"It'stime those scallywags of ours put in an appearance, Sparrowhawk," remarked Colonel Greyhouse of the Auldhaig Air Station. "They reported from Leith two days ago. We're short-handed, and there's a patrol needed to escort the light cruisers back."
"Quite true, sir," agreed Major Sparrowhawk. "I'll 'phone through. Because they had a joy-ride on a Q-boat is no excuse for kicking their heels around Leith and Edinburgh."
"And how's young Pyecroft?" inquired the C.O.
"Reported for duty this morning, sir," replied the second-in-command. "I asked him if he wanted sick leave and he declined."
Colonel Greyhouse raised his eyebrows in surprise. Never before had he known of a case of a junior officer refusing leave.
"Wonder what his game is?" he remarked, as he gathered his cap, gloves and stick from an untidy heap on the ante-room table.
Before the second-in-command could think of a suitable reply, the door was thrown open and the three absentees filed into the room—Captain Cumberleigh leading, followed by Lieutenants Blenkinson and Jefferson.
"Detained at Area Headquarters, sir," reported Captain Cumberleigh.
"All right," rejoined the C.O. drily. "As it happens, you're just in time, Major Sparrowhawk will give you your orders."
He went out, leaving the three returned officers exchanging inquiring glances.
"The light-cruiser squadron went out yesterday to give a leg-up to your pals in Q 171," explained the major. "There are U-boats knocking about off the north of the Dogger. The C.O. wants a couple of blimps to go out and get in touch with the cruisers."
"And Q 171: what of her, sir?" asked Blenkinson.
The major shook his head.
"No news has come through," he replied. "Apparently you fellows had an exciting time."
"Rather, sir," exclaimed Jefferson. "I suppose Pyecroft told you everything up to the time we lost sight of him. Plucky blighter, Pyecroft!"
"There's one point I'd like to mention, sir," remarked Cumberleigh.
"What's that?" asked Major Sparrowhawk.
"You owe me a double whisky," said Cumberleigh solemnly.
"By Jove, I do!" admitted the second-in-command. "You were right about that Fennelburt fellow. They are on his track, but I've had no news of his capture."
"That's why we were detained," explained Cumberleigh. "There's a 'tec—Entwistle is his name—on the spy's track. Almost nabbed him at York, but he managed to slip through the 'tec's fingers. This Entwistle came to Leith to ask us certain questions. It appears that Fennelburt's real name is Karl von Preussen, and he's a don hand at the game."
It was early on the following morning that the light-cruiser flotilla came into Auldhaig Harbour. All had their funnels blistered and stripped of paint, testifying to the efforts of the engine-room staff to break all records in the matter of speed. After them came the destroyers, a few showing signs of having been in action.
In single column line ahead they stole on at reduced speed, their passing greeted with resounding cheers from the crews of the vessels at anchor and from dense crowds of spectators who lined the shore. Silently, as if too modest to take unto themselves any credit for what they had done, the cruisers went to their appointed mooring-buoys and the destroyers disappeared from view within the entrance to the large basin in Auldhaig Dockyard.
But still the crowd refused to disperse.
They expected something more. Even the bald official Admiralty announcement—"One of our Light-Cruiser Squadrons, supported by destroyers, sighted and engaged enemy forces in the North Sea. Three enemy destroyers were sunk; the rest escaped, apparently heavily damaged. Our casualties were light"—had failed to keep one of the salient features of the action a secret. The inhabitants of Auldhaig remained on the shore, expecting, and were not disappointed of, a spectacle.
Well in the rear of the flotilla came three vessels, one towing another and the third steaming slowly a cable's length astern. Overhead, their envelopes glistening in the sunlight, were three coastal airships.
As the expected vessels drew nearer telescopes and field-glasses were levelled in a formidable battery by the throng.
"That's theInattentive, sure," declared a man who wore a silver badge and had the appearance of a sailor despite the fact that one coat-sleeve was empty and pinned across his breast. "She's got the Q-boat in tow. Looks like the oldPyloscoming up astern."
"Looks like a U-boat in tow," remarked another spectator. "P'raps they've captured her before her crew could sink her—dirty dogs!"
The Silver Badge man handed his telescope to a boy and tapped the second speaker on the shoulder.
"Look here, my man!" he exclaimed. "She's flying a flag, isn't she? What flag is it?"
"White Ensign—half-mast high," replied the other.
