Part 11

And so the invitations were accepted--all, that is, except two, and they were two very old people, and the preparations were duly made, and 8.30 p.m. saw a crowd of fifteen young gentlemen in Sam Browne belts collected in Raymond’s room, drinking their liqueurs and smoking their cigars with the air of war-worn warriors. There was a certain amount of noise in the room as well, in fact it filled up most of the odd spaces where the aforesaid young gentlemen were not sitting, but matters were moving, and a ‘submarine attack’ was developing.

Boyd was dangling in mid-air from the end of a line thrown round a stout hat-peg and made fast to the bed rail (he had to be the periscope after all), and an arrangement of chairs and whatnots represented the diving rudder wheels and other control-room etceteras. A little way off Seagrave stood by an arm-chair, to whose back was fixed an ingenious arrangement, whose principal ingredients were pillows and a length of rubber tubing. The spectators sat where they could, and prepared to learn the methods of attack as demonstrated by a submarine expert.

At an order from Raymond, a young gentleman with a single star upon his cuff went through the operation of starting the motors, mimicking the gestures of the L.T.O. working the switches at the motor-board. The captain then gazed fixedly between Boyd’s dangling boots and gave the order, ‘take her down.’

Everybody groaned, hissed, and hooted, while a youth in shirt sleeves splashed water in a basin to represent the wash of the sea over the conning-tower. Two others manipulated the diving wheel chairs, and the hands on the face of a broken clock were gravely moved on in imitation of the depth-gauge.

‘A thousand feet,’ said Raymond. ‘Hold her at that, idiot. Oh, hell, she’s leaking.’ This as the basin worker upset half his water. ‘Blow 40 and 50. Shake it up now. That’s better. Oh, down, periscope,’ and Boyd was lowered to the floor gasping.

‘Right now, up to thirty feet. Work that depth-gauge, ass. Up periscope. Heave him up, never mind if he kicks. Ha! Enemy bearing two points on the starboard bow. Steady that helm, idiot. Steady, I say. That’s right. Eighteen feet. Flood the tubes.’

‘Flood the tubes,’ cried Seagrave, getting busy with his arm-chair. ‘Come on now. Bear a hand there. Tubes flooded, sir, and firing-tanks charged. Swing the bow-cap.’ (Another youth shot through air.) ‘That’s the style. Now we’re doing something. All ready, sir.’

‘Steady the helm. Down periscope. Thirty feet,’ continued Raymond. ‘Easy now, eighteen feet again. Up periscope. Steady that helm now. Carefully does it. Ahhhh. Don’t kick us, Boyd. Stand by.’

‘Stand by, sir.’

‘Easy now. Ready to take her down. Deflections 400. Look out there; look out again and we bump her. Now once more and ... Fire!’ and a pillow shot out of the catapult device like a feathery cannon ball and bowled over a rather dignified if youthful captain amid howls of delight.

‘Eighty feet,’ shouted Raymond; ‘take her down, men, quick now. Oh, hell! we’re rammed,’ and the whole room rose and fell on itself in a kicking and struggling mass.

‘Here, I say you fellows,’ cried the irate army captain. ‘This is a bit thick. I’ve got decent clothes on. You are a lot of ... of Submarine Toughs.’

He was dragged to his feet and dried and brushed (there had been a good deal of water floating about, ‘to make it more realistic,’ as Seagrave put it), and his ruffled feelings were restored with whisky. Then the party disappeared to tidy itself for the dance, and ten minutes later the seekers after submarine knowledge trickled down to the drawing-room where the ‘Submarine Toughs’ were waiting to receive the ladies, looking very angelic and innocent in spite of the recent _mêlée_.

The ladies arrived, and the dance opened with a waltz banged out of the patient if wheezy old hotel piano by the gushing Miss Bored Stiff, and ten couples took the floor with great gusto, while the manager alternately held up his hands in horror and beamed benevolently on the revels. The waltz was followed by a set of lancers, and the game got really going. Supper was much in evidence, and Sam Browne belts and dark blue and gold dashed about with ices and claret cup, and picked up fans and wrote things on programmes and generally did the gallant.

