Theavalanche of war found us, if unprepared, not unready. The Merchants' Service was in the most efficient state of all its long story. Bounteous harvests had set a tide of prosperity to all parts of the world. Trade had reached the summit of a register in volume and account. The transport of the world's goods was busied as never before. With every outward stern wash went a full lading of our manufactures—a bulk of coal, a mass of wrought steel; foam at the bows—returning, brought exchange in food and raw materials, grist to the mills of our toiling artisans—a further provision for continuation of our trading. There were no idle keels swinging the tides in harbour for want of profitable employment; no seamen lounging on the dockside streets awaiting a 'sight' to sign-on for a voyage. Bulk of cargoes exceeded the tonnage of the ships, and the riverside shipyards resounded to the busy clamour of new construction. Advanced systems of propulsion had emerged from tentative stages, were fully tried and proved, and owners were adding to their fleets the latest and largest vessels that art of shipwrights and skill of the engineers could supply. We were well built and well found and well employed in all respects, not unready for any part that called us to sea.
On such a stage the gage was thrown. Right on the heels of the courier with challenge accepted, went the ships laden with a new and precious cargo—our gallant men-at-arms. Before a shot of ours was fired, the first blow in the conflict was swung by passage of the ships: throughout the length of it, only by the sea-lanes could the shock be maintained.
Viewing the numbers and tonnage of the ships, the roll and character of the seamen, we were not uneasy for the sea-front. With the most powerful war fleet in the world boarding on the coasts of the enemy, we had little to fear. The transports and war-service vessels could be adequately safeguarded: the peaceful traders on their lawful occasions could trust in international law of the civilized seas, on which no destruction may be effected without cause, prefaced by examination. Of raiders and detached war units there might be some apprehension, but the White Ensign was abroad and watchful—it was impossible that the shafts of the enemy could reach us on the sea. For a time we set out on our voyages and returned without interference.
THE OLD AND THE NEW THE MARGARET OF DUBLIN AND R.M.S. TUSCANIATHE OLD AND THE NEWTHEMARGARETOF DUBLIN AND R.M.S.TUSCANIA
Anon, an amazing circumstance shocked our blythe assurance. In a new warfare, by traverse of a route we thought was barred, the impossible became a stern reality! While able, by power of their ships and skill and gallantry ofthe men, to keep the surface naval forces of the enemy doomed to ignoble harbour watch, the mightiest war fleet the seas had ever carried was impotent wholly to protect us! Our Achilles heel was exposed to merciless under-water attack, to a new weapon, deadly in precision and difficult to counter or evade. Throwing to the winds all shreds of honour and conscionable restraint, all vestiges of a sea-respect for non-combatants and neutrals, the pacts and bounds of international law—the humane sea-usages that spared women and children and stricken wounded—the decivilized German set up the banners of a stark piracy, an ocean anarchy, to whose lieutenants the sea-wolves of an earlier age were but feeble enervated weaklings.
Piracy, gloried in and undisguised, faced us. Well and definite! We had known piracy in the long years of our sea-history: we had dealt with their trade to a full settlement at yard-arm or gallows. The course of our seafaring was not to be arrested by even the deep roots and deadly poison of this not unknown sea-growth: we had scaled the foul barnacles and cut the rank weeds before in the course of sea-development. If our ways had become peaceful in the long years of unchallenged trading, our habits were never less than combatant throughout a life of struggle with storm and tide. Not while we had a ship and a man to the helm would we be driven from the sea; our hard-won heritage was not to be delivered under threat or operation of even the most surpassing frightfulness. Jealousy for our seafaring, for our name as sailors, forbade that we should skulk in harbour or linger behind the nets and booms. Our work, our livelihood, our proud sea-trade, our honour was on the open sea. Our pride was this—that, in our action, we would be followed by the seafarers of the world. It was for no idle vaunt we boasted our supremacy at sea. If we could take first place of the world's seamen in time of peace, our station was to lead in war. We put out to sea—the neutrals followed. Had we held to port, German orders would have halted the sea-traffic of the world. With no shield but our seamanship, no weapon but the keenness of our eyes, no power of defence or assault other than the swing of a ready helm, we met the pirates on the sea, with little pretension in victory and no whining in defeat.
Challenged to stand and submit, theVosgesanswered with a cant of the helm and hoist of her flag, and stood on her way under a merciless hail of shot. Unarmed, outsped, there was little prospect of escape—only, in an obstinate sea-pride, lay acceptance of the challenge. With decks littered by wreckage and wounded, bridge swept by shrapnel, water making through her torn hull, there was no thought to lay-to and droop the flag in surrender. When, at length, the ensign was shot away, there were men enough to hoist another. In hours their agony was measured, until, in despair of completing his foul work,the enemy gave up the contest. Reeking of the combat, theVosgesfoundered under her wounds. The sea took her from her gallant crew, but they had not given up the ship—their flag still fluttered at the peak as she went down.Anglo-Californianfought a grim, silent fight for four hours, matching the intensity of the German gunfire by the dogged quality of her mute defiance.Palm Branchturned away from galling fire at short range, double-banked the press in the stokehold, and cut and turned on her course to confuse the ranges. Her stern was shattered by shell, the lifeboats blown away; the apprentice at the wheel stood to his job with blood running in his eyes. Fire broke out and added a new terror to the situation. There was no flinching. Through it all the engines turned steadily, driven to their utmost speed by the engineers and firemen. A one-sided affair—a floating hell for seamen to stand by, helpless, and take a frightful gruelling! But they stood to it, and came to port.