"Then what d'ye mean by saying she's a blinkin' U-boat?" demanded the ex-bluejacket hotly. "If she were, you'd be seein' that White Ensign flyin' over Fritz's rotten ensign. That, I tell you, is the Q-boat our light cruisers went out to bring in. And they've jolly well done it, too. Stand by, you chaps, an' give her a proper British cheer."
Slowly, very slowly, theInattentivepassed the Outer Bar Buoy, and turning close in shore followed the line of buoys marking the approach channel to Auldhaig Harbour.
The spectators wanted a sight. What they saw was a long hull, battered and scarred. The deck was little more than a litter of torn and riddled steelwork, but conspicuous among the debris was the muzzle of a dismounted quick-firer that tilted at an acute angle to the sky. Right aft a space had been cleared, and on it were rows of motionless figures wrapped in canvas hammocks. Clustered round the hastily repaired stanchion-rails were a few bandaged heroes whose appearance resembled that of tramps rather than British bluejackets.
Cheers? Not a sound. At the sight of the half-masted Ensign and the gallant dead lying upon the deck of the ship that they had fought so well, the desire to cheer was quelled. As if by a common impulse the crowd stood silent and bareheaded, as a tribute to those who had laid down their lives for King and Country.
But "Tough Geordie," Wakefield and Meredith were ignorant of the silent tribute. They were still unconscious.
With those dishevelled but undaunted survivors of her crew standing at attention, Q 171 glided past the port flagship, the towing hawser was slipped, and the battered mystery ship, taken in charge of a dockyard tug, was safely berthed alongside the jetty.
Ambulances were already in attendance, and the work of transferring the wounded to the naval hospital was immediately put in hand.
Wakefield opened his eyes as he was being carried up the broad steps into the building. Morpeth had a partial return to consciousness almost at the same time.
Looking round at the unfamiliar surroundings, he appeared to be solving some perplexing problem. His last conscious vision as he lay with a shattered arm upon the deck of the ship he had handled so magnificently was that of a man scrambling through the smoke and across a pile of debris to the triple torpedo-tubes. He watched the unknown hero fumbling over the releasing levers until at last a "tin fish" leapt from the only serviceable tube. Then in a swirl of pungent smoke the vision grew blurred and faded into nothingness.
"What I want to know is," he exclaimed with startling clearness, "who the blue blazes fired that last torpedo? 'Tany rate, it got her properly."
And Wakefield smiled to himself and closed his eyes again. But Kenneth Meredith was still in blissful ignorance of his surroundings.
Itwas close on eight o'clock on a clear October evening that Kenneth Meredith, promoted to Lieutenant-Commander R.N.V.R., and having the distinctive letters D.S.C. tacked on to his name, was pacing the crowded departure platform at King's Cross.
Six months was a big chunk out of a man's life—six months of comparative idleness, spent partly in Haslar Hospital, partly in a convalescent home on the South Coast, and latterly at his own home. But carving fantastic-shaped pieces of shell—which, being German by origin, showed decided tendencies to produce gangrene—out of a patient and allowing the wounds to heal takes time, especially when the fragments are lodged in close proximity to the spine. For some weeks it was touch and go, but Meredith's record of clean living and high vitality were in his favour. And now he found himself at King's Cross, bound north to take command of M.L. 1497, attached to the fleet at Scapa Flow.
Only once since that memorable May evening when he travelled south in a hospital train had Kenneth been in London. That was a fortnight ago, when he had business at the Admiralty. Just outside the old entrance he encountered a burly, bearded man with one arm in a sling and the D.S.O. ribbon on his breast. It was Morpeth, very much down in the mouth despite the fact that he had been decorated by his Sovereign. The grievance was that "Tough Geordie's" sea-days were over. Neither the Royal Navy nor the Mercantile Marine has a use for a one-armed man. It was useless to remind My Lords that Nelson was one-armed, besides possessing only one eye.Autres temps, autres moeurs. So Morpeth was given a pension for wounds and sent out to join the vast and ever-increasing throng of wounded heroes, to jog along as best he might on a sum that, taking into consideration the low purchasing power of a "Bradbury," was barely sufficient to keep his head above water.
Apart from that chance meeting, Meredith had heard from Morpeth but twice. The R.N.R. officer was a bad correspondent at the best of times, and now, hampered by physical disabilities, he simply could not bring himself to put pen to paper.