And so, Miss Bored Stiff played, and the girls giggled, and the mothers beamed, and even a few of the fathers, terrifying people, were sufficiently melted to accept a drink, and the evening wore on and everybody enjoyed themselves. The young gentleman in khaki, with the thin gold stripe on his sleeve, danced with the girl in the red sash four times, and the Army Captain acted as steward till he lost his rosette, more by design than accident, and hurled himself into the two-step like a three-year-old. Then the mothers gathered their bairns about them, and ‘good-nights’ were exchanged, and the fathers remained and gave expert opinions about the war, and listened with deference to the expert opinions of others who two years before they would have considered babes-in-arms, and every one went happily to bed.

But no one knew of the revels held in the Petty Officers’ Mess that night to which the Sergeants of the local defence force and their ‘good ladies’ had been invited, or of how the coxswain and the T.I. danced attendance on the Master Gunner’s daughter, or how Hoskins so far forgot his dignity as to perform a step dance much to the edification of the guests and the admiration of the entire engine-room staff.

These things are secret, and the veil is never lifted ... in public, for the next day work had to be carried out in the Service manner, and every one was his usual staid and former self.

And that’s another of the unwritten rules that pertain to the Laws of the Navy.

* * * * *

And then the final spasm when two days later the escort Destroyer swung out of the harbour and ‘123’ followed her, laden with kit and belongings and spare parts, and containers, and a host of minor matters purchased for less fortunate comrades in the _Parentis_. Out through the dock entrance and past the harbour heads, and Darlton and that dockyard and the Royal Hotel were left behind, perhaps for good and ever. And the Destroyer zig-zagged and the Submarine puffed behind and was examined by trawlers and patrol-boats, and anchored for the night, and the following day arrived off the base once more and the familiar scenes of work and the old routine. As they stopped alongside the _Parentis_ in the late afternoon they were met by the ward room _en masse_ and hurried off to gin and bitters to celebrate their arrival. The parcels were distributed and blessings given and curses hurled over the contents, while Raymond and the skippers talked ‘shop’ over the alterations and work of the re-fit. But there was something missing, and it came out later after dinner when the juniors had cleared off and the seniors sat round in solemn conclave.

‘Yes,’ said Carruthers, staring into the empty grate. ‘About two weeks ago it was. Much the same show as Shelldon’s, I expect. Just went out and didn’t come back. Hard luck, but he wasn’t married. A lot of his men were, though. And old Blake was always so cheery, too.’...

The ward room nodded and lapsed into silence. Somebody coughed and picked up a magazine. Then six bells struck and the _Parentis_ went to bed.

ACTION

I saw a Line of Battleship a-followed by a prize, ’Oose capture wur a matter easy done; The Gunners ’eld their fire till they saw each other’s eyes, And raked her fore and aft with every gun. Eh! it couldn’t ’ave been every gun as did it? I’m speaking of a ’undred year ago; An’ if we didn’t rake ’er, ’ow in ’Eavens _did_ we take ’er, For we adn’t got torpedoes down below?

I saw a Fleet of ironclads a-shelling of a town, Which let us ’ave it lively from a fort, Till a little British ‘lay-me-true’ ran in and did ’em brown, While most of us lay off and watched the sport. Eh! it couldn’t ’ave been just one ship as did it? I’m speaking now of forty year ago; We’d iron on our uppers and steam and patent scuppers, Though nowadays you might a’called it slow.

I ’ear there’s been an action, for the Germans come at last, With submarines and aereyplanes an’ all; But when our Battle Squadron come they run so ruddy fast We ’adn’t time to open up the ball. And yet I can’t make out the way they do it, I’m speaking now o’ thirteen months ago, They come out for to beat us, but when the beggars meet us, They scuttle back before they’ve struck a blow.

But, Grandpa, don’t forget, you’ aven’t _seen_ the British Fleet, Nor been aboard a Dreadnought in your life, And a modern Battle Squadron is a nasty thing to meet, And a Cruiser ’as a fore-foot like a knife. So, can’t you even guess the way we did it? It only ’appened ‘bout a year ago, The Battle Cruisers caught ’em, and the Dread-ohs nearly taught ’em When darkness fell and spoilt our little show.

