"At the present time the efficient maintenance of our Mercantile Marine is of vital national interest, and captains, officers, engineers, and their crews will be doing as good service for their country by continuing to man British ships as by joining the army."The President of the Board of Trade."
"At the present time the efficient maintenance of our Mercantile Marine is of vital national interest, and captains, officers, engineers, and their crews will be doing as good service for their country by continuing to man British ships as by joining the army.
"The President of the Board of Trade."
"Atthe present time"! Possibly our Board was writing in anticipation of the completion of the Channel tunnel, or of a date when our men-at-arms and their colossal equipment, the food and furnishings of the nation, the material aid to our Allies, could be transported by air. "As good service"! An equality! An option! Was it a matter of simple balance that a seaman on military service was using his hardily acquired sea-experience as wisely as in the conduct of his own skilled trade, as efficiently as in maintaining the lines of our oversea communications? Events at this date were proving that we had no need to go ashore for fighting service.
In the first violence of unrestricted submarine warfare, the Board advanced little, if any, assistance to the victims of German savagery. Their machinery existed only to repatriate torpedoed crews under warrant as "distressed British seamen"; they were content to leave destitution, hunger—the rags and tatters of a body covering—to be relieved and refitted by the charitable efforts of philanthropic Seamen's Societies. To them—to the kindly souls who met us at the tide-mark—we give all honour and gratitude, but it was surely a shirking of responsibility on part of our Board that placed the burden of our maintenance on the committee of a Seaman's Bethel. As a tentative measure, our controllers advanced a scheme of insurance of effects—a business proposition, of which many took advantage. Later, this was altered to a gratuitous compensation. Cases occurred in which distressed seamen had a claim under both schemes: their foresight was not accounted to them. Although proof might be forthcoming of the loss of an outfit that the small compensation could not cover, they could claim only on one or the other, the insurance or the gratuitous compensation. It was evident that the Board derived some measure of assistance from the examiners in bankruptcy on their staff.
In certain seaports—notably at Southampton—Sailors' Homes (built and endowed for the comfort and accommodation of the merchant seamen) were permitted, without protest, to be requisitioned by Admiralty for the sole useof their naval ratings. The merchantmen, on service of equal importance and equal danger, were turned out to the streets, and our Board took no action, registered no complaint.
To await popular clamour was evidently a guiding principle with our controllers. Their view was probably that we were private employees in trading ventures, that their concern was only to see the sea-law carried out. Sea-law, however, was not in question in the case of the master and officers ofAugustine, and, if they could assume the right to interfere in that personal matter, they accepted a position as curators of the personnel of the Merchants' Service. They cannot complain if our understanding of their duties does not agree with theirs. Deliberately, they have asserted that our sea-conduct is within their province.
An extraordinary matter is the character and calibre of the Board's marine officials. Unquestionably able and personally sympathetic as they are, it remains the more incomprehensible that our governance is so stupidly controlled. Perhaps their submissions fail of acceptance in the councils of a higher control—that has also to decide on horse-racing and bankruptcy. Under a less heavily encumbered Ministry, our affairs should receive the consideration that is their due. It required but little experience of the new sea-warfare to establish our claim to be considered a national service with a mission and employment no less vital and combatant than that of the enlisted arms. Master and man, we have earned the right to no small voice in the control of our own affairs. Our sea-interests are large enough to require a separate Department of the State, a Ministry of Marine, in which we should have a part.
The Board of Trade has failed us, they have proved unworthy of our confidence. Quite lately they began to mobilize and register the mercantile seamen of the country.Three years and nine months after the outbreak of war, they sounded the 'assembly' of the Merchants' Service.Let that be their epitaph!
TRANSPORTS LEAVING SOUTHAMPTON ON THE NIGHT PASSAGE TO FRANCETRANSPORTS LEAVING SOUTHAMPTON ON THE NIGHT PASSAGE TO FRANCE
SEA-LABOUR cannot be likened to employment on shore. Once signed and boarded and to sea, there can be no dismissal and replacement of the men such as may be seen any morning at the street gates of a workshop or shipyard. Good or bad, we are bound as shipmates for a voyage. Ordinary laws and regulations cannot reach us in our sailing; we are given the Merchant Shipping Act for our guidance, the longest and wordiest Act on the Statute Book, a measure that presupposes a discipline that no longer exists. Our ships, in size and power—our complement, in number and character—have altered greatly beyond the views of the Act. That statute, that in its day may havesufficed to set a standard of law and order to the moderate crews of our sailing ships, is utterly inadequate to control effectively the large ship's company of our modern steam vessels. The men, too, are changed—the sailormen, perhaps, not greatly—but, with the thundering evolution of steam-power, we have drawn grown men to the fires, ready-made men, uninfluenced by traditions of sea-service. We had no hand in their making—in the early years when discipline may be inculcated and character be formed. The drudgery and uninterest of their heavy work makes for a certain reaction that frequently finds its expression in violence and criminal disorder. The short voyage system and the grossly inadequate provisions of the Act afford no opportunity to guide the reaction in a less vicious direction. We hailed as a benefactor to the sea the inventor of single topsails; the statistics of our sea-fatalities give a definite date to their introduction. Daily we pray for an inventor to emancipate our stokehold gangs.