If, under new and treacherous blows, our hearts beat the faster, there was little pause, no stoppage, in the steady coursing of our sea-arteries. We fought the menace with the same spirit our old sea-fathers knew. Undeterred by the ghastly handicap against us—the galling fetters of a policy that kept us unarmed, we pitted our brains and seamanship against the murderous mechanics of the enemy. To the new under-water attack there were few adequate counter-measures in the records of our old seafaring. We revised the standard manual, drew text from old games, shield from the cuttlefish, models for our sweeps from discarded sea-tackle. Special devices, new plans, stern services were called for; we devised, we specialized—our readiness was never more instant. Out of our strength we built up a new Service. Instruction and equipment came from the Royal Navy, but the men were ours. In the throes of our exertions the Merchants' Service repeated a tradition. The stout aged tree shot forth another worthy limb—a second Navy—not less ardent or resourceful than the first offshoot, now grown to be our guardian.
Our branches twined and interlocked in service of a joint endeavour. Under the fierce blast of war we swayed and weighed together in shield of our ancient foundation. Within our ranks we had cunning fishers, keen, resolute sea-fighters of the banks, to whom the coming of a strange mechanical devil-fish offered a new zest to the chase, a famous netting. Enrolled to Special Service, they engaged the enemy at his doorstep and patrolled the areas of his outset. Undaunted by the odds, deterred by no risk or threat, they ranged and searched the sea-channels and cleared the lanes for our safe passage. To detect, to warn, to meet and counter-charge the submarine in his depths, to safeguard the narrow seas from hazard of the mines, was all in the day's work of theTemporaryR.N.R.
Throughout all the enrolments, the divisions, the changes, and the training for new and special duties, there was no easing of the engines: we effected our adjustments and allotments under a full head of steam. All that the enemy could do could not prevent the steady reinforcement of our arms, the passage of our men, the transport of our trade. The long lines of our sea-communications remained unbroken, despite our losses and the grim spectre of the raft and the open boat. It could not be otherwise—and Britain stand. There could be no halt in the sea-traffic. Only from abroad could we draw supplies to raise the new leaguer of our island garrison; only by way of the sea could we retain and renew our strength.
In time the intolerable shackles of inactive resistance were struck from our hands. Somewhat tardily we were supplied with weapons of defence and instructed in their use and maintainance. We went to school again, under tutelage of the Naval Service, and drew a helpful assistance from the tale of their courses since we had parted company. We were heartened by the new spirit of co-operation with the fighting service. Ungrudgingly they lent experts to direct our movement. They turned a stream of their inventive talent in the ways of gear and apparatus to protect our ships. They shipped our ordnance, and supplied skilled gunners to leaven our rude crews. More, they helped to strip the veneer of convention that hampered us—our devotion to standard practice in rules and lights and equipment. We learned our lessons. Even though the peaceful years had lessened our fighting spring, we had lost no aptitude for service of the guns in defence of our rights, nor for measure to deceive or evade. Armed and alert, we returned to the sea, confident in the discard of a weight in our handicap. We could strike back, and with no feeble blow—as the pirates soon learned.
There were scores to settle.Palm Branch, belying her tranquil name, took a payment in full for her shattered stern and the blood running in the steersman's eyes. Keen eyes sighted a periscope in time. The helm was put over and the white track raced across the stern, missing by feet. Baffled in under-water attack, the enemy hove up from his depths to open surface fire. He never had opportunity. If look-out was good, gun action was as quick and ready inPalm Branch. Her first shot struck the conning-tower, the second drove home on the submarine, which sank. While all eyes were focused on the settling wash and spreading scum of oil, a new challenge came and was as speedily accepted. A shell, fired by a second submarine at long range, passed over the steamer. Slewing round to a new target, the gunners kept up a steady return, shot for shot. The submarine dropped farther astern, fearing the probe of a bracket: he angled his course to bring both his guns in action. Two piecesagainst the steamer's one! At that, he fared no better. Firing continuously, eighty rounds in less than an hour, he registered not one hit.
At lengthPalm Branch'ssteady, methodical search for the range had effect. Her gunners capped the day's fine shooting by a direct hit on the submarine's after-gun, shattering the piece. At evens again—the U-boat ceased fire and drew off, possibly under threat of British patrols approaching at full speed, more probably for the good and sufficient reason that he had had enough.
Not all our contests were as happily decided. If—shirking the issue of the guns, with no zest for a square fight—the German went to his depths, he had still the deadly torpedo to enforce a toll. The toll we paid and are paying, but there is no stoppage in the round by which the nation is fed and her arms served. The burden is heavy and our losses great, but we have not failed. We dare not fail.
IN A MERCHANTMAN—BOMB-THROWER PRACTICEIN A MERCHANTMAN—BOMB-THROWER PRACTICE
AFTER an interval of a hundred years, we are come to work together again, banded, as in the days of the Armada, to keep the seas against a ruthless challenger. In view of a new blood-bond between us, it is difficult to write coldly of the causes that have kept us apart. Only by preface of an affirmation can it be made possible. Through all our differences, prejudices, envies—perhaps jealousies—there ran at least one clear unsullied thread—our admiration for the Navy, our glory in its strength and power, our belief in its matchless efficiency.
