JUTLAND.BY FLEET SURGEON.
BY FLEET SURGEON.
The time is seven bells in the afternoon watch, and in the wardroom of one of His Majesty’s battle-cruisers a yawning marine servant with tousled hair and not too conspicuously clean a face is clattering cups and saucers at regular intervals round the two long tables which are the most obvious objects to be seen. Although it is a bright summer’s day on deck, the electric lights are lit, the wardroom skylights are battened down, and the heavy bomb-proof shutters pulled into position. In all the ship, fore and aft, there is not a space where normal daylight can enter except in a few of the senior officers’ cabins and down the companion-ways. Without being actually dirty, the whole living spaces are dingy and depressing. On the mess decks the watch below are indulging in their afternoon ‘caulk,’ stretched out on the tables or stools, with their heads resting on their wooden ditty boxes, which are used as pillows. Their forms are covered by watch coats, old hammocks, or pieces of deck cloth, for the wind blows chilly in the North Sea even on the thirty-first of May.
The wardroom is as depressing as the men’s quarters. It measures roughly thirty feet by twenty; the walls are of white painted steel; the floor is of steel covered with corticine, which has been coated with red shellac varnish so that it may not absorb moisture. There are two doorways opening on the port and starboard sides. The furniture is of the simplest possible description, consisting of the two long tables already mentioned, a smaller table, two sofas, three easy-chairs, two fixed settees about ten feet long, a dilapidated-looking piano covered with bundles of torn music, and two sideboards in alcoves, in each of which is a sliding hatch communicating with the pantry. The walls are bare except for a photograph of the sinkingBluecher, an engraving of an earlier namesake of the ship, and some charts and war maps hanging limply from drawing-pins,which fix them to wooden battens. In one corner is a coal stove, the polished brass funnel of which, passing to the deck above, is the only bright object in the room. Suspended from the beams by their cords and covered with yellow silken shades whose colour has long ago lost its pristine freshness and daintiness, are the electric lights. The gentle swaying of the shades is the only indication that the ship is at sea. Thanks to her turbine machinery, no noise or movement can be felt, and she might be lying in harbour for all there is to indicate otherwise.
The ship herself is one of the mammoths of the sea. When describing her in comparison with any other ship, apply superlatives and you will dimly reach some idea of her qualities. She is the largest, fastest, most heavily armed, best armoured, best equipped, highest horse-powered, best arranged engine of destruction of her time. Compared with a merchant ship, she has over twice the horse-power of theAquitania. Her crew is well over a thousand. She has been blooded already, and her officers have supreme confidence in her and themselves. For over an hour, practically single-handed, she has fought the fleeing German battle-cruisers, whilst her supporting consorts were endeavouring to catch her up.
A huge teapot containing a gallon of so-called tea is dropped with a thud on one of the wardroom sideboards. Plates are rattled violently as they are served around the table; there is a crash from the pantry as the third-class officers’ steward, who has been sleeping on top of the sink, strikes his yawning elbow against a pile of dirty tumblers left over since lunch-time, and the marine servant shouts out: ‘Tea is ready, gentlemen, please!’
There is a general movement from the settees, sofas and arm-chairs where tired officers have been snatching a brief rest. Four uncurl themselves from the small table where they have been sitting on high-backed chairs with their heads resting upon their arms. There is a general movement towards the long tables where the cups, saucers and plates show up startlingly white against the approved Admiralty pattern of serge tablecloth, whose main recommendation to the chooser must have been that it did not show the dirt. The dark red flowers have long ago become hopelessly mixed with the black background which is its most prominent feature when new.
The officers—there are thirty when they are all mustered—sit down at the tables and stare in front of them with the glassy, fixed eyes and owlish expression of those newly awakened from unrefreshing slumber in a tainted atmosphere. The marine servant,helped by another, carries round the enormous tin teapot and carelessly splashes a portion of the fluid into each cup as he passes. On the table are jugs containing ‘tinned cow’ and basins of brown sugar which the officers push to one another. For food there is good bread, butter and jam, and some musty fragments of old cake. For five minutes or so the meal is consumed in silence, when a signal messenger enters the wardroom and, with an air of conscious importance, lays a signal on the table beside the senior officer present. That individual gazes casually at it for a second, and then is suddenly galvanised into action. Holding it in both hands, he reads out eagerly: ‘Flag to all ships. Our light cruisers report that they have just sighted an enemy light cruiser.’