It was different as far as Wakefield was concerned. Wakefield, too, had passed through some critical moments during his prolonged stay in hospital, but from the first, even though he had to correspond through the medium of a hospital nurse, he never failed to keep in touch with his late subordinate and brother-in-arms. He had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and had been appointed to M.L. 1499, also attached to the Scapa Flow Base.
The two R.N.V.R. officers had arranged to travel north together; but the hour fixed for the departure of the train was drawing nigh, and Wakefield, who usually made a point of being half an hour too early rather than half a minute too late, had not yet put in an appearance.
Already Meredith had secured a doubleberth sleeping compartment and had handed his compact kit over to the care of the guard. The passengers were exclusively Naval, Military, or Air Force. Bluejackets, holding their scanty kit in black silk scarves, were conversing with khaki-clad Tommies equipped with rifles and bayonets, "tin-hats" and other paraphernalia associated with that delectable region known as "The Front." There were men, too, clad in tropical uniform and wearing sun-helmets, whose appearance contrasted vividly with a party of fur-clad Engineers about to leave for Northern Russia. Amongst the officers, who for the most part had already secured their seats and had bought evening papers from the loud-yelling newsboys, could be seen every diversity of uniform. Naval rig predominated, but there were khaki-clad infantry officers, kilted Highlanders, R.A.F.'s in gorgeous if unserviceable light blue, slouch-hatted Australians and Canadians, flat brim-hatted New Zealanders, and a solitary subaltern of an Indian regiment wearing a turban. One and all were going to be shed from the crowded train at various stopping-places between King's Cross and Thurso, their diverse ways governed by an all-absorbing factor—to break for ever the menace of Prussian Kaiserism.
Everywhere a cheerful spirit pervaded. The end was in sight. After over four years of desperate fighting, in which there were dark periods when it seemed as if Germany was having much her own way, there were unmistakable signs that the Hun was "cracking up." On the naval side things had been going steadily worse with her since the glorious operations that resulted in the blocking of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Almost from that time the submarine menace paled. Convoys of merchantmen were continuously arriving unscathed at British ports; a huge American army had been successfully transported across the Atlantic, and the U-boats had been powerless to say them nay. Rumours, that were subsequently confirmed, were in the air that the Hun High Seas Fleet had been ordered out to commitfelo-de-seunder the guns of the Grand Fleet, and that the crews had declined to sacrifice their lives even to please the whim of the arch cannon-fodder provider, the Emperor Wilhelm.
And on land things were no better for the Hun. His stupendous attempt to break through at Arras had failed. Another desperate effort against Paris had resulted in his masses being thrown back dispirited and disorganised. All along the line between the North Sea and the Swiss Frontier the field-grey troops were being pushed back, while elsewhere their allies—Turkish, Austrian, and Bulgarian—were practically "down and out."
Amongst the naval people the news was received phlegmatically. Rumours of a German naval mutiny had been received before—perhaps it was a move on Germany's part to throw us off our guard. It seemed impossible to think otherwise but that the Hun High Seas Fleet would put to sea as a forlorn hope. British naval officers generously tried to credit the Germans with a sense of honour approaching their own; hence they could not expect anything else but a big scrap before the end. It would be a foregone conclusion, but it would give the Huns a chance to vindicate themselves and the British to clinch the opportunity that they had missed at Jutland.
While his fellow passengers were discussing the world-wide situation in general and the naval one in particular, Meredith was still keeping watch for his chum Wakefield. Almost at the last minute Wakefield hove in sight, cheery and smiling as of yore, having in tow a bearded, greatcoated individual whom Meredith recognised as "Tough Geordie Morpeth."
"Let's get aboard," exclaimed Wakefield briskly. "We can kag afterwards.... Yes; Morpeth's coming along, too.... Never mind about a porter; we'll sling this gear into the corridor. In you hop, Morpeth. My word! it was a narrow shave, eh, what?"
The three edged along the corridor, making their way over handbags and portmanteaux until they came to the compartment Meredith had secured.
"Leave your kit here," he remarked. "I'll find the attendant and get you a berth, Morpeth. S'pose you're going beyond York?"
He looked inquiringly at the bearded R.N.R. man, who wore a brand-new uniform under his sea-stained greatcoat.
"Yes, to Scapa, too," he replied. "I've got a shore berth there. Goodness knows how. Someone put their oar in for me—must have done. Anyhow, it's good money and a chance to get afloat occasionally, so I jumped at it. 'Fraid it's only for the duration though."