It would be idle to pretend that, as master-seamen, we were not disquieted by our manning problem, following upon the outbreak of war. While mobilization of the Army Reserve drew men from all industries in a proportion that did not affect seriously any one employment, the calling-up of the Royal Naval Reserve strained our resources in men to the utmost. Seamen, naval or mercantile, are of one great trade: the balance of our activities being thrown suddenly and violently to one side of our engagement could not fail in disorganizing the other. Added to the outgoing of the retained Reserve seamen, recruitment of a new Reserve to man Auxiliaries and Special Service vessels was almost instantly begun. There were many applicants; the choice naturally fell upon our best men remaining. In and after August 1914, we were short-handed in the Merchants' Service. We were, indeed more than short-handed, for the loss of our steadiest men had effect in removing a certain check upon indiscipline. We missed just that influence upon which, for want of adequate authoritative powers, we counted to preserve some measure of subordinance in our ranks.
Large vessels were most seriously affected. The service of troop transport suffered and was delayed. On occasion, there was the amazing instance of some 1500 trained and disciplined troops standing by to await the sobering-up and return to duty of a body of seamen and firemen. Drunkenness is not yet accounted a crime, but the holding up of vital reinforcements was no petty fault. Under the Act we were empowered to inflict a fine of exactly five shillings on each offender. The offence that held 1500 soldiers in check was met by a mulct of two half-crowns.
LIVERPOOL: MERCHANTMEN SIGNING ON FOR OVERSEA VOYAGESLIVERPOOL: MERCHANTMEN SIGNING ON FOR OVERSEA VOYAGES
The Army and the Naval Authorities were startled, as at a situation they had not contemplated. Masters and officers, if not actually challenged, were deemedto be responsible for such a state of insubordination among their crews. While such an assumption was, to a degree, unjust, it is true that we were not wholly blameless. For the sake of a quiet commercial life, we had accepted the difficulties of our manning without protest. In this we erred. Had we been an independent and economically fearless body, we would, in the days before the war, have refused to proceed to sea with any less than the summary powers held by a magistrate on shore to enforce law and order in his district. It is true that no magisterial powers will prevent drunkenness, but that condition on the ships was due directly to the general indiscipline that we were unable wholly to control.
The state of affairs called for more than a merely temporary measure, but our controllers advanced no settlement—only they devised an expedient. The situation was met, not by a firm action that would affect all merchant ships and seamen alike, but by a Defence of the Realm regulation that operated only when ships were chartered directly by Government. The opportunity to make the merchantmen's forecastle a place for decent men to earn a living was passed by. While admitting, by their concern, that the matter called for redress, Government could only take action in cases where their bureaucratic interests were threatened. Vessels on purely commercial voyages, including carriage of the mails and millions in the nation's securities, were left without the regulation: we had to carry on as best we could. It entailed hardship on the better-disposed members of our ships' companies: in whatever fashion, the work had to be carried on: we taxed our steady men to the limit. The effect upon them may be judged when they realized that the delinquency of their shipmates, whose duty they had undertaken, was assessed at the price of a pound of 'Fair Maid' tobacco.
While the quality of our men was thus affected, we suffered in their diminished numbers. Without a protest from our governing body, the Board of Trade, the army took a toll of our seamen. Thus early, it was not realized that we merchantmen would have to fight for our ships and our lives at sea. The drums of field-war set up a note that was heard outside of six fathoms of blue water; large numbers of our seamen and many ships' officers joined up for military service. There was a certain measure of compensation afforded by the industrial situation ashore. As the magnitude of the world conflict was realized, nervous employers of labour reduced their staffs. All workmen suffered, the building trades being perhaps most affected. As needs must, we were open to recruit able-bodied men: we had to make seamen, and that quickly. Masons, brick-layers, tilers, slaters—they reached tide-mark in their quest for employment. We were glad enough to sign them on to make up our complements. At thefirst they were not of great value. Unused to the sea and ship-life, they had to be nursed through stormy weather: a source of anxiety to the watch-keeper when the seas were up. In time they became moderately efficient. As good tradesmen, they had a self-respect that could be encouraged: they were not difficult to control.
Of these, perhaps 50 per cent. made a second voyage, but not more than 10 per cent. remained at sea permanently. Their reasons for returning to the beach were always the same. Not the hard work or the seas appalled them, but the class of men with whom they had to live and work. Some of our recruits had other objects in view than a desire for a sea-life. At ports abroad, notably in the United States, they deserted. Strict as the Federal machinery is for regulating immigration into the United States, there appeared to be no keen desire on the part of the authorities to embarrass the improper entry of our men. It was not difficult to assign a cause for their laxity. Technically, the men were seamen. Our Uncle Sam was stirring towards true sea-power—the acquisition of large mercantile fleets. The native American could see no prosperous commercial career in the forecastle: only from abroad might labour be obtained for operation of the ships. We had done the same in our time. Desertions were not confined to the landsmen of our crews. A situation arose quickly, in which it became profitable for our men to desert abroad and re-sign on another ship at an enhanced pay. As though to facilitate their breach of agreement, it was not long before the United States Seamen's Act came into force. By some international process that we seamen are not yet able to understand, this Act became operative on every vessel entering an American port. It establishes, for all seamen, the 'right to quit.' Strangely, our men did not all abandon ship. Some stirring of the patriotism that, later, became pronounced among them must have had effect in restraining wholesale disembarkation. Short-handed by perhaps an eighth of a full crew, we made our return voyages. By shift and expedient, we kept a modest head of steam. The loss was almost wholly at the fires. Stewards were set to deck duties and the look-out, the released sailormen went below to the stokehold—on occasion, passengers were recruited on board to bear a hand. Perhaps the public grumbled at receiving their letters an hour or two behind time.