We seamen, naval or mercantile, are a stout unmovable breed. Tenacity to our convictions is deeply rooted. The narrow trends of shipboard life give licence to a conservatism that out-Herods Herod in intensity, unreason—in utter sophistry. We extend this atmosphere to our relationships, to the associations with the beach, with other sea-services, with other ships—to the absurd pretensions of the other watch. "A sailorman afore a landsman, an' a shipmate afore all," may be a useful creed, but it engenders a contentious outlook, an intolerance difficult to reconcile. In the fo'c'sle, the upholding of a 'last ship' may lead to a broken nose; aft, the officers may quarrel, wordily, over the grades of their service; ashore, the captain may only reserve his confidences for a peer of his tonnage; over all, the distance between the Naval and Merchants' Services was immeasurable and complete.
If it was so to this date, it was perhaps more intense in the old days when common seafaring had not set as broad a distinction, as widely divergent a sea-practice, as our modern services shew. That such a contentious atmosphere existed we have ample witness. After experience as a merchants' man, Nelson wrote of his re-entry. "I returned a practical seaman with a horror of the Royal Navy. . . . It was many weeks before I got the least reconciled to a man-o'-war, so deep was the prejudice rooted!" We have no such noted record of a merchant seaman re-entering from the Navy. Doubtless the laxity and indiscipline he might observe would produce a not dissimilar revulsion.
In the years that have elapsed since Nelson wrote, we have had few opportunities to compose our differences, to get on better terms with one another. The course of naval development took the great war fleets hull down on our commercial horizon, beyond casual intercommunication. On rare and widely separated occasions we fell into an expedition together, but the unchallenged power of the naval forces only served to heighten the barriers that stood between us. At the Crimea, in India, on the Chinese and Egyptian expeditions, during the Boer War, we were important links in the venture, but no more important than the cargoes we ferried. There was no call for any service other than our usual sea-work. The Navy saw to it that our comings and goings were unmolested. We were sea-civilians, purely and simply; there was nothing more to be said about it.
If little was said, it was with no good grace we took such a station. There were those who saw that seafaring could not thus arbitrarily be divided. Other nations were stirring and striving to a naval strength and power, drawing aid and personnel from their mercantile services. Sea-strength and paramountcy might not wholly come to be measured in terms of thickness of the armour-plating—in calibre of the great guns. Auxiliary services would be required.The Navy could no more work without us than the Army without a Service Corps.
The Royal Naval Reserve came as a link to our intercourse. Certain of our shipmates left us for a period of naval training. They came back changed in many particulars. They had acquired a social polish, were perhaps less 'sailor-like' in their habits. As a rule they were discontented with the way of things in their old ships; the quiet rounds bored them after the crowded life in a warship. We were frequently reminded of how well and differently things were done intheService. Perhaps, in return, we took the wrong line. We made no effort to sift their experiences, to find out how we might improve our ways. Often our comrade's own particular shrewdness was cited as a reason for the better ways of naval practice. We were rather irritated by the note of superiority assumed, perhaps somewhat jealous. Had commissions been granted on a competitive basis, we might have accepted such a tone, but we had our own way of assessing sea-values, and saw no reason why we should stand for these new airs. What was in it, what had wrought the change, we were never at pains to investigate. It was enough for us to note that, though his watch-keeping was certainly improved, our re-entered shipmate did not seem to be as efficient as a navigator or cargo supervisor as once we had thought him. All his talk of drills and guns and station-keeping considered, he seemed to have quite forgotten that groundnuts are thirteen hundredweights to the space ton and ought not to be stowed near fine goods!
On the other hand, he might reasonably be expected to see his old shipmates in a new light. Rude, perhaps. Of limited ideas. Tied to the old round of petty bickerings and small intrigues. He would note the want of trusty brotherhood. His sojourn among better-educated men may have roused his ideas to an appreciation of values that deep-sea life had obscured. The lack of the discipline to which he had become accustomed would appal and disquiet him. In time he would be worn to the rut again, but who can say the same rut? Unconsciously, we were influenced by his quieter manners. In self-study we saw faults that had been unnoticed before his return. Reviewing our hard sea-life, we recalled our exclusion from benefits of instruction that went a-begging on the beach. We stirred. There might yet be time to make up the leeway.
The influence of naval training was never very pronounced among the seamen and firemen of the Merchants' Service who were attached to the R.N.R. Their periods of training were too short for them to be permanently influenced by the discipline of the Navy (or our indiscipline on their return to us may have blighted a promising growth!) On short-term training they were rarely allotted to important work. The governing attitude was rather that they should be used asauxiliaries, mercantile handymen, in a ship. If there was a stowage of stores, cleaning up of bilges, chipping and scaling of iron rust—well, here was mercantile Jack, who was used to that kind of work; who better for the job? Generally, he returned to his old ways rather tired of Navy 'fashion' and discipline, and one saw but little influence of his temporary service on a cruiser. Usually, he was a good hand, to begin with: he sought a post on good ships: with his papers in order we were very glad to have him back.
In few other ways did we come in touch with the Navy. At times the misfortune of the sea brought us into a naval port for assistance in our distress. Certainly, assistance was readily forthcoming, a full measure, but in a somewhat cold and formal way that left a rankling impression that we were not—well, we were not perhaps desirable acquaintances. The naval manner was not unlike that of a courteous prescribing chemist over his counter. "Have you had the pain—long?" "Is there any—coughing?" We had always the feeling that they were bored by our custom, were anxious to get back to the mixing of new pills, to their experiments. We were not very sorry when our repairs were completed and we could sail for warmer climates.