There is silence for a moment and then a voice is heard: ‘So much the worse for the enemy light cruiser!’
The scraping of the chairs against the floor is heard as they are hastily pushed back and the occupants rise, looking for their caps. No need to tell them what that signal means. ‘Action stations’ will be sounded in a few minutes.
A few whose duties are not so urgent remain behind, making hasty efforts at finishing their tea. They guess it will be a long time before they get the chance of another meal.
‘I’m a conscientious objector,’ says an engineer officer. ‘I want to go home to mummy!’
‘And I’m a pacifist,’ remarks a lieutenant, ‘but that’s no reason why I should drink filth as well as think it. Waiter! bring me a cup of freshly-made tea, and don’t let the dog get this or you’ll poison him.’
‘One little cruiser from the Spiritual HomeMet the British battle boats—And then there were none!’
‘One little cruiser from the Spiritual HomeMet the British battle boats—And then there were none!’
‘One little cruiser from the Spiritual HomeMet the British battle boats—And then there were none!’
‘One little cruiser from the Spiritual Home
Met the British battle boats—
And then there were none!’
sang in unmelodious, raucous tones a paymaster.
‘Oh, shut up!’ said another. ‘There it goes.’
The bugle-call for ‘Action stations’ was heard gradually getting louder as the bugle-boy ran along the passage outside.
‘That puts the hat on it! No tea, no nuffink! Now for a drop of frightfulness. Wonder whether Fritz has any new gas shells.’
‘Put your respirator on first and sniff afterwards,’ said a doctor, as they crushed through the doorway together. ‘If you really want to sell that Gieve you were blowing about yesterday, I’ll give you an I.O.U. for a bob for it.’
‘No good!’ replied the lieutenant. ‘I’ve sold it to a snottyfor a quid. His people sent him two pounds ten to buy one, and we went a burst on the thirty bob.’
‘Well, so long!’ said the doctor, as they parted at the bottom of a ladder. ‘If you fall into my hands you will be more cut up than I shall be.’
‘Go to the devil, you blood-thirsty abomination,’ shouted the lieutenant, and, seizing the rungs, ran rapidly up the horizontal ladder.
As he reached the upper deck and ran along towards the bridge ladders, he cast a glance round the horizon. ‘Visibility so-so!’ he thought; ‘but if it gets no worse than at present it will do. Can see 18,000 easily. Clouds a bit low though—not much more than a thousand up.’
He ran up the bridge ladders and finally reached the upper bridge, where the captain and navigating officer, officer of the watch, and signalmen were busy getting ready to go down to the armoured conning-tower. Above him towered the foremast, a central thick steel tube supported by two smaller steel tubes running down and outwards to the deck. On the after side of the central tube, dropped steel rungs were let into the mast; and, seizing hold of these, he climbed rapidly upwards until he reached the trap-door communicating with the top. Pushing up the door, he pulled himself bodily upwards and at last stood on the platform, a hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea.
He was in a circular box about ten feet in diameter, covered with a roof and with bulwarks rising breast-high all the way round. His duty was spotting for the secondary armament, and to assist him there were two other officers and eight men acting as range-takers, messengers, timekeepers, and in charge of deflection instruments. He gave the range for the guns to the transmitting station, watched the fall of the shot, estimated its distance over or short of the target, and supplied the necessary corrections. As it was useless to expect that firing the secondary guns would be of any value until the range came down to about 12,000 yards, or to repel destroyer or light cruiser attack, there would be a long interval of waiting before he would have anything to do. Meanwhile, he went round the instruments and saw that they were all in working order, tested the voice tubes, and gave hints and instructions to his subordinates.
The sky was rapidly becoming more overcast and the clouds were lower, although the horizon was still plainly visible.