It is not easy to advance reasons for the new and better spirit that came to us coincident with the appearance of German savagery at sea. Restrictions of the supply of drink had effect in enabling us to commence a voyage under good conditions, without brawling and bloodshed in the forecastle. An atmosphere of determination was, perhaps, introduced by the tales of undying heroism in the trenches that reached us. The losses in ships served partially to supplementthe numbers of men available: a choice could be made in engagement of a crew. Over all, there was the menace to our seafaring—the threat and challenge to our sea-pride, as compelling and remedial as the draught of a free breeze. In his action, the enemy made many miscalculations; not the least was when he roused a spirit of readiness to service in our merchantmen; he blew more than the acrid fumes into us with the shattering explosion of his torpedoes.
If we may claim a patriotic influence acting upon our white seamen as reason for good service in the war, how shall we assess the lascar's quiet employment in a conflict that, perhaps, only dimly he understood? Of its operation he could have no ignorance.Schrecklichkeitwas particularly to be employed against the native seaman. Shell and torpedo took toll of his numbers, but there was little hesitancy when he was invited to sign for further voyages. It was ever a point of prophecy with his detractors in the days of peace that he would be found wanting under stress. Not boldly or magnificently or in a spirit of vainglory, but in a manner that is not the less impressive because few have spoken of it, he has given them the lie.
The attitude of the naval authorities in regard to our manning is peculiar. They seem to be unable to think of ships' crews in any other terms than that of their own large complements. There is one part in the lectures of our instructional course that never fails to arouse rude merriment among the master-seamen attending—as it produces a shamefaced attitude on part of the naval lecturer (now intimate with our difficulties). In instructions for detailing our men to 'action stations' the phrases occur: "a party to be detached for attention to wounded," "a party to serve hoses at fire stations," "an ammunition supply party," "party to put the provisions and blankets in the boats." In practice, we are also working the guns, attending the navigation, spotting the fall of shot, keeping post at wheel and look-out. The average cargo vessel rarely carries more than eight men on deck: we cannot afford to have many wounded!
THE RULER OF PILOTS AT DEALTHE RULER OF PILOTS AT DEAL
"We're a North-country ship, an' a deep-water crew.A—way, i-oh!Ye can stick t' th' coast, but we're damned if we do.An' we're bound t' Rio Grande!"
SO we sang—sounding a bravery at the capstan as we hove around and raised anchor to begin a voyage. We had our ideas. We were foreign-going sailors, putting out on a far venture. In pride of our seafaring—of rounding the Horn, of crossing Equator, perhaps of a circumnavigation—we looked down upon the coaster. He was a hoveller, a tidesman, a mud-raker—his anchors could shew no coral on the flukes as they came awash. We carried these ideas to the beach. Deliberately, we produced an atmosphere that is unjust to the cross-channel man.
The oversea voyage possesses a greater appeal to the imagination. Long distances, variation of the climes, storm and high ocean seas—a burthen of goods brought from a far country, all contribute to make an impression that the tale of a coastingvoyagecould not produce. Familiarity, perhaps, has robbed the short-carriers' sea-trip of what shreds of romance existed. In tide and out, the smaller vessels have grown to the sight as almost part of the familiar quays and wharves they frequent. A voyage from Tyne to the Thames or from Glasgow to Liverpool is so common and everyday that little remark is excited. We are unconcerned at its incident; the gale that wrecked a collier on the Black Middens may have blown a tile or two from our roof; the fog that bound the Antwerp boat for a tide is, perhaps, the same that held us in the City for an hour over time. We may entertain our friends with recital of a sea-voyage, but we have not a great deal to say of a Channel passage.
At war, this focus of the public outlook has persisted. The threat to our sea-communications, to the source by which the nation gains its daily bread, has drawn an intense interest to the fortunes of the ships, but that interest has rarely been extended to the coasting vessels and the seamen who man them; there is little said of the work of the coastal pilots, on whose skill and local knowledge so much depends. We are concerned for ourBritannicsandJustitias, but the fate of theSarah Pritchardof Beaumaris, or the escape ofBoy Jacobare small events in relation to the toll of our tonnage. Their utility has not been brought before us in the same way as the direct service of the great ocean carriers. It is not difficult to understand that a breakdown of that source of supply would mean starvation and disaster. Our dependence on the coasting vessels is not so apparent. The vital needs served by them are, in part, obscured. We are, perhaps, satisfied that alternative channels exist for passage of the tonnage they transport: road and rail are open for inland carriage.