With the outbreak of war the R.N.R. was instantly mobilized. Their outgoing left a sensible gap in our ranks, a more considerable rift than we had looked for. Example drew others on their trodden path, our mercantile seamen were keen for fighting service; the unheralded torpedo had not yet struck home on their own ships. Commissions to a new entry of officers were still limited and capricious—theHochsee Flottehad not definitely retired behind the booms at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, to weave a web of murder and assassination. For a short term we sailed on our voyages, on a steady round, differing but little from our normal peace-time trade.
A short term. The enemy did not leave us long secure in our faith in civilized sea-usage. Our trust in International Law received a rude and shattering shock from deadly floating mine and racing torpedo. Paralysed and impotent to venture a fleet action, the German Navy was to be matched not only against the commercial fleets of Britain and her Allies, but against every merchant ship, belligerent or neutral. There was to be no gigantic clash of sea-arms; action was to be taken on the lines of Thuggery. The German chose his opponents as he chose his weapons. Assassins' weapons! The knife in the dark—no warning, no quarter, sink or swim! The 'sea-civilians' were to be driven from the sea by exercise of the most appalling frightfulness and savagery that the seas had ever known.
Under such a threat our sea-services were brought together on a rapid sheer, a close boarding, in which there was a measure of confusion. It could not havebeen otherwise. The only provision for co-operation, the R.N.R. organization, was directed to augment the forces of the Navy: there was no anticipation of a circumstance that would sound a recall. Our machinery was built and constructed to revolve in one direction; it could not instantly be reversed. Into an ordered service, ruled by the most minute shades of seniority, the finest influences of precedence and tradition, there came a need to fit the mixed alloy of the Merchants' Service. Ready, eager, and willing, as both Services were, to devote their energies to a joint endeavour, it took time and no small patience to resolve the maze and puzzle of the jig-saw. Naval officers detailed for our liaison were of varied moulds. Not many of the Active List could be spared; our new administrators were mostly recalled from fishing and farming to take up special duties for which they had few qualifications other than the gold lace on their sleeves. Some were tactful and clever in appreciation of other values than a mere readiness to salute, and those drew our affection and a ready measure of confidence. Others set up plumed Gessler bonnets, to which we were in no mood to bow. Only our devotion to the emergency exacted a jerk of our heads. To them we were doubtless difficult and trying. Our free ways did not fit into their schemes of proper routine. Accustomed to the lines of their own formal service, to issuing orders only to their juniors, they had no guide to a commercial practice whereby there can be a concerted service without the usages of the guard-room. They made things difficult for us without easing their own arduous task. They objected to our manners, our appearance, to the clothes we wore. Our diffidence was deemed truculence: our reluctance to accept a high doctrine of subservience was measured as insubordination.
The flames of war made short work of our moods and jealousies, prejudices, and dislikes. A new Service grew up, theTemporaryR.N.R., in which we were admitted to a share in our own governance and no small part in combatant operations at sea. The sea-going section found outlet for their energy and free scope for a traditional privateering in their individual ventures against the enemy. Patrolling and hunting gave high promise for their capacity to work on lines of individual control. Minesweeping offered a fair field for the peculiar gifts of seamanship that mercantile practice engenders. Commissioned to lone and perilous service, they kept the seas in fair weather or foul. Although stationed largely in the narrow seas, there were set no limits to the latitude and longitude of their employment. The ice of the Arctic knew them—riding out the bitter northern gales in their small seaworthy drifters, thrashing and pitching in the seaway, to hold a post in the chain of our sea-communications. In the Adriatic warmer tides lapped on their scarred hulls, but brought no relaxing variance to their keen look-out. For want of a match of their own size, they had theundying temerity to call three cheers and engage cruiser ordnance with their pipe-stems! A service indeed! If buttemporaryin title, there is permanence in their record!
Coincident with our actions on the sea—not alone those of our fighting cubs, but also those of our trading seamen—a better feeling came to cement our alliance. First in generous enthusiasm for our struggle against heavy odds, as they came to understand our difficulties, naval officers themselves set about to create a happier atmosphere. We were admitted to a voice in the league of our defence. Administration was adjusted to meet many of our grievances. Our capacity for controlling much of the machinery of our new movements was no longer denied. The shreds of old conservatism, the patches of contention and envy were scattered by a strong free breeze of reasoned service and joint effort.
We meet the naval man on every turn of the shore-end of our seafaring. We have grown to admire him, to like him, to look forward to his coming and association in almost the same way that we are pleased at the boarding of our favoured pilots. He fits into our new scheme of things as readily as the Port Authorities and the Ship's Husband. The plumed bonnets are no longer set up to attract our awed regard: by a better way than caprice and petulant discourtesy, the naval officer has won a high place in our esteem. We have borrowed from his stock to improve our store; better methods to control our manning, a more dispassionate bearing, a ready subordinance to ensure service. His talk, too. We use his phrases. We 'carry on'; we ask the 'drill' for this or that; we speak of our sailing orders as 'pictures,' our port-holes are become 'scuttles.' The enemy is a 'Fritz,' a depth-charge a 'pill,' torpedoes are 'mouldies.' In speaking of our ships we now omit the definite article. We are getting on famously together.