THE REAL THING

The patrol had not been a very interesting one so far, and nothing out of the way had happened. Moreover, it was the first that ‘123’ had made since her return to duty, and at the end of a day at sea the crew were already slipping back to the familiar routine. They had just finished lunch and had been diving since four in the morning, and nothing had occurred to break the monotony of the usual underwater stillness. There was no indication of what was going to happen, and the men off watch were stretched out in the battery compartments putting away a little over and above their ordinary allowance of sleep, while the control room was tenanted solely by the second coxswain at the planes, and the helmsman, who was biting his nails and staring into the gyro repeater. Faint gurgles came now and again from the vents, and occasionally the steering chain rattled, but otherwise there was scarcely any noise. Behind the green curtains Raymond and Seagrave were reading magazines, and Boyd was asleep in the little box-shaped upper bunk. The indicator of the Forbes’ log gave a click and announced another mile completed, and the master compass hummed its continuous tune to itself as it buzzed happily round.

It was Seagrave who saw them first. He had brought the boat up to eighteen feet and taken the customary wary look round the horizon, and the coxswain was surprised that he got no order to ‘take her down again.’

Seagrave came in quietly from the control room and tapped his skipper on the shoulder.

‘Will you have a look through the periscope, sir?’ he asked.

Raymond looked up sharply.

‘Yes, all right,’ he answered, and stepped through into the control room where the coxswain watched him with curious eyes as he peered through the lens.

Presently he lowered the instrument.

‘Keep her at eighteen feet,’ was all he said as he rejoined Seagrave in the ward room.

‘Do you think it’s anything, sir?’ the latter asked eagerly.

‘Yes, I think it is. Call Boyd.’

Together they pored over the chart, and the situation was explained to the navigator, who did mysterious things with parallel rulers, and finally announced that they must be coming from ‘there,’ which was a well-known German base.

Raymond nodded, and went back to the periscope, where he remained silent for several moments. Away on his port bow the rim of the horizon was broken by three tiny smudges of smoke, one behind the other, which were coming towards him over the glassy calm sea, and would eventually cross his bows. He took a careful bearing, and noted that the shapes of slender hulls were forming below the smoke blurs before he lowered the periscope again.

‘Diving stations,’ he ordered.

‘Diving stations,’ repeated Seagrave, tingling with anticipation, and ‘diving stations’ echoed the coxswain, springing to life from a heavy slumber in the after battery compartment.

There was no particular haste and no noise at all. Few of the crew, with the exception of the coxswain and one or two old campaigners who had been with Raymond up the Marmora, had ever made a serious attack before, but for all that there was no excitement: this was what they had been waiting and training for for years, and now it had come. Rather there was an atmosphere of pleasurable anticipation and quiet confidence that the captain would do the right thing. They knew their lives were in his hands. He was the only man who could see the enemy, and if he made a single mistake ... but then he wouldn’t make a mistake, and it was their job to carry out his orders and see that others did so. In two minutes the crew were at diving stations, the L.T.O.’s at the motor-boards, Seagrave and the T.I. at the tubes, the coxswains at the diving wheels, and the remainder at their various posts of Kingstons and vents. Forward a couple were whispering together about some previous experience, another man grinned sheepishly, and then Raymond’s voice broke the silence.

‘Destroyers. Three of them. German all right. Flood the tubes.’

The order was passed forward by Boyd and echoed by Seagrave from the electric lit recesses of the fore-end. They were in earnest now, and this was the real thing.

‘Up periscope,’ came Raymond’s voice again, and as the instrument slipped upwards he bent down and slowly straightened himself with his eye at the lens.

‘Boyd,’ he cried from the control room, ‘they’re steering nor’west and bearing 160 deg. Time 1.10 p.m.’

‘Ay, ay, sir,’ replied the navigator, notebook in hand.

With the air-manifold Hoskins was blowing water from the fore-trim into the tubes, and forward they were watching the gauges. A hiss and a spurt of water and the E.R.A. shut off the blow and mopped his brow with a piece of dirty waste.

‘Down periscope. Steer south-west,’ in the incisive tones of the captain.

‘Firing tanks charged, sir,’ came Seagrave’s voice from forward. ‘Tubes flooded.’

‘Ay, ay,’ called Raymond.

It was all so sudden. Ten minutes ago and they had all been sleeping peacefully or keeping a monotonous and familiar watch. And now, in another ten minutes? Well, rats in a trap might have a better chance ... if anything went wrong.

‘Up periscope,’ came the captain’s voice again. ‘Keep a steady course. Bearing 215 deg., Boyd. Stand by.’