The situation is not quite so clear. Pressure at the rail-heads, at the collieries, at the steelworks and the manufactories, has thrown a burden on our island railways that they are unable to bear. But for the service of the coasters and the resolution of the home-trade seamen, the block to our traffic could not have been other than fatal. By relieving the congestion on the lines, they made possible the expansion of our output of munitions. Millions of tons that would otherwise have been put upon land transport (and have lain to swell the accumulations), are brought to tide-mark to be handled and cleared and ferried between home ports and across the channels by the coasting vessels. The Fleet is coaledand stored almost entirely by sea. Our men in France and Flanders are carried and fed and refitted by light-draught steamers. Power is transmitted to our Allies from British coalfields by our grimy colliers. Constant voyaging, dispatch at the ports of lading and discharge, seagoing through all weathers, make huge the total of their tonnage, but their individual cargoes rank small against the mammoth burdens of the oversea merchantmen. The sea-ants (however busily they throng the ports) are seldom remarked; their work is carried on in the shadow of more spectacular and lengthy voyaging. On occasion, a stray beam of popular recognition is turned on the smaller craft—as whenWandlesteams up Thames after her gallant fight, or whenThordis(Bell, master) rams and sinks a U-boat—but the light is quickly slewed again to illuminate the seafaring of the oversea vessels. Similarly—with the men—interest has centred on the deep-water mariner; the coasting masters and their crews, together with the pilots, are little heard of. Their navigations, steering by the land on a short passage of a tide or two, have not the compelling emphasis of long voyaging on distant seas. Chroniclers of our deeds and fates have set out the drawn agony of the raft and the open boat in mid-Atlantic; they are less insistent on the tragedies (as bitter and prolonged) of inshore waters. Perhaps they are influenced by a common misconception that succour is ever ready at hand in the narrow sea. There are the lifeboats on the coast, patrols on keen look-out in the channels, vessels are ever passing up and down the fairways; the land, in any case, is not far distant. Such assurance has but slender warrant. Gallant, unselfish, and thorough as are the services of the lifeboatmen, their operations in the main are intended to serve known wrecks and strandings. A flare in the darkness or a flash of gunfire in the channels is now no special signal; the new sea-casualty gives little time or warning for a muster of resources. The ready succour of the patrols is, perhaps, more instant and alert, but the channel seaways cover an area that no system could place under a quartered post or guard. No vigilance could prevent the capture ofBrusselsand the martyrdom of Captain Fryatt; the crew of theNelsonsmack were for over thirty hours adrift in the narrow seas ere they were sighted and rescued. In the busy waters of the Irish Sea, three men of the ketchLady of the Lakemade ten miles in eight hours under oars, after their vessel had been sunk by gunfire. A weary progress, with ships passing near and far, but none daring too close the boat that might, for all they know, be trap for an enemy mine or torpedo.
It is time we ceased to sing that Rio Grande chanty: anamendeis overdue.
While we, the foreign-going men, have our 'ins and outs' of the most dangerous seas—serving our turn in the front-line sea-trenches, then retiring to a rest in safer and more distant waters—the coastal seaman has no such relief. Hisdaily duty lies in the storm-centre, in the very midst of the sea-war. From harbour mouth to the booms of his port of entry, no course can be steered that does not drive his keel through minable areas and across the ranges of lurking submarines.
The new sea-warfare has developed a scheme of offence that renders our inshore waters peculiarly fraught with peril to navigators. The coast-line is no longer a defence and protection; rather, by limiting sea-room in manœuvre, the shoals and rock-bound beach have turned ally to the enemy. Sea-mark and headland provide a guide in estimating the run of a torpedo; note of a point definite, on which sea-routes converge, is of value to a submarine commander. Even in the shallower waters—depths in which a torpedo attack would be difficult—an equally deadly offence may be maintained. The run of the sea-bottom in the channels offering a good hold to slipped mine-moorings, it was not long before the enemy had adapted submarines to continue the minelaying that our command of the surface had stopped. While new and larger U-boats are sent abroad on the trade routes, special submarines, less encumbered by the stores and equipment that longer passages would demand, make frequent visits to the fairways to sow a freight of mines. No section of the channels holds sanctuary for the coaster. Close inshore, as in the offing, is all a danger area, open to the stealthy visits of the submarine minelayers. Right on the Mersey Bar, the Liverpool pilot steamer went up with a loss of forty lives; remote West Highland bays have echoed to the crash of mines exploded; seaward of the Irish banks, the deeps are alike dangerous. Counter-measures there are (services as efficient and resourceful in life-saving as those of the enemy are cunning and viciously ingenious in murder), but even the gallantry and skill and untiring efforts of our minesweepers cannot wholly clear the immense water-spaces. Mechanical contrivances—the Otters—are valuable, and aid in fending the mines, but (the sea-bottom being foul with wreckage) they are often a danger to their carriers. There is ever the harassing uncertainty which no vigilance may allay. The sheer relief of passing over the hundred-fathom line to the comparative safety of the deeps of ocean is never experienced by the cross-channel captain.