A message came up the voice-tube from the conning-tower,warning him to keep a sharp look-out on the port bow as the enemy battle-cruisers should be shortly sighted proceeding in a northerly direction. Every sense was subordinated to that of sight, and in the tense stillness he strained his eyes until the sockets hurt. Looking down on the ship, which was spread like a map beneath his feet, no sign of life was visible, although behind armoured side and beneath thick steel hoods eager-eyed men were chafing at the delay.
It was easy to see that the ships were travelling at full speed, and the smoke belching from the ships ahead blurred his view and damaged his eyes until he remembered the pair of motor goggles he had supplied himself with.
Suddenly his attention was riveted by a small patch of the horizon where the haze seemed slightly thicker than elsewhere. To anyone who had not spent long weary hours watching for just such a haze it would have suggested nothing at all, even if it had been observed. He picked up his binoculars, which were hanging round his neck from a strap, and took a long, long look.
The other two officers watched his face carefully. Suddenly he dropped the glasses from his eyes and turned to his companions. ‘Yes; that’s the enemy battle-cruisers all right. They are making a sixteen-point turn. I wonder what their game is. Are they running away as they did at the Dogger Bank, or are they falling back on the High Seas Fleet. Anyhow, there’s theEngadinesending up a seaplane.’
He watched the movements of the seaplane ship for a few minutes, and then heaved a sigh of relief as a gigantic bird rose in flight from her side.
‘We haven’t sighted any of their Zeppelins yet and they would be useless in this atmosphere. If I know anything of theEngadine’speople, we shall get all the information we need in a little.’
If anything, there was an access of speed on the part of the British ships. The officers in the top cowered behind the steel bulwark which protected them a little; but tiny hurricanes played around their coats and caps and pierced the almost Arctic clothing they were wearing.
The enemy ships were rapidly becoming distinguishable as funnels and masts hurrying beneath a pall of smoke. The hulls were still under the rim of the horizon, but were gradually rising.
‘When we can see the hulls the range will be approximately24,000 yards, and firing will open any time after that,’ remarked the lieutenant to an officer whose first action this was.
Meanwhile, the range-finder was being rapidly adjusted by an able seaman who, seated behind it, commenced singing out in a monotonous voice with the suspicion of a shake of excitement in it: ‘22,000—20,500—19,000—18,000.’
As he reached the last figure, there was a spattering sound in the seas on their port side, and huge columns of spray were thrown 200 feet up in the air. Driven back by the wind, sheets of water swept against the top and drenched the luckless crew. Heedless, the lieutenant watched the fall of the shot and muttered: ‘Five hundred short. Damned good effort at opening the ball.’
As he spoke there was a thundering roar from the ship beneath him, and he instinctively stepped back from the edge of the top to avoid the blast from the guns beneath. ‘That’s A turret firing’; and as he traced the flight of the huge projectile which was plainly visible winging its way towards the distant speck, he waited anxiously for the splash which would indicate its fall. ‘Good hunting! About five hundred short, too!’
These were not his guns and were not under his control; but he knew that the capable lieutenant spotting in the gun control tower below him, and the warrant officer in the top twenty feet above him, would speedily correct the error. His job was to wait and watch.
The action had become general. Shells, looking like Gargantuan hailstones, were falling on every side of him; while columns of water, like geysers, were rising everywhere and obscuring the range. As a shell whizzed past them and its breath pushed them farther back into the top, a shout of admiration escaped him. ‘Straddled in the third salvo! Oh, by Jove! good shooting! Hope we’re doing as well!’
The top rocked to the thundering reverberation of our own guns; the air was thick with the cordite smoke; the whistle and shriek of shells as they passed, hit, or burst short were as insistent as the noise of a railway engine’s whistle in a tunnel; sheets of spray were wafted up to them and fell like waterfalls without making any distinguishable sound; whilst, as he caught sight of them between the showers, the range-finder’s voice, all trace of excitement gone, went on with its monotonous sing-song: ‘17,000—16,500—15,000.’