And he sighed deeply. Like many another man whose heart and soul are wrapped up in his work, he both longed for and dreaded the time when "Fritz chucked his hand in."
Meredith helped him off with his coat.
"Jolly strange," remarked Morpeth, "being one-armed; but I'm getting used to it. Often I can feel my missing fingers—absolute fact."
He sat down on an upturned suit-case and proceeded to fill his well-blackened pipe with a dexterity that surprised his companions. "That's a thing I've no use for now," he added, indicating a razor that Wakefield was removing from a handbag. "Being single-handed, in a manner of speaking, gives me an excuse for not shaving."
Just then a short, thick-set man in the rig of a commander R.N.R. thrust his head through the doorway.
"Sorry," he exclaimed apologetically. "Thought there might be a vacant berth. Why, dash my wigs, it's 'Tough Geordie'!"
"Anderson, my lad, delighted! Squeeze in. We'll find a tot of something. I've a flask in my bag. Wakefield, an old chum of mine. And this is a young chum—Meredith by name."
"Let me see," remarked the commander. "Weren't you in a Q-boat? Yes, I thought so. Had many exciting stunts?"
"A few," replied Morpeth modestly. "One of the rummiest was when Wakefield tried to knock paint off my old hooker with his six-pounders, and I sank his little M.L."
"Accidents will happen," quoted Commander Anderson. "I nearly sank one of our own submarines once.... But your missing arm.... and the D.S.O. ribbon—what about that?"
"A little scrap," explained Morpeth. "I don't know why they gave me the D.S.O., although they said I torpedoed a Hun destroyer. For details ask Wakefield; he's our torpedo expert."
Wakefield flushed hotly.
"I don't know what you mean," he expostulated.
The conversation flowed into other channels, continuing briskly until someone suggested turning in.
Anderson said good-night, and resumed his interrupted search for somewhere to lay his head. Morpeth was about to follow Meredith to the berth the latter had secured for him, when Wakefield called the R.N.R. man back.
"Say," he remarked, lapsing into one of his Canadian-acquired expressions, "what did you mean when you told the merchant I was a torpedo expert?"
"Tough Geordie's" face wrinkled more than usual, as he playfully prodded Wakefield in the ribs with the fingers of his remaining hand.
"You're a sly dog, Wakefield," he chuckled; "but you can't get to wind'ard of Geordie Morpeth. Happened to meet one of my ship's company at Waterloo this morning, and he told me something that's been puzzling me for months past. You were the blighter who slapped that torpedo into the Hun torpedo boat; and that's what got me this."
And he touched the bit of ribbon on his coat.
"Tut, tut!" expostulated Wakefield. "No; I can't deny it since you've taxed me with it. But let the thing drop, Morpeth. If you don't, I'm hanged if I'll take you for a joy-ride in my M.L. as long as I'm at Scapa Flow. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, you dear old thing!"
Itwas late on the following day when Meredith and his companions, together with close on six hundred naval ratings and a corresponding quantity of kit and baggage, found themselves dumped down upon the platform at Thurso. The long Highland night had fallen, bringing with it wind and rain in plenty, and altogether things looked too desolate for words. It was bitterly cold, too, and occasionally drifting flakes of snow eddied in the howling wind.
"Cheerful sort of show, this!" exclaimed Wakefield, as he buttoned the storm-flap of his waterproof coat. "Can't say I like the idea of this part as a cruising-ground. Auldhaig was bad enough at times, but this!"
"Wonder our fellows could stick it, summer and winter, for over four, years," remarked Meredith. "Hark at the roar of the surf! And Thurso's in a bay, isn't it?"
For the most part the bluejackets were accepting the conditions with the same equanimity as when they fall in on the lower deck for dinner. Clad in glistening oilskins, and gripping their bundles, they formed up and marched off to a long shed to partake of refreshment, laughing and cutting jokes like overgrown schoolboys.
The officers, too, were sorting themselves out and drifting away in search of a repast. Their baggage was left to take care of itself. Far from the Metropolis, and free from the inconveniences of being at the mercy of opulent and independent porters, Thurso was run strictly on Service lines. There was no necessity on the part of the owners to worry about their luggage. Under the supervision of a "baggage officer" a crowd of bluejackets threw themselves upon the weird assortment of "officers' effects," and in due course the luggage, marshalled and sorted, would be transferred to various tenders for conveyance to the Fleet.