Favoured by their light draught and smaller proportions, the coasters are perhaps less exposed to successful torpedo attack than their larger and deeper ocean sisters. In the early days of submarine activity, the enemy was loath to use his deadlier and more expensive weapon on the small craft. He relied on gunfire to produce effects. The channel seas were not then as well patrolled as now by armed auxiliaries: he could have a leisurely exercise in frightfulness at little risk to himself—there was no return to his fire—it was an easy target practice.Cottinghamwas shelled at short ranges when off the Bristol Channel. Unarmedand outdistanced, the master stopped his engines, lowered the two boats, and abandoned ship. The shelling continued, but was directed on the sinking ship; the submarine commander evidently thought the bitter wintry weather would accomplish a more refinedSchrecklichkeitthan the summary execution of his shell-bursts. In the heavy battery of a sou'west gale, the boats drove apart. The master's boat was sighted by a patrol, and the crew of six rescued after some hours' exposure. The mate's boat came ashore at Portliskey in Wales, bottom up and shattered; of the seven men who had manned her there was no trace. Six ofCottingham'screw survived the bitter weather—six hardy seamen were spared to return to service afloat. The German became dissatisfied with a frightfulness that murdered only half a merchant ship's crew when it was possible to murder all. It was not enough to destroy the ships and leave the seamen to the wind and sea and bitter weather. If they were not to be driven from their calling by fear, there were other measures—sure, definite, final. There was to be no weakness among the apostles of the new creed, no shrinking, no humanity—British seamen were to follow their shattered ships to the litter of the channel bottom. TheKölnische Zeitungset forth that "in future, our German submarines and aircraft would wage war against British mercantile vessels without troubling themselves in any way about the fate of the crews." TheKölnische Zeitungcould not have been well informed. Their submarine commanders troubled themselves greatly about the fate of our crews. They shelled the boats in many subsequent attacks. They expended ammunition in efforts to secure that no further seafaring would be possible to their victims. Sheer individual murder took the place of an illegal act of war. ". . . We were unarmed, a slow ship. The submarine hit us with a shot on the bow and then ran up the signal to take to the lifeboats. We did so, and several shots were fired at thePalermo. They did not take effect, however, and a torpedo was sent into her side. She sank within a few minutes. Whether the fact that he had to use a torpedo to send our vessel to the bottom angered the commander I do not know, but the submarine came directly alongside of our lifeboats. The commander was on the deck, and yelled, 'Where is the captain of that ship?' The captain stood up and made his way to the side where the German was standing. The German held his revolver close to our captain's head. 'You will never bringanother ship across this ocean,' he said, using several oaths, then he pulled the trigger. Our captain fell dead, and we were permitted to continue."
The new campaign was directed particularly against the coasters and fishermen. The procedure was simple. No great speed or gun-range was required. There was no risk, if a good look-out was kept for patrols and war craft. The helpless, unarmed vessel, outsped and hulled, was brought-to within easy range,and shelling could be continued to augment the confusion of boat-lowering in a seaway. If by resolution and fine seamanship the boats were got away, there was further target practice with shrapnel or machine-gun. The schoonerJane Williamsonof Arklow was attacked without warning. The first shot smashed one of her boats, the second killed one of the crew. At shouting distance—a hundred yards range—point-blank under the submarine's gun—there could be no question of defence or escape. The remaining five hands put over the second boat, tumbled into her and shoved clear. To hit the boat the submarine's gun must have been slewed deliberately from the larger target: bad shooting could not have occurred. Afloat and helpless, a shell struck her, killing one man outright, mortally wounding the master and another, and damaging the frail row-boat. The Germans beckoned the boat to them, but it was only to laugh at the throes of the dying men. The U-boat submerged, leaving the three survivors to ship oars and face the long weary pull towards the distant land. TheWilliamwas sunk by gunfire; the gun's crew of the U-boat then loaded shrapnel and turned the gun on the open boat, wounding a man of the crew.Redcapwas hauling her trawl when without any warning shrapnel burst on board. There was no challenge, the fishermen had made no attempt to get under way and escape. Busied with the gear, all hands were grouped together, when the shell exploded among them. One hand was killed instantly, the mate's leg was blown off, two seamen were wounded. Under fire, the survivors put the boat over and removed the wounded; the Germans gave no thought to their distress, but centred rapid fire on the trawler, sunk her, and disappeared.
