... We went up along the coast. I took a squadron of ’planes: Flight Leaders: two Canucks, a New Zealander, and an Oxford undergraduate who’d lost his young woman in the _Lusitania_ and didn’t care if it snowed ink: a Yank who’d been in Belgium when the Huns started what he called ‘getting gay’--newspaper reporter or something--and a Yorkshire dog-fancier--a quirk,[6] but full-out. They were all full-out, as a matter of fact: good lads, especially the Yank.” The narrator paused. “He’d seen a baby in a butcher’s shop--in Liège, I think it was. The Huns had cut its hands off and hung it on a hook.... He was not so much a scientific bomber, really, as zealous. Very zealous.... I lost the quirk, and one of my Canucks, but the other got back all right.”

“Alpha and Omega,” cut in Foster. “The beginning and the end. Now, Jerry, let’s have the story.”

“Hang it, I’ve told you the story. You know the rest, anyhow. I dropped my contribution to the gaiety of nations, and the lock-gates went. There were half a dozen destroyers in harbour, and they got the wind up them and bolted for the open sea----”

“That’s when _we_ nabbed ’em,” said Brakespear. “They were trying to nip for Ostend, and they put up a very pretty little scrap, thanks, Jerry. We Destroyers were waiting outside.”

“Not ’t all!” said the Flying Man modestly; “we’d had all the fun we wanted. There was a squadron of Handley Pages there, and some French machines, and they made the oil-tanks look like Cities of the Plain before they went home.” He turned to Longridge. “’Member the review at Spithead before the war--when they had that searchlight display, all the beams whirling round in the sky? You dined with me that night.”

Longridge nodded. “I remember. We went on deck to watch the performance.... It made me sick,” he concluded naïvely.

“Well,” said Jerome, “I looked back over my shoulder on the return journey, and thought of that night at Spithead. The sky looked like a huge Catherine wheel. We made a photographic reconnaissance next day....” he clucked softly with his tongue against his teeth. “Tony,” he said, “that place looked like your face would if you got small-pox after fighting ten rounds with Jack Johnson without gloves.”

“Thank you,” said his host. “Simile seems to be your strong point to-night.”

“It’s the drink,” said Longridge. “He develops a graphic style if you leave the decanter near him and don’t interrupt.”

“Where did you catch ’em, Brakes, you and your precious T.B.D.’s?” asked Foster. “We were going home when the fun started. Laid our eggs early and decided that the quiet life was the thing that really appealed to us.”

“Close in,” was the reply. “One Division cut ’em off and the other waited for ’em. It was a well-organised little show.” He laughed. “Ever since that show of the _Broke’s_ every mother’s son in the Destroyer Force walks about with a fire-bar down the leg of his trousers--so as to have it handy, don’t you know.... My foremost guns’ crews spend their dog-watches sharpening their cutlasses on their razor-strops and making knuckle-dusters: ... the sailor is nothing if he isn’t thorough.

“Well, that night we picked out our opposite number by the name of his funnels, and I put my old hooker at him, an’ rammed him, full bore. Caught him rather far forward--farther than I meant to, but good enough for the purpose. It was like cutting cheese with a hot knife.... Then of course the matelots went berserk. I saw the gunner’s mate go over the side on to her forecastle, lugging a maxim with him and howling like a dervish at the head of a crowd that looked as if they’d rushed out of a pirate junk instead of a respectable British destroyer. My yeoman of signals borrowed my automatic pistol, and sprayed it about till I wrenched it away from him for fear he’d hit one of our men. The sub was clawing at her ensign with a party of die-hards round him laying about them with cutlasses like characters in a Shakespearian play, and to add to the excitement the watch below in the engine-room, who had just been relieved, were slinging scalding cocoa over the rails into the Huns’ faces.” The speaker wiped his mouth, after an interval for refreshment. “I’m still hoarse with laughing and bawling at the gunner’s mate not to start easing off the maxim into the crowd. And if you could have seen ’em lugging prisoners over the rail, and the Huns trying to pull them back by their feet--like a lot of demented people pulling crackers across a table! Lord! I shall never forget it if I live to be a million.