‘Stand by,’ called Seagrave from forward. Then, as the valves and cocks were opened, ‘All ready, sir.’

All eyes were glued on the gauges and meters.

‘When I fire dive to sixty feet,’ broke in Raymond. ‘What’s her depth? Keep her down, man. Steady. Oh, damn! he’s seen me. Fire!’

As the boat shook to the release of the torpedo, the coxswains buzzed their wheels round, but owing to the sudden alteration in weight the boat wouldn’t answer quickly.

‘Saw the wake of the periscope in this flat calm,’ went on Raymond, more to himself than the crew. ‘Oughtn’t to have attacked. Take her down, I tell you. They’ve altered course to ram, and they’re firing at us. Oh, hell! Flood the auxiliary. Quick, now. Down periscope.’

As the auxiliary Kingston and vent came open the boat began to feel it, and dived quickly. At fifty feet a roaring noise overhead like a train passing through a tunnel announced that one of the Destroyers was passing over them, and at eighty feet an explosion, which shook the boat to her internals, announced that the enemy had dropped a depth-charge above them, and that they had gone down none too quickly.

The lights went out. Somewhere the shock had parted a lead, and for two horrible moments they went in pitch darkness plunging down to the bottom of the sea.

‘What water is there, Boyd?’ came the captain’s steady voice from the control room.

‘Twenty-five fathoms, sir,’ the navigator answered out of the darkness.

‘All right. Hold her up, coxswain.’

‘Ay, ay, sir. Can’t see the depth-gauge.’

Then they struck. Struck the bottom at 150 feet, with a slight cant downwards at a speed of five knots.

Mercifully the L.T.O., groping through the darkness, got to the emergency switch, and the spare lights came on just in time.

‘Stop the motors,’ called Raymond. ‘Is the bow-cap closed?’

‘Closed it as soon as we fired, sir, and drained the tubes,’ answered Seagrave.

‘Good. I fired as the leading Destroyer turned to ram. Missed, of course, but she was firing at us, and she’d have rammed us if we hadn’t got the mouldies off. She had to alter course for them, and as it was that depth-charge was pretty close.’

‘Depth-gauge jammed, sir,’ reported the coxswain. ‘68 lb. pressure on the periscope gauge.’

Raymond frowned. His quick dive to avoid destruction, coupled with the sudden obscuring of the lights, had landed him in an awkward situation. The boat had struck bottom with her motors under weigh, and had stuck her nose in the mud with 150 feet of water above her. The external pressure was 68 lb. to the square inch, and three watchful Destroyers were up above.

For a moment he thought they might have the grapnels on him, and a wild picture of having to come up and surrender flashed across his mind. But the men were watching him, and he knew what he ought to do.

‘Is the forward depth-gauge jammed?’ he called.

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Boyd. ‘Only goes to a hundred feet. It’s hard up.’

‘Right. Blow the buoyancy.’

The small tank was blown out, and in so doing it was put to almost its tested strain (it was guaranteed to 75 lb.) without any result. Then came the order:--

‘Group up. Astern both.’

‘Grouped up, sir,’ from Furness, as he brought the switch over and started the motors. It was just like ordinary practice dives, and he watched his ammeters with as much detachment as if nothing out of the way had taken place.

But nothing happened and the motors were stopped. ‘123’ was stuck hard and fast, and an uneasy feeling came over the captain. Seagrave was in the control room by now, and Boyd was making notes on the chart. Had they got the grapnels on him after all? No, of course not, they couldn’t have....

‘Blow the auxiliary.’

The big tank was emptied, and the boat should have had about eight tons of buoyancy and risen like a cork. But still nothing happened, and the gauges remained jammed and the pressure was still 68 lb. to the square inch. Forward somebody coughed, and the T.I. could be heard getting two of the spare torpedoes ready to load into the empty tubes.

‘Group up. Astern both,’ came the order again.

For a moment there was still no result. Then suddenly she shook herself clear from the jamb, and rushed up to surface like an empty bottle. The depth-gauge in the control room was out of action, but the forward one was working again, and Boyd sang out the readings as the boat rose.

‘Stop both,’ cried Raymond. ‘Ahead both. Hard a dive. Flood the auxiliary.’

‘Gauge reading, sir,’ called Boyd, ‘100 feet, and coming up fast.’