A HEAVILY ARMED COASTING BARGEA HEAVILY ARMED COASTING BARGE
When guns were served to merchant ships, the coasters shared in their issue. Encounters with enemy submarines were no longer one-sided and hopeless. Effects could not be secured by the Germans at so small a cost. Frequently the effects were those that the submarine commander was most anxious to avoid.Atalantapicked up the crew ofMaréchal de Villars, then fought off the U-boat that had sunk that vessel. Watchers on the coastal headlands saw many a running fight between handy little home-traders and the under-sea pirates. Nor were the fishermen slow in action. Once armed for defence, they proved that they could use their weapons with skill and precision. Off Aberdeen in stormy weather, a German submarine hove up from his depths for practice on a fleet of trawlers. It was to be aRedcapdiversion: rapid fire, shrapnel, boats thrown out hastily, common shell on the hulls of the trawlers—wholesale destruction. But there was a mistake. A 'watch-dog' was among the fleet—Commissioner, armed and alert. At an opportune moment she cut her gear adrift, canted under speed and helm, returned the U-boat's fire and sank her in five rounds. Submarine commanders soon realized that'diversions' were risky, the target could now hit back. It was safer to submerge when within range of anything larger than a row-boat. Even the sailing barges acquired a sting. In proportion to her tonnage,Drei Geschwister—a captured German, refitted to our coastal service—is probably the heaviest armed vessel afloat.
In channel waters, look-outs must not be confined to the round of the sea. To the U-boat's gunfire and torpedo, to the menace of moored and drifting mines, is added a danger that rarely threatens the oversea trader—an attack from the air. Striking distance from enemy bases has given opportunity for exercise of aircraft. Zeppelin and seaplane have their turns of activity in the North Sea and the Straits. Steering a careful course in a sea 'foul with floating mines,' the Cork steamshipAvocetwas attacked by three aeroplanes. The action lasted for over half an hour. Bombs exploded alongside, the bridge and upper decks were scarred and pitted by a hail of machine-gun bullets. The master and mate kept the aircraft at a respectful height by using their rifles—the only arms carried. By skilful handling, Captain Brennell saved his ship. He is probably the only seaman who has steered a deliberate course between a 'fall' of bombs; swinging on starboard helm, 'three bombs missed the starboard bow and three the port quarter by at most seven feet.' TheBirchgrovewas attacked by two seaplanes carrying torpedoes—a novel adaptation. Again the use of ready helm proved a moving ship a difficult target. Both torpedoes missed. Less fortunate was theFranz Fischer, an ex-German collier. Anchored off the Kentish Knock, the night black dark, the thunder of a Zeppelin's engines was heard overhead. Before there was time to extinguish all lights, the huge airship was able to take up a position for attack. One heavy bomb sufficed.Franz Fischerreeled to a tremendous explosion, heeled over, and sank. Only three survived of her crew of sixteen.
Constant sea-perils are enhanced by war measures in the channels. On open sea there is less confusion; the issue is narrowed to contest between ship and submarine and the hazard of a derelict or floating mine—there is ample sea-room in which to 'back and fill.' The coaster has a harder task. His navigational problem is complicated by the eight hundred odd pages of 'Notices to Mariners'—the amends and addends and cancellations of Admiralty instructions relating to the seafaring of the coast. Inner channels are confused by 'friendly' minefields or by alteration of the buoyage; aids to navigation are suspended or rearranged on scant notice; coastwise lights are put out or have their powers reduced to small efficiency in the mists and grey weather. Unmarked wrecks, growing daily in numbers, litter the sea-bottom; areas are to be avoided to leave a fair field for the hunters; zigzag courses in close proximity to the land sustaina constant anxiety. Above all, navigation without lights increases the danger to all merchantmen and to the patrols and naval craft that crowd the seaways of the coast.
Through all that the enemy can set against them, the home-trade vessels proceed on their voyages. Their losses are heavy in numbers (if the sum of their tonnage be not great), but the press of short sea-carriers that passesup Channelor down shews no evidence that frightfulness achieves an effect in holding them, loath, at their moorings. There is freight enough for all. Every vessel that has a sound keel and a helm to steer her is actively employed. Old craft and odd are come on the sea to serve turn in our emergency. Barges and inland watermen, Hudson Bay sloops, whilom pleasure craft, mud-hoppers reshelled, hulks even, are used; if they can neither sail nor steam, the ropemakers can supply a hawser—there is trade and bargain for a tow. After peace-years of grinding competition with the freight-grabbing steam coasters, the sailing craft of the smaller ports have found a new prosperity, from which no risks can daunt them. Sailmakers and rigging-cutters, the block and spar makers, have taken up their old tools again, and the gallant little topsail schooners, brigantines, cutters, and ketches are out under canvas.
The German boast that he can achieve victory by submarine policy could be nowhere more plainly refuted than in the War Channel that extends from the Thames to the Tyne. The evidence is there for all to judge. The seaway is foul with wrecks, foundered on beach and sandbar—the tide vexed by under-water obstructions. Topmast spars with whitened cordage whipping in the wind stand out above the swirl of the tides; a shattered bow-section or gaunt listed shell of a wrecked vessel sets the turn to a new shoal drift; crazy funnels, twisted and arake by the broken hulls below, stud the angles of the buoyage that marks the fairway. Disaster to our shipping is plainly shewn, grouped in a way that no figures or statistics could rival. But there is other evidence. Daybreak in the Channel gives light to a progress of seaworthy craft that seems in no way diminished by the worst that the enemy can do. He has failed, despite the sinister sea-marks that litter the fairway. Down the river estuaries and out from the sea-harbour and roadstead, the coasters still join in company through the channels. An unending procession; the grey seascape is never free of their whirling smoke-wreaths. Passing and turning in the deeps, they steam close to the red-rusted, shattered hulls of their sister ships. The gaunt masses of tortured steel stand out as monuments to an indomitable spirit—or to an influence that calls their sea-mates out to steer by the loom of their wreckage.