Althoughour experience of their assured protection is clear and definite, our personal acquaintance with the larger vessels of the Navy is not intimate. Saving the colliers and the oilers and storeships that serve the Fleet, few of us have seen a 'first-rate' on open sea since the day the Grand Fleet steered north to battle stations. The strength and influence of the distant ships was plain to us in the first days of the war even if we had actually no sight of their grey hulls. While we were able to proceed on our lawful occasions with not even a warning of possible interference, the mercantile ships of the enemy—beingabroad—had no course but to seek the protection of a neutral port, not again to put out to sea under their own colours.
The operation of a threat to shipping—at three thousand miles distance—was dramatic in intensity under the light of acute contrast. Entering New York a few days after war had been declared, we berthed alongside a crack German liner. Her voyage had been abandoned: she lay at the pier awaiting events. At the first, we stared at one another curiously. Her silent winches and closed hatchways, deserted decks and passages, were markedly in contrast to the stir and animation with which we set about unloading and preparing for the return voyage. The few sullen seamen about her forecastle leant over the bulwarks and noted the familiar routine that was no longer theirs. Officers on the bridge-deck eyed our movements with interest, despite their apparent unconcern. We were respectfully hostile: submarine atrocities had not yet begun. The same newsboy served special editions to both ships. The German officers grouped together, reading of the fall of Liége. Doubtless they confided to one another that they would soon be at sea again. Five days we lay. At eight o'clock 'flags,' our bugle-call accompanied the raising of the ensign: the red, white, and black was hoisted defiantly at the same time. We unloaded, re-loaded, and embarked passengers, and backed out into the North River on our way to sea again. TheFürstranged to the wash of our sternway as we cleared the piers; her hawsers strained and creaked, then held her to the bollards of the quay.
Time and again we returned on our regular schedule, to find the German berthed across the dock, lying as we had left her, with derricks down and her hatchways closed. . . . We noted the signs of neglect growing on her; guessed at the indiscipline aboard that inaction would produce. For a while her men were set to chipping and painting in the way of a good sea-custom, but the days passed with no release and they relaxed handwork. Her topsides grew rusty, her once trim and clean paintwork took on a grimy tint. Our doings were plain to her officers and crew: we were so near that they could read the tallies on the mailbags we handled: there were no mails from Germany. Loading operations, that included the embarkation of war material, went on by night and day: we were busied as never before. The narrow water space between her hull and ours was crowded by barges taking and delivering our cargo; the shriek of steam-tugs and clangour of their engine-bells advertised our stir and activity. On occasion, the regulations of the port obliged theFürstto haul astern, to allow working space for the Merritt-Chapman crane to swing a huge piece of ordnance to our decks. There were rumours of a concealed activity on the German. "She was coaling silently at night, in preparation for a dash to sea." . . . "German spies had their headquarters in her." The evening papers had anew story of her secret doings whenever copy ran short. All the while she lay quietly at the pier; we rated her by her draught marks that varied only with the galley coal she burnt.
At regular periods her hopeless outlook was emphasized by our sailings. Officers and crew could not ignore the stir that attended our departure. They saw the 'blue peter' come fluttering from the masthead, and heard our syren roar a warning to the river craft as we backed out. We were laden to our marks and the decks were thronged with young Britons returning to serve their country. The Fatherland could have no such help: theFürstcould handle no such cargo. For her there could be no movement, no canting on the tide and heading under steam for the open sea: the distant ships of the Grand Fleet held her in fetters at the pier.
While the Battle Fleet opened the oceans to us, we were not wholly safe from enemy interference on the high seas in the early stages of the war. German commerce raiders were abroad; there was need for a more tangible protection to the merchants' ships on the oversea trade routes. The older cruisers were sent out on distant patrols. They were our first associates of the huge fleet subsequently detailed for our defence and assistance. We were somewhat in awe of the naval men at sea on our early introduction. The White Ensign was unfamiliar. Armed to the teeth, an officer from the cruiser would board us: the bluejackets of his boat's crew had each a rifle at hand. "Where were we from . . . where to . . . our cargo . . . our passengers?" The lieutenant was sternly courteous; he was engaged on important duties: there was no mood of relaxation. He returned to his boat and shoved off with not one reassuring grin for the passengers lining the rails interested in every row-stroke of his whaler. In time we both grew more cordial: we improved upon acquaintance. The drudgery and monotony of a lone patrol off a neutral coast soon brought about a less punctilious boarding. Ourprocès-verbalhad unofficial intervals. "How were things at home? . . . Are we getting the men trained quickly? . . . What about the Russians?" The boarding lieutenants discovered the key to our affections—the secret sign that overloaded their sea-boat with newspapers and fresh mess. "A fine ship you've got here, Captain!" We parted company at ease and with goodwill. The boat would cast off to the cheers of our passengers. The great cruiser, cleared for action with her guns trained outboard, would cant in to close her whaler. Often her band assembled on the upper deck: the favourite selections were 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Will ye no' come back again'—as she swung off on her weary patrol.