For a second the officer glanced at the ships ahead. Even as he turned, he saw three enemy shells falling on the next ahead.
The voice of the man at the range-finder again took up the refrain: ‘15,000—14,500—14,000.’
The hulls of the enemy ships were now plainly visible, but the range was still too great for the secondary armament to be of any value against the thickly armoured sides of the German ships. Would they never come any nearer? As if in reply to his question, he suddenly saw a line of low black hulls emerge from behind the enemy ships and come tearing in a line diagonally towards him.
Here was work at last! Seizing the navyphone, he shouted down to the captain: ‘Destroyer attack on the port bow. Request permission to open fire.’ The reply came back: ‘Open fire at 10,000.’
Dropping the navyphone, he picked up the voice tube and commenced the orders to the transmitting station which would let loose six thousand six hundred pounds of shell per minute at the rapidly approaching enemy.
‘Destroyer. One mast, two funnels.
‘Range 9500. Deflection 16 right. Rate 550 closing.
‘Load with lyddite. Salvoes.
‘Shoot!’
Anxiously he gazed at the leader of the approaching destroyers. Good shooting, but a little to the left. Undoubtedly she was hit or, at least, badly spattered, as she altered course a little. Correcting this, he shouted down: ‘Shoot!’
Again the deadly hail smothered the little vessel in foam. From the top the men on her decks could be clearly seen training the torpedo tubes and getting ready to fire. As she approached, the order was given: ‘Down 400! Shoot!’
There was a sudden burst of speed on the part of the destroyer, which was immediately allowed for.
‘Down 400. Close rate 200. Rate 750 closing! Shoot!’
‘Good hunting!’ he muttered, as the destroyer swerved in her path and, apparently badly injured, commenced to alter her course so as to get out of action.
Smoke and flame were belching from her forward, whilst amidships a ragged hole in her side could be seen from which great clouds of steam came out in gasps. She was heeling towards him, and the crew could be seen plainly through glasses, fitting on their life-belts and dragging at the falls of their badly damaged whaler. Rafts were being cast loose, and the deck was strewn with bodies which,even as they watched, commenced to roll slowly down the sloping deck.
‘Not much need to worry about him!’ thought the lieutenant. ‘He’s finished. Time to get on with the next.’
The second destroyer had been attended to by the ship astern, but the third was still coming on, apparently uninjured. She was rapidly altering both course and speed in order to avoid the deadly salvoes and spoil the range-finding.
‘Oh, that’s your game,’ said the officer. ‘We’ll see what we can do for you.’ Speaking down the voice-pipe again, he shouted: ‘Object shifted. Third destroyer from left. Range 8500. Same deflection and rate! Salvoes! Shoot!’
All-overs was reported by the spotter.
‘Down 400. Shoot!’
‘One hit, others short!’ shouted the spotter.
‘Up 200. Shoot!’
There was no need to listen to the spotter this time. The middle of the destroyer rose in the air and then burst asunder. With a roar, she broke in halves, and bow and stem were elevated skyward until she assumed the shape of the letter V. Almost instantaneously she disappeared. As she did so, she went straight downwards as if plucked under by a gigantic hand. The fourth destroyer put her helm hard over and turned sixteen points. She had been hit once by the ship astern and had evidently had enough.
The lieutenant chuckled. ‘Gave Fritz what-for that time! Guess our destroyers could have done better than that!
‘Cease firing!’
For the time being, the destroyer attack had been foiled, but others were sure to come, and, smothered in spray, the men on the top kept anxiously on the alert. As they looked ahead, they saw first one, then another, then several separate clouds of smoke on the horizon. The German battle-cruisers were heading straight for them, and the meaning of that was all too plain. Evidently these distant vessels were the German High Seas Fleet. The range of the German battle-cruisers was rapidly getting less, and it was possible to start shooting at them with the secondary armament with a fair chance of hitting.
The lieutenant began to give his orders again, after asking permission from the captain. And, busy and capable as he was professionally, another part of his brain was speaking to his inner consciousness. ‘This isDer Tagat last. Thank heaven we’re in it. Verdun must have been a failure. Where is Jellicoe? Wecan’t take on all these beggars by ourselves! Wonder how long Beatty is going to carry on! Their guns are badly rattled: they haven’t hit us a fair smack for over an hour.’