“Then she sank--just fell in half and went down. I had half my ship’s company in the water, as well as the Huns. They were just like a lot of fighting dogs after a hose had been played on them. Lucky the Hun hadn’t got a submarine about, because I had to stop and pick ’em all up. Another Hun destroyer had been torpedoed not far off, and was burning like a hayrick. She enlivened matters by taking ‘sitters’ at us with her after-gun while she sank, so I had to silence her first, and by the time I got the last of my Death-or-Glory boys out of the water they were pretty far gone. I asked one fellow how he’d enjoyed himself, and he said, ‘Law, sir, fine! We was flickin’ off their ’eads wiv the cutlass, same’s it might ha’ bin dandelions!’”

“Take many prisoners?” asked Aughtlone, laughing.

“Fifty-one, _and_ their flag. The sub told me he wanted to present it to the ‘Goat’ or Westminster Abbey, wasn’t sure which. Some of the Huns were pretty nearly done, and my surgeon probationer had a busy time getting life back into one or two. He carried them down to the stokehold and worked at ’em in the warmth. While he was down there, the sub came up to me and said there was another in the forecastle lockers, pegging out, he thought; so when things got quiet, I went along to see if I could do anything. He was just about all-in, but he had strength enough to put out his tongue at me----”

“Saucy puss!” from Jerome.

“He was clay cold, and no amount of rubbing would warm him, so I told a couple of braves to carry him down to the doctor in the stokehold. The Hun just knew enough English to catch the word ‘stokehold,’ and he thought I’d ordered him to be shoved into the furnace for putting out his tongue at me. Imagine the sort of minds they must have.”

“Their officers tell ’em those penny-dreadful stories to discourage a tendency to surrender,” said Foster.

“Well, it saved his life, anyway, that spasm. He yelled and fought and bit and kicked. It took five men to get him along the upper-deck, and all the way he was shouting: ‘Ach, no! No!--No!--No!--No!’ at the top of his voice. By the time we got him to the stokehold hatchway he’d recovered all the animation he’d ever had, and there wasn’t any need for the doctor!”

“What was the total bag?” asked Mayhew.

“Four--one rammed, two torpedoed, and one sunk by gunfire by the light cruisers. There were six all-told.”

“But,” interrupted Longridge, “doesn’t it rather tickle you to think of our being able to wipe the floor with their destroyers and not a blessed capital ship dares come out of Wilhelmshaven to save ’em! There we were in the Battle Cruisers, trailing the tail of our coat all round the Heligoland Bight, and--nothing doing, if you please. Ain’t that what’s called Sea Power?”

“Hum’m,” said Foster, and chuckled. “I don’t know about Sea Power: I’m only a humble Minelayer. But this may throw some light on the situation.” He drew a pocket-book from his pocket. “I saw a translation of a paragraph from a Dutch paper in the press this morning. I cut it out to send my skipper in case he hadn’t seen it.” He handed the slip to Aughtlone. “I thought it would cheer him up.”

“The crew of the---- Lightship report that at 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning a number of very heavy explosions occurred in a southerly direction. In several cases a sheet of flame was seen to ascend to an altitude of at least 150 metres. One of the men who had passed through the North Sea on the night of the Battle of Jutland stated that he recognised the flashes as from big ships blowing up.”

Aughtlone read the cutting aloud, and handed it back. “That was your dirty work, was it?”

The minelayer laughed. “Act o’ God, we like to call it,” he said. “Or in the words of that beautiful poem:

“The boy, oh, where was he?”

Aughtlone joined in the laughter. “That’s all very fine,” he said, “but didn’t any of your lighthouse friends further north observe my little contretemps later on in the morning? But perhaps they wouldn’t notice a mere minesweeper blowing up.” He removed the stoppers from the decanters and pushed them to Mayhew on his left. “That Zepp you were talking about evidently gave the tip that you were out to a mine-laying submarine, because we located a minefield on what would have been the Battle Fleet’s course if you’d come south. I lost a paddler clearing it, and got a swim before breakfast.”

“How did you know the minefield was there?” asked Longridge.

“Dutch ship blew up. ‘Matter of fact, she blew up on a stray one. I went to the position she’d given us, and before we started sweeping we were on top of Fritz’s eggs which he’d intended for you. Ah, well, we raked ’em up and I got my leave, so we won’t bear Fritz any malice this time.” He paused, glass in hand.