Submarine activities put an end to these meetings on the sea. Except while under ocean escort of a cruiser—when our relations by flag signal are studied andimpersonal—we have now little acquaintance with vessels of that class. Counter-measures of the new warfare demand the service of smaller vessels. Destroyers and sloops are now our protectors and co-workers. With them, we are drawn to a familiar intimacy; we are, perhaps, more at ease in their company, dreading no formal routine. Admirals are, to us, awesome beings who seclude themselves behind gold-corded secretaries: commodores (except those who control our convoys) are rarely sea-going, and we come to regard them as schoolmasters, tutors who may not be argued with; post-captains in command of the larger escorts have the brusque assumption of a super-seamanship that takes no note of a limit in manning. The commanders and lieutenants of the destroyers and sloops that work with us are different; they are more to our mind—we look upon them as brother seamen. Like ourselves, they are 'single-ship' men. They are neither concerned with serious plans of naval strategy nor overbalanced by the forms and usages of great ship routine. While 'the bridge' of a cruiser may be mildly scornful upon receipt of an objection to her signalled noon position, the destroyer captain is less assured: he is more likely to request our estimate of the course and speed. His seamanship is comparable to our own. The relatively small crew he musters has taught him to be tolerant of an apparent delay in carrying out certain operations. In harbour he is frequently berthed among the merchantmen, and has opportunity to visit the ships and acquire more than a casual knowledge of our gear and appliances. He is ever a welcome visitor, frank and manly and candid. Even if there is a dispute as to why we turned north instead of south-east 'when that Fritz came up,' and we blanked the destroyer's range, there is not the air of superior reproof that rankles.
In all our relations with the Navy at sea there was ever little, if any, friction. We saw no empty plumed bonnet in the White Ensign. We were proud of the companionship and protection of the King's ships. Our ready service was never grudged or stinted to the men behind the grey guns; succour in our distress was their return. Incidents of our co-operation varied, but an unchanging sea-brotherhood was the constant light that shone out in small occurrences and deathly events.
Dawn in the Channel, a high south gale and a bitter confused sea. Even with us, in a powerful deep-sea transport, the measure of the weather was menacing; green seas shattered on board and wrecked our fittings, half of the weather boats were gone, others were stove and useless. A bitter gale! Under our lee the destroyer of our escort staggered through the hurtling masses that burst and curled and swept her fore and aft. Her mast and one funnel were gone, the bridge wrecked; a few dangling planks at her davits were all that wasleft of her service boats. She lurched and faltered pitifully, as though she had loose water below, making through the baulks and canvas that formed a makeshift shield over her smashed skylights. In the grey of the murky dawn there was yet darkness to flash a message: "In view of weather probably worse as wind has backed, suggest you run for Waterford while chance, leaving us to carry on at full speed." An answer was ready and immediate: "Reply. Thanks. I am instructed escort you to port."
The Mediterranean. A bright sea and sky disfigured by a ring of curling black smoke—a death-screen for the last agonies of a torpedoed troopship. Amid her littering entrails she settles swiftly, the stern high upreared, the bows deepening in a wash of wreckage. Boats, charged to inches of freeboard, lie off, the rowers and their freight still and open-mouthed awaiting her final plunge. On rafts and spars, the upturned strakes of a lifeboat, remnants of her manning and company grip safeguard, but turn eyes on the wreck of their parent hull. Into the ring, recking nothing of entangling gear or risk of suction, taking the chances of a standing shot from the lurking submarine, a destroyer thunders up alongside, brings up, and backs at speed on the sinking transport. Already her decks are jammed to a limit, by press of a khaki-clad cargo she was never built to carry. This is final, the last turn of her engagement. The foundering vessel slips quickly and deeper. "Come along, Skipper! You've got 'em all off! You can do no more!Jump!"
Someyears before the war we were lying at an East Indian port, employed in our regular trade. The military students of the Quetta Staff College were in the district, engaged in practical exercise of their staff lessons. On a Sunday (our loading being suspended) they boarded us to work out in detail a question of troop transport. It was assumed that our ship was requisitioned in an emergency, and their problem was to estimate the number of men we could carry and to plan arrangement of the troop decks. Their inspection was to be minute; down to the sufficiency of our pots and pans they were required to investigate and figure out the resources of our vessel. The officer students were thirty-four in number; at least we counted thirty-four who came to us for clue to the mysteries of gross and register and dead-weight tonnage. In parties they explored our holds and accommodation, measured in paces for a rough survey, and prepared their plans. Their Commandant (a very famous soldierto-day) permitted us to be present when the officers were assembled and their papers read out and discussed. In general it was estimated that the work of alteration and fitting the ship for troops would occupy from eight to ten working days. Our quota—of all ranks—averaged about eleven hundred men.
A BRITISH SUBMARINE DETAILED FOR INSTRUCTION OF MERCHANT OFFICERSA BRITISH SUBMARINE DETAILED FOR INSTRUCTION OF MERCHANT OFFICERS
The work was sound and no small ingenuity was advanced in planning adaptations, but the spirit of emergency did not show an evidence in their careful papers. The proposed voyage was distinctly stated to be from Newhaven to Dieppe, and it seemed to us that the elaborate accommodation for a prison, a guard-room, a hospital, were somewhat ambitious for a six-hour sea-passage. In conversation with the Commandant, we were of opinion that, to a degree, their work and pains were rather needless. Carrying passengers (troops and others) was our business; a trade in which we had been occupied for some few years. He agreed. He regarded their particular exercise in the same light as the 'herring-and-a-half' problem of the schoolroom: it was good for the young braves to learn something of their only gangway to a foreignfield. "Of course," he said, "if war comes it will be duty for the Navy to supervise our sea-transport." We understood that their duty would be to safeguard our passage, but we had not thought of supervision in outfit. The Commandant was incredulous when we remarked that we had never met a naval transport officer, that we knew of no plans to meet such an emergency as that submitted to his officers. It was evident that his trained soldierly intendance could not contemplate a situation in which the seamen of the country had no foreknowledge of a war service; it was amazing to him that we were not already drilled for duties that might, at any moment, be thrust upon us. Pointing across the dock to where two vessels of the Bremen Hansa Line were working in haste to catch the tide, he affirmed that they would be better prepared:theirplace in mobilization would be detailed, their duties and services made clear.