‘Hold her, coxswain,’ said Raymond.

‘Ninety feet, sir. Eighty feet, seventy, sixty,’ called Boyd. ‘Still rising fast, sir.’

‘Can’t keep her down, sir,’ jerked the coxswain over his shoulder.

‘Damn!’ remarked Raymond. ‘She’s too light still. Flood the buoyancy.’

But the tank in question had just been blown at 68 lb. and had a big pressure in it. It filled but slowly, and Boyd’s voice continued monotonously from the fore compartment,--

‘Forty feet, sir. Thirty feet. Still coming up. Twenty feet, rising fast. Ten feet. Surface.’

The auxiliary was flooding and nothing more could be done. With the periscope about six inches, Raymond lay on the deck and peeped through the lens.

‘All right, they’re a mile astern. Seen us, of course, and are coming for us. Get her down quickly.’

Then the auxiliary took effect, and the boat went down quickly, but in hand. Once more the Destroyers, all three of them this time, were heard passing over the top, and at a hundred feet a muffled explosion astern told where a depth-charge had exploded harmlessly. At 120 Raymond steadied her, and kept her at that level.

‘And that’s that,’ he said, after the boat had got her trim and the coxswains could manage her easily. ‘So much for that. I oughtn’t to have attacked in a flat calm; they were bound to see me.’

‘How far off were they when they spotted us?’ asked Boyd.

‘About a thousand yards. The leader opened fire and came for us. That was just before I fired. He’d have had us otherwise. I bet they’re rushing all over the place now on the look out. Let’s have a look at the chart.’

‘I think I’ll put the periscope up in an hour,’ he continued, ‘and have another smack if there’s a chance, but we’d better put her on the course for home all the same, 285 deg. it is. Then we can sit on the bottom when we get into 12 fathoms if necessary. How’s the battery?’

‘12.10 and 12.06, sir,’ answered Seagrave.

‘Hum, not bad. We’ve got enough amps.[17] for another attack, but it’ll mean legging it afterwards for shallow water and sitting on the bottom till dark. Better wait for another hour, though; they’ll be very much on the alert just now.’

Forward, Seagrave and the T.I. were making the necessary adjustments to two of the spare torpedoes, and a little later on launched them into the tubes. A few minor adjustments of trim had to be made by-and-by (they were on full fields and only doing about two knots), and presently Seagrave reported that they were ‘all ready forward again.’

The depth-gauge in the control room had been put right and was showing a steady 120 feet, far down out of the way of depth-charges and other unpleasantnesses, and the time dragged slowly on.

‘Shook me a bit when we came right up that time,’ remarked Raymond. ‘I made sure we were done in and was just waiting for the bump. When I got my eyes at the periscope they were about a mile astern, rushing round in circles. It wasn’t very healthy up there for a bit.’

‘I thought we should get it all right,’ put in Seagrave, ‘coming up to the surface like that. What was the matter?’

‘I had to blow a good drop of water to get her out of the mud. Then she came up with a rush and the tank wouldn’t fill quickly enough.’

‘Those blessed lights going caused all the trouble. It’ll be all right in a few minutes. The lead went where it comes through control-room bulkhead. Must have made the boat jump when that old bomb went off.’

‘Crowded five minutes,’ remarked Boyd. ‘However, all over and no one dead yet.’

‘It’s all right for you,’ said Raymond grimly. ‘But I’ve just wasted two torpedoes and over £2000 of my country’s money. If I don’t get something to-day death will be a happy release, as I shall probably incur their lordship’s “grave displeasure.”’

‘Better than losing the boat, anyway. Two old mouldies must have shaken the Boche a bit. How far off him did they go?’

‘Straddled her. I thought I’d got her at first. Otherwise I’d have dived at once and she wouldn’t have come so near us. The spread of the “fish” was what did it. Now I shall have to write a blessed explanation of it all, and you’ll read of our miss in the next list of “torpedoes fired.” Pleasant, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. First time I’ve been under fire. Unexciting experience, too. But I don’t want to stick in the mud and then bounce up to the surface like that every time. Rather too tough for amusement. I wonder what they’re doing now. We must have entirely spoilt their day. They must be in a state. I bet they’re flying round looking for periscopes all over the ocean. Anyway, they’re just as scared of us as we are of them.’