“The King,” he said quietly.

“The King,” murmured the others. “Yes, I got my leave out of that night’s work, too,” said the destroyer captain. “Rather damaged our classic profile, and had to dock for a few days to straighten the stem....”

Beyond the open bay windows the blue dusk was closing down on the yews and scented borders. The long, deep drone of a cockchafer went past and died to nothing.

The host sent the decanters on their second round and leaned forward a little in his chair.

“It’s been jolly nice to see you dear old things again,” he said, “and talk over the War, as we swore we would some day when we were kids.” He paused. “And now there’s a toast I vote we drink. He--he’d have been here if this dinner had been a month earlier. As it is----” he raised his glass--“we can only drink to his memory.”

No name was mentioned. They nodded; drank gravely, in silence and perfect comprehension.

Brakespear, facing his host, broke the silence. “I saw him a couple of days ago,” he said quietly.

“Eh?” ejaculated Jerome sharply.

“But,” said Foster, “his boat was lost--oh, more than three weeks ago.”

Brakespear nodded. “I know. But they salved her and brought her in, near where my ship was lying. Dacre--the submarine one, not his brother--went on board to make an examination and--and take the bodies out. So I went too, because he and I--I was very fond of him....” Brakespear reached for the cigar lighter.

“What happened?” asked Mayhew. “We never hear any details of these things up north.”

“Well, they got holed and sank stern first apparently. Stuck in the bottom. However, they managed to stop the hole up with clothing and tallow and stopped the inrush of water: but they couldn’t move the boat. Blew everything and shifted weights, but she wouldn’t budge. Then the first lieutenant volunteered to go out through the bow torpedo tube. They tied a message to his wrist and he crawled into the tube: they fired it with compressed air, as if he’d been a torpedo. They waited for a couple of hours, and then someone opened the tube door, just to make sure.... But he was still there--jambed....”

The butler entered with the coffee, and the narrator was silent till he had gone.

“You know the foremost hatch in those boats, for lowering torpedoes?” he resumed. “Apparently they decided to try getting a big air pressure in the boat, then open this hatch and chance being blown through to the surface in the bubble.” The speaker puffed a cloud of smoke and watched it eddy about the flowers in the centre of the table. “So they stripped and put on swimming collars and life-belts, and mustered two-deep under the hatchway.”

Longridge was tracing a pattern in the ash from his cigarette on the side of his dessert-plate. “All of ’em?” he interrupted. “Shouldn’t have thought there was room.”

“No there wasn’t. There wasn’t room for _him_ or his coxswain. We found those two fully dressed, without life-belts or anything, right the other end of the compartment away from any hope of escape. But he wrote his report, giving clear and explicit directions for salving, amongst other things, and tied it to the second coxswain’s wrist.... Then when they were all ready he gave the word--from the other end of the compartment--and the men all heaved the hatch up together.”

Behind the speaker’s shoulders the blue oblongs of the windows had darkened into blackness. A nightingale far off among the laurels was pouring out her liquid song into the night, and for a while Brakespear seemed to be listening to it, twirling the stem of his wine-glass absently between finger and thumb. No one spoke.

“It was one of those stupid little accidents,” he went on presently, still in the same low, grave tones, “a thing so utterly insignificant, that stood between Life and Death for them. Yet it happened. The hatch opened about six inches and jambed. They could neither raise nor lower it. The water just poured in.”

“Drowned ’em,” said Longridge tensely. The superfluity of the remark seemed to strike him. “Of course,” he added, as if talking to himself.

“Yes.”

“And they were still two-deep when you found them?” asked Foster.

“Yes. There must have been perfect discipline from first to last. And his letter----”

The speaker’s voice caught abruptly, as a trailing garment catches in a nail. The ensuing silence remained unbroken till Aughtlone slowly pushed back his chair.

“I vote we go and have a game of pool,” he said quietly.

* * * * *

The hall clock chimed one on a thin scandalised note as the candle-lit procession wended its way bedwards up the wide stair-way. It was one of the Aughtlone traditions that the old house should remain lit by lamps and candles.