We knew of no plans for our employment in war service; we had no position allotted to us in measures for emergency. We were sufficiently proud of our seafaring to understand a certain merit in this apparent lack of prevision: we took it as in compliment to the efficiency and resource with which our sea-trade was credited. Was it not on our records that the Isle of Man steamers transported 58,000 people in the daylight hours of an August Bank Holiday. A seventy-mile passage. Trippers. Less amenable to ordered direction than disciplined troops. A day's work, indeed. Unequalled, unbeaten by any record to date in the amazing statistics of the war. There was no need for supervision and direction: we knew our business, we could pick up the tune as we marched.
We did. On the outbreak of war we fell into our places in transport of troops and military material with little more ado than in handling our peace-time cargoes. The ship on which the Staff students worked their problems set out on almost the very route they had planned for her, but with no prison or guard-room or hospital, and sixteen hundred troops instead of eleven: the time taken to fit her (including discharge of a cargo) occupied exactly four days. We saw but little of the naval authority.
THE D.A.M.S. GUNWHARF AT GLASGOWTHE D.A.M.S. GUNWHARF AT GLASGOW
Later, in our war work, we made the acquaintance of the naval transport officer. Generally, he was not intimate with the working of merchant ships. His duties were largely those of interpretation. Through him Admiralty passed their orders: it devolved on the mercantile shore staff of the shipping companies to carry these orders into execution. If, in transport services, our marine superintendents and ships' husbands did not share in the honours, it was not for want of merit. They could not complain of lack of work in the early days of the war when the transport officer was serving his apprenticeship to the trade. The absence of a keen knowledge and interest in commercial ship-practice at the transport office made for complex situations; hesitancies andconflicting orders added to the arduous business. Under feverish pressure a ship would be unloaded on to quay space already congested, ballast be contracted for—and delivered; a swarm of carpenters, working day and night, would fit her for carriage of troops. At the eleventh hour some one idly fingering a tide-table would discover that the vessel drew too much water to cross the bar of her intended port of discharge. (The marine superintendent was frequently kept in ignorance of the vessel's intended destination.) Telegraph and telephone are handy—"Requisition cancelled" is easily passed over the wires!As you wereis a simple order in official control, but it creates an atmosphere of misdirection almost as deadly as German gas. Only our tremendous resources, the sound ability of our mercantile superintendents, the industry of the contractors and quay staffs, brought order out of chaos and placed the vessels in condition for service at disposal of the Admiralty.
Despite all blunders and vacillations our expedition was not unworthy of the emergency. How much better we could have done had there been a considered scheme of competent control must ever remain a conjecture. Four years of war practice have improved on the hasty measures with which we met the first immediate call. Sea-transport of troops and munitions of war has become a highly specialized business for naval directorate and mercantile executant alike. Ripe experience in the thundering years has sweetened our relations. The naval transport officer has learnt his trade. He is better served. He has now an adequate executant staff, recruited largely from the Merchants' Service. With liberal assistance he relies less on telegraph and telephone to advance his work: our atmosphere is no longer polluted by the miasma of indecision, and by the chill airs of the barracks.
Of our Naval War Staff, the transport officer was the first on the field, but his duties were only concerned with ships requisitioned for semi-naval service. For long we had no national assistance in our purely commercial seafaring. Our sea-rulers (if they existed) were unconcerned with the judicious employment of mercantile tonnage: some of our finest liners were swinging the tides in harbour, rusting at their cables—serving as prison hulks for interned enemies. Our service on the sea was as lightly held. We made our voyages as in peace-time. We had no means of communication with the naval ships at sea other than the universally understood International Code of Signals. Any measures we took to keep out of the way of enemy war vessels, then abroad, were our own. We had no Intelligence Service to advise us in our choice of sea-routes, and act as distributors of confidential information. We were far too 'jack-easy' in our seafaring: we estimated the enemy's sea-power over-lightly.
In time we learned our lesson. Tentative measures were advanced. Admiralty, through the Trade Division, took an interest in our employment. Orders and advices took long to reach us. These were first communicated to the War Risks Associations, who sent them to our owners. We received them as part of our sailing orders, rather late to allow of considered efforts on our part to conform with their tenor. There was no channel of direct communication. When on point of sailing, we projected our own routes, recorded them in a sealed memorandum which we left with our owners. If we fell overdue Admiralty could only learn of our route by application to the holders of the memorandum. A short trial proved the need for a better system. Shipping Intelligence Officers were appointed at the principal seaports. At this date some small echo of our demand for a part in our governance had reached the Admiralty. In selecting officers for these posts an effort was made to give us men with some understanding of mercantile practice; a number of those appointed to our new staff were senior officers of the R.N.R. who were conversant with our way of business. (If they did, on occasion, project a route for us clean through the Atlantic ice-field in May, they were open to accept a criticism and reconsider the voyage.) With them were officers of the Royal Navy who had specialized in navigation, a branch of our trade that does not differ greatly from naval practice. They joined with us in discussion of the common link that held few opportunities for strained association. Certainly we took kindly to our new directors from the first; we worked in an atmosphere of confidence. The earliest officer appointed to the West Coast would blush to know the high esteem in which he is held, a regard that (perhaps by virtue of his tact and courtesy) was in course extended to his colleagues of a later date.