The rapidly advancing High Seas Fleet was approaching the parallel lines of fighting battle-cruisers. Still Beatty held on! But the lieutenant had no doubts in his own mind. ‘Jellicoe can’t be far away, and we are going to hold them until he comes up. May it be soon!’
Still the battle-cruisers held on, while the German battleships commenced firing at long ranges.
At last the signal to go about was given, and the helm was jammed hard a-port so that the big ship heeled heavily over as she spun round. As she did so, it was obvious enough that the German battle-cruisers were doing the same and racing back in the direction they had come. They had apparently got the idea that Beatty was trying to avoid them and was suffering too much punishment to be able to reply effectually. But that officer had his own game to play and knew as soon as the German battle-cruisers turned immediately after him that they had fallen into the very error he had desired them to make.
The Fifth Battle Squadron had now joined up and was engaging both the enemy’s cruisers and battleships, and, as far as the battle was concerned, the day was now more in favour of the British.
As the ships swung round, one after the other, keeping perfect station as if at manœuvres, they fired their broadsides with telling effect, which was plainly seen, at the German battleships, which responded indifferently.
It was easy for those in the top to guess what Beatty’s tactics were. Evidently, Jellicoe was somewhere up in the north-west, and the whole German Fleet were walking straight into his hands. If only the light would hold, but already, although it was barely 5 P.M., the horizon was becoming misty and the outlines of the enemy ships were no longer sharply defined. To control effectively this long length of battle line, good light was absolutely essential.
Still Beatty sped along, keeping station on the German cruisers at 13,000 yards, leaving their battleships to the Fifth Battle Squadron. The Germans by this time were suffering heavily, and theLutzowwas seen to drop out of the line.
Suddenly, ahead on the port bow, were seen the welcome signs of the Grand Fleet arriving at last. There was no longer any doubt as to what the result would be. Inevitable defeat was staring the Germans in the face. With the instinct of the born fighting sailor,Beatty seized the chance to turn the German defeat into a rout. The battle-cruisers leaped ahead at full speed and he dashed like a fury across towards the head of the German line in order to concentrate on their leading ships and crumple their formation. The manœuvre was perfectly successful. The German line bent, broke and fled, but the thick mist which had gradually been coming down robbed Jellicoe of the fruits of his victory. As the Grand Fleet deployed into line and brought their guns to bear on the enemy’s line, they found for target an occasional wraith-like hull appearing for a few seconds between the banks of smoke and fog. The battle-cruisers were in the same quandary, firing at intervals at the flashes which showed the position of the German ships. The utmost confusion apparently reigned on board them, and in the thick fog and scattered condition of both fleets, to go on with the action was impossible.
Once again, as often before, the weather conditions had favoured the defeated, and both fleets mutually broke off action—the Germans to flee for their home ports, and the British to re-form for the battle at dawn.
During the night, that best test of the morale of a fleet, a destroyer attack, was carried out by the British with marked success; but there was no retaliation on the part of the Germans. They had had enough and more than enough.
At 10.30P.M.a group of stiff and wearied officers left the top and made for the wardroom to get some food. The forsaken afternoon tea was still standing as it had been left on the table, and, lying about on chairs, sofas and settees, were men too wearied even to desire to eat.
They sat and looked at one another and said nothing. Members of the mess who had been joyfully skylarking eight hours before would never draw their chairs up to the table again. One who had left his cup of tea untasted had drunk to the dregs the cup that Death had offered him. Only one officer made a remark: ‘The action is to be resumed at dawn.’ And only one man made a reply: ‘They won’t get away this time.’
But they did. A Zeppelin was sighted at 3.30A.M., evidently shadowing the British Fleet. For ten hours they cruised over the battle area strewn with the horrible relics of the fight, but the Germans were nowhere to be seen. They had gone home to celebrate their victory by getting their wounded into hospital, their dead buried, and their sunken ships renamed.