Ifwe may count antiquity and precedence a claim, the pilot is the real senior of our trade. Before the ship and her tackling—the rude coracle, setting across the river bars or steering on a short passage by sea-marks on the coast, before the oversea venturer with his guide in sun and star—the lodesman, who marked the deeps and the shallows.
The pilot's departure and boarding are definite and well-marked incidents in the course of a voyage, and have a significance and interest few other ship-happenings claim. He is our last and first connection with the shore. His leaving is attended by a sober emotion, a compound of regret and impatience; regret that his sure support is withdrawn—impatience to go ahead to open sea. He backs over the rail and lurches down the swaying side-ladder to his dinghy to an accompaniment of cordial good-byes. Passengers crowd the bulwarks to watch his small boat go a-bobbing in the stern-wash as we gather way. It hardly occurs to them that their farewell letters, now in his weather-stained bag, may be for days or weeks unposted; to them he is the last post—the link is snapped, the voyage now really begun.
There may be masters who affect a fine aloofness when the pilot boards them on incoming, others who preserve a detached air—but there are few who do not feel relief in answering the cheerful hail—'All well aboard, Captain?'—as the pilot puts a cautious testing foot on the side-ladder. Here is the voyage practically at an end with the coming of an expert in local navigation. The anxiety of a landfall is over. The channel buoys, port hand and starboard, stretch out ahead to mark definite limits to shoal and sandbank; familiar landmarks loom up through the drift of distant city haze; the outer lightship curtsies in the swell, beckoning us into port to resume the brief round of longshore life. After a lengthy period of silence and detachment, we are again in touch with the affairs of the beach; the news of the day and of weeks past is told to us in intervals of steering orders—sailor news, edited by a competent understanding of our professional interests. The tension of the voyage is unconsciously relaxed. We are in good hands. The engines turn steadily and we come in from sea.
If the pilot was ever a welcome attendant in the peaceful days, his services in the war earn for him an even warmer appreciation. War measures in their operation have rendered our seaports difficult of entry. The buoyage has, perhaps, been reset in the interval of a voyage's absence. Boom defences and examination areas exist, channels are closed or obstructed; certain of the lightshipsor floating marks may be withdrawn on short warning. Amid all our doubts and uncertainties, we look for the one assured sea-mark on the unfamiliar bars—the red-and-white emblem of a pilot vessel on her boarding station. Undeterred by the risk of mine or torpedo while marking time on their cruising ground, the pilots are constantly on the alert to board the incoming vessels as they approach from seaward. No state of the weather drives the cutter from her station to seek shelter in safer waters. If the seas are too high for boatwork, she steams ahead and offers a lead to a quieter section of the fairway where boarding may be attempted.
Turn and turn of the pilots in service can no longer be effected. The even balances of their roster (that worked so well in peace-time) have been rudely disturbed by war. The steady round of duty, in which every man knew the date of his relief, has given place to a state of 'feast and famine'; all hands are frequently mustered to meet the sudden and unheralded demands of an inward-bound convoy, or the limited accommodation of the cutter is taxed and overloaded by the release of pilots from an outward mass sailing.
There are grades of pilotage—from that of the rivers and protected waters to the more hazardous voyages between coastal ports. It is, perhaps, to the sea-pilots of Trinity we are most intimately drawn. While the river pilot is with us for the short term of the tide, the Trinity man is of our ship's company for a day or days. His valued local knowledge is at our service to set and steer fair courses in the perplexing tangents of unfamiliar tideways; operations of the minesweepers and patrols—that alter and multiply beyond counting in the course of a voyage abroad—are a plain book to him. If we meet disaster in the channels, we have a prompter at our elbow to advise a favourable beaching. We have a peer to confide in throughout our difficulties. After days of anxious watchkeeping on the bridge we are well served by a competent relief.
Ship movements in the western waters are controlled by the naval authorities in a manner that allows of independent sailings, but the Trinity pilots' duties lie in the Channel and the North Sea, where a more exacting regime is in force. From the Downs to the north, measures adopted for protection of the ships call for a time-table of sailings and arrivals that can only be adhered to by the pilot's aid. A 'War Channel' is established, a sea-lane of some two hundred and eighty miles that has constantly to be swept and cleared in advance of the traffic. Navigation in the channel obstructs an efficient search for mines; sweeping operations interfere with the passage of the ships. No small amount of control and management is necessary to reconcile conflicting actions and expedite the safe conduct of the shipping. Latterly, sailings were restricted to the hours of daylight; a system of sectional passages is enforced, by which all vessels arescheduled to make a protected anchorage before nightfall. An effect of this is to group the vessels in large scattered convoys, forming a pageant of shipping that even the busiest days of peace-time could not rival.