The work of the S.I.O. is varied and extensive. His principal duty is to plan and set out our oversea route, having regard to his accurate information of enemy activities. All Admiralty instructions as to our sea-conduct pass through his hands. He issues our confidential papers and is, in general, the channel of our communication with the Naval Service. He may be likened to our signal and interlocking expert. On receipt of certain advices he orders the arm of the semaphore to be thrown up against us. The port is closed to the outward-bound. His offices are quickly crowded by masters seeking information for their sailings: with post and telephone barred to us in this connection, we must make an appearance in person to receive our orders. A tide or two may come and go while we wait for passage. We have opportunity, in the waiting-room, to meet and become intimate with our fellow-seafarers. It is good for the captain of a liner to learn how the captain of a North Wales schooner makes his bread, the difficulties of getting decent yeast at the salt-ports; how theschooner's boy won't learn ("indeed to goodness") the proper way his captain shows him to mix the dough!
On telegraphic advice the arm of the semaphore rattles down. The port is open to traffic again. The waiting-room is emptied and we are off to the sea, perhaps fortified by the S.I.O.'s confidence that the cause of the stoppage has been violently removed from the sea-lines.
Under the pressure of ruthless submarine warfare we were armed for defence. Gunnery experts were added to our war complement. A division for organization of our ordnance was formed, the Defensively Armed Merchant Ships Department of the Admiralty. We do not care for long titles; we know this division as the "Dam Ships." Most of the officers appointed to this Service are R.N.R. They are perhaps the most familiar of the war staff detailed to assist us. Their duties bring them frequently on board our ships, where (on our own ground) relations grow quickly most intimate and cordial. The many and varied patterns of guns supplied for our defence made a considerable shore establishment necessary, not alone for the guns and mountings, but for ammunition of as many marks as a Geelong wool-bale. In the first stages of our war-harnessing, the supply of guns was limited to what could be spared from battlefield and naval armament. The range of patterns varied from pipe-stems to what was at one time major armament for cruisers; we had odd weapons—soixante-quinzeand Japanese pieces; even captured German field-guns were adapted to our needs in the efforts of the D.A.M.S. to arm us. Standardization in mounting and equipment was for long impossible. Our outcry for guns was cleverly met by the department. We could not wait for weapons to be forged: by working 'double tides' they ensured a twenty-four-hour day of service for the guns in issue, by a system that our ordnance should not remain idle during our stay in port. Incoming ships were boarded in the river, their guns and ammunition dismounted and removed to serve the needs of a vessel bound out on the same tide. The problem of fitting a 12-pounder on a 4.7 emplacement taxed the department's ingenuity and resource, but few ships were held in port for failure of their prompt action.
With the near approach to standardization in equipment (a state that came with increased production of merchant-ship arms) the division was able to reorganize on more settled lines. New types of armament were issued to them and there was less adaptation for emplacements to be considered. With every ship fitted, the pressure on their resource was eased, the new ships being constructed to carry guns as a regular part of their equipment. While their activities are now less confused by the new methods, there is no reduction in their employment. Other defensive apparatus has been placed in their hands for issue andcontrol, and their principal port establishments have grown from small temporary offices to large well-manned depots. To the surface guns have been added howitzers, bomb-throwers, and depth-charges for under-water action: smoke-screen fittings and chemicals form a part of their stock in trade: they issue mine-sinking rifles, and even control the supply of our zigzag clocks. The range of their work is constantly being extended. Their duties include inspection to ensure that darkening ship regulations may not fail for want of preparation in port. Makeshift screening at sea is dangerous.
Their establishments are at the principal seaports, with branch connections and transport facilities for reaching the smaller harbours. The gun-wharves may not present as splendid a spectacle as the huge store-sheds of our naval bases, but they have at least the busy air of being well occupied, a brisk appearance of having few 'slow-dealing lines' on the shelves. Their permanent staff of armourers and constructional experts are able to undertake all but very major repairs to the ordnance that comes under their charge. By express delivery—heavy motor haulage—they can equip a ship on instant requisition with all that is scheduled for her armament: down to the waste-box and the gun-layer's sea-boots, they can put a complete defensive outfit on the road almost before the clamour of a requesting telephone is stilled.
Another of our staff is the officer in charge of our 'Otter' installation, an ingenious contrivance to protect us against the menace of moored mines. For deadly spheres floating on the surface we have a certain measure of defence in exercise of a keen look-out, but our eyes avail us not at all in detecting mines under water moored at the level of our draught. Our 'Otters' may be likened to blind sea-dolphins, trained to protect our flanks, to run silently aside, fend the explosive charges from our course, bite the moorings asunder, and throw the bobbing spheres to the surface.
The 'Otter' expert is invariably an enthusiast. He claims for his pets every virtue. They run true, they bite surely: they can speak, indeed, in the complaint of their guide-wires when they are not sympathetically governed. While it is true that we curse the awkward 'gadgets' in their multitude of tricks, denounce the insistence with which they dive for a snug and immovable berth under our bilge keels—those of us who have come through a hidden minefield share the expert's affection for the shiny fish-like monsters. We cannot see their operation: we have no knowledge of our danger till it is past and over, a dark shape with ugly outpointing horns, turning and spinning in the seawash of our wake.