Aughtlone led the way, and, as he reached the gallery overlooking the hall, he turned, smiling, and raised his candle above his head as if to light the way better for his guests. They came towards him by ones and twos, Jerome encircling Foster’s neck with his arm and crooning softly to himself, a picture of Falstaffian contentment: Mayhew, with one hand on the balustrade, looking back over his shoulder to address some laughing remark to Longridge at his heels; Brakespear bringing up the rear, grave and thoughtful as was his wont, his thin, handsome face white as ivory against the dark panelling.

“Hi, Podgie!” called Mayhew, “ain’t they goin’ to make you a Major-General in the Air Force, or something? What’s all this talk about amalgamating the R.N.A.S. and R.F.C.?”

The Flying Man reached the landing and disentangled his arm from his companion. “I shall be a Lieutenant-Colonel,” he said. “A Lieutenant-Colonel--me, what’s been in the Navy, man and boy, these fifteen years.” He frowned severely at an armour-clad effigy against the wall. “Amalgamate----”

“Never mind,” said Foster. “Never mind, Podgie, _we_ don’t care. We shall know you couldn’t help being a Lieutenant-Colonel, and that you belonged to the Navy once.”

“He’ll always belong to it,” said Mayhew. “He’s only camouflaged, and one of these days he’ll come back to us. The Navy ain’t like any other profession: you can’t suddenly become something else by dressing up in a different rig”--he pointed to the effigy in armour--“any more than I’d cease to be a Gunnery Lieutenant if I shoved on that fellow’s superfine tin suitings.”

“This,” said Longridge, “is developing into a ‘Branch-kagg.’[7] I’m going to turn in.”

“Breakfast at ten!” shouted the host as Longridge detached himself from the group and disappeared up a corridor.

“And, anyhow,” said Brakespear, “even if our Podgie fades away, to become a Lieutenant-Colonel in a gorgeous uniform----”

“Sky-blue, ain’t it, Podgie?” interposed Aughtlone. Brakespear disregarded the interruption.

“Even if, I say, Podgie departs from our midst, the Navy remains. And if I--even I--go up in the next ‘Jutland,’ or Foster trips over one of his infernal machines accidentally in the dark----”

“Or I get wafted skywards clearing a mine-field next week,” said Aughtlone.

“Exactly.... Others would take our places. The individual doesn’t count.--Podgie, you’re dripping candle-grease on Tony’s ormulu carpet....”

“I’m going to bed,” said the stout one. “You’re all getting a trifle maudlin....”

Foster yawned. “I’m going too. But Brakes is right. What’s it matter what happens to us as long as we shove the wheel round a spoke or two in our short trick?” He wagged his head solemnly. “Life’s dev’lish short, anyway.... Come on, Podgie. ‘And so to bed.’ ... ’Night all!”

Aughtlone watched the twin glimmers fade away down the long corridor and turned to his last remaining guest.

“We’re a tongue-tied breed,” he said. “We’ve been trying to voice some tremendous sentiment that’s been struggling for expression all the evening, and----”

“It’s had us beat,” said Brakespear. He made a circle in the air with the wavering candle-flame. “It’s too big. We’ve all seen so much in this bloody war, collectively.... We feel that we are the Navy and the Navy is us; yet, somehow, we don’t count much as individuals.”

“It’s because we’re finite,” said Aughtlone. He leaned against the carved balustrade that swept round and up into the darkness of the great house, and stared absently at the mailed figure standing in the shadows: the light of the candles flickered on hauberk and vizor through which the breath of some forgotten ancestor had once come and gone. “The individual passes----”

“Yes,” said Brakespear. He took a step along the thick carpet and halted. “But the Navy’s eternal.”

FINIS

_Printed in Great Britain by Hasell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “Belly-muster,” as its name gracefully implies, was a parade of lightly clad suspects in procession past the sick bay while the lynx-eyed surgeon scanned each brisket for traces of incipient chicken-pox rash.

[A] The chapter bearing this title was written before the passing of the Air Force Act. It is included in this book “without prejudice,” as the lawyers say.

[2] _The Riddle of the Sands._

[3] White mice were carried in the early types of submarines to give warning, by their antics, of an escape of gas.

[4] By the ancient custom of the Navy a defaulter removes his cap when his case is investigated by the captain.

[5] Discharged Dead. The official notation of death in H.M. Navy.

[6] A novice.

[7] An argument as to the comparative merits and demerits of the respective branches of H.M. Naval Service.