In all the story of the Downs, the great roadstead can rarely have presented such a scene as when, on a chill winter morning, we lay at anchor awaiting passage. Overnight, we had come in under convoy from the westward, eighteen large ships, to swell the tonnage that had gathered from the Channel ports. From Kingsdown to the Gull, there was hardly water-space to turn a wherry. Even in the doubtful holding ground of Trinity Bay some large ships were anchored, and the fairway through the Roads was encroached upon by more than one of us—despite the summary signals from the Guardship. All types were represented in our assembly; we boasted a combination in dazzle paint to set us out, and our signal flags carried colour to the mastheads to complete the variegations of our camouflage. Troop transports from the States, standard cargo ships, munition carriers come over in the night from the French ports, high-sided empty colliers returning to the north for further loads, deep-laden freighters for London, ammunition and store ships for the Fleet, coasters and barges, made up the mercantile shipping riding at anchor, while naval patrols and harbour craft under way gave movement to the spectacle. Snow had fallen, and the uplands above Deal and Walmer had white drifts in the quartered fields. To seaward, we could see twin wreaths of smoke blowing low on the water, marking the progress of a flotilla of minesweepers, on whose operations we waited. A brisk north wind held out our signal flags, shewing our ports of destination, and the pilot cutter, busily serving men on the inward bound, took note of our demands. In time, the punt delivered our pilot, and we hove short, awaiting a signal from the Guardship that would release the traffic.
The teeth of the Goodwins had bared to a snarl of broken water that shewed the young flood making when movement began among the ships. Long experience had accustomed the pilots to the ways of the minesweepers, and when the clearing signal 'Vessels may proceed' was hoisted at the yard-arm of the Guardship, there were few anchors still to be raised. Crowding out towards the northern gateway, we found ourselves in close formation. Variations of speeds rendered the apparent confusion difficult to steer through, but the action of a kindred masonry among the pilots seemed to clear the narrow sea-lane. There was little easing of speed; with only a few hours of winter daylight to work in, shipping was being driven at its utmost power to make the most of the precious time. 'All out,' stoking up and setting a stiff smoke-screen over the seascape, we thinned out to a more comfortable formation, while the smaller craft, taking advantage of the rising tide, cut the inner angles of the channel to keep apace.
With flood tide to help us, we made good progress. The press of shipping gradually dropped astern till only the troop transport, our sea-neighbours of the convoy, kept company with us. Satisfied with the speed made, the pilot reckoned up the mileage and the tide. We were for Hull and, with luck, he expected to make Yarmouth Roads before darkness and the Admiralty regulations obliged us to bring up. Like all who serve the tide, he was prepared for an upset to his plans. "Not much use figuring things out in these days, Capt'n," he said. "A lot o' happenings come our way. In spite o' these fellows out there"—he pointed to a group of destroyers lining out on our seaward beam—"the U-boat minelayers get in on the channels to lay 'eggs'; as fast as we can sweep them up, sometimes. But"—cheerfully—"they don't always get back for another load: saw the bits o' one being towed into Harwich last week."
Happenings came our way. At the Edinburgh Channel, where the troop transports parted company and turned away for London, we were halted by an urgent signal from a spurring torpedo-boat. 'Ships bound north to anchor instantly,' was the reading of her flags; we rounded to and obeyed. In groups and straggling units, we were joined by the larger number of the fleet that had left the Downs with us. Some few were for the Thames and steamed ahead in wake of the troop-ships, but the most were bound for east-coast ports and anchored near the Channel Lightship. Two hours of precious daylight were lost to us as we rode out the last of the flood. High water came and we swung around on the cant of the wind. The pilot grew visibly impatient. The traverse of his reckoning lessened in mileage with every hasty step or two up and down the bridge. Yarmouth Roads receded into the morrow; Lowestoft (if the chief could crack her up to thirteen) was possible, but unlikely. Time passed, with no clearing signal—we were to be 'nipped' on the long stretch with no prospect but to dodge into Hollesay Bay before black night came.
By some mysterious agency, the coasters developed a foreknowledge of permission to proceed. Feathers of white steam curled from their windlasses, and their anchors were awash before the block was signalled clear. They had start of us. Less handily, we got under way and stood on into the Black Deep, where the smaller craft were throwing green smoke in their efforts to get ahead. The tide had now turned ebb to set us on our way. As we surged past the channel buoys the pilot was reassured. The prospect of windy Lowestoft Roads beckoned him on with every coaster we overhauled and passed; the outlook improved as we timed our passage between the sea-marks. Off the Sunk, we came on the cause of our stoppage. The pilot noted a new wreck on the sands, one that had not been there when last he steered over this route. Beached at high water, he said. She had not been long on. The wreck lay listed on aspit of the sandbank. Her bows were blown open, exposing the interior of forecastle and forehold. Neutral colours were painted on her topside; the boats were gone and dangling boat-falls streamed alongside in the tideway. There was no sign of life on her, but a patrol drifter was standing by with a crowd of men on her decks. Out to seaward a flotilla of minesweepers was busily at work. Turning no more than a curious eye on the mined neutral, the pilot paid attention to the steering. That we were over a mined area had no grave concern for him. Relying on the minesweepers, he kept course and speed—the channel was reported clear.