Presently the refreshment-rooms disgorged their temporary occupants. Voices in the night were heard shouting, "Men forFuriousfall in." "Iron Dukesto the right." "Ninth Destroyer Flotilla men, this way"—until the hitherto jumbled crowd of humanity was formed up into a distinct semblance of order.
In fours the bluejackets marched along the pier to embark on various tugs and harbour craft that were to take them to their respective ships across the wild Pentland Firth, their movements regulated by a bull-throated piermaster, whose capacity for organisation alone, apart from the cap, greatcoat and sea-boots, would have proclaimed him to be a naval officer.
At frequent intervals he would be interrupted to answer questions by harassed officers and men, yet with the ease of a Cook's courier he would supply the necessary information and then revert to his main task of supervising the embarkation.
"M.L.'s?" he exclaimed, in answer to Wakefield's query. "Take passage inGrowler. She's lying at No. 3 berth.... What's that? Beach-master at Skelda Holm? H'm! let me see. Yes! you'd better carry on with the M.L. party. You'll find a duty boat at Scapa."
"So we don't part company yet awhile," said Morpeth. "Lead on, Wakefield, and let's get out of the rain. I can stick plenty of salt spray, but I'm hanged if I like this."
They found theGrowler, a tubby twin-screw tug, grinding against the pier, massive rope fenders notwithstanding. On board were half a dozen R.N.V.R. officers and about fifty men. The former eyed the newcomers keenly, as if expecting to find former acquaintances.
"Give us your paw, laddie. I am delighted to see you," exclaimed a hearty voice, as a big, muscular hand gripped Meredith's shoulder. "Bless me, and Wakefield too!"
"McIntosh!" ejaculated Meredith. "What are you doing here?"
"I'll tell ye all in guid time," replied the R.N.V.R. officer, whose shoulder-straps denoted that he was a Sub no longer but a full-blown lieutenant. "But just tell me: where's that golf club of mine I gave you to mend?"
"'Fraid it's at the bottom of the North Sea," replied Meredith. "'All goods left at owner's risk,' you know. But tell me when did you leave Auldhaig?"
"Last May," replied Jock gloomily. "After I lost that confounded lighter my name was Mud. They gave me an M.L., but she's a swine. She's known as theScapa Misfit—an' she is," he added bitterly. "There's been three fires in the galley—petrol stoves are a curse—once I stove her bows in 'cause the rudder chains jammed, and now she's laid up with a fractured cylinder. Hope she is still!"
"Chuck it, you bloomin' pessimist!" exclaimed Wakefield boisterously. "Say you re glad to see us——"
"I did," declared McIntosh. "And my Sub! He's what you'd call a knock-out. I'll swop with you, Meredith. P'raps you could make something of him—give him poison, or muzzle him, or shanghai him."
"What's he done?" asked Kenneth.
Before Jock McIntosh could go very far into the reasons why Sub-lieutenant Jasper Clinch was the bane of his existence, the piermaster came hurrying along the jetty.
"Too bad outside," he yelled, addressing the skipper of the tug. "We've just got orders to transfer the men to Wick. It will be an easier passage."
The master of theGrowlersignified acquiescence. He gave a jerk at the engine-room telegraph, shouted "Finished with the engines, George!" and descended the bridge with the air of a man who has suddenly come into a small fortune. In his case it was a stroke of rattling good luck. Expecting a tempestuous trip across the swirling "Swilkie"—one of the most dangerous "tidal races" round the British Isles—he was greatly surprised and relieved to find that his orders had been countermanded.
One man's meat is another man's poison. This axiom was clearly demonstrated when the order came for all officers and men to disembark, entrain once more, and proceed to Wick—a railway journey of about twenty miles, tedious enough when tacked on to long hours of travelling.
Upon arrival at Wick another surprise awaited Wakefield and Meredith, for on the pier-head they encountered Jefferson and Pyecroft.
"Cheerio!" exclaimed Jefferson. "So we are to be shipmates again! Hope neither of us is a Jonah this trip. D'ye remember that old lighter?"
"Yes, rather," replied Meredith. "Coincidences are tumbling over one another tonight. McIntosh, let me introduce you to Jefferson and Pyecroft. They picked up the X-barge you lost."
"They were welcome to her," remarked McIntosh. "So you fellows saw the inside of a U-boat?"
"Yes," admitted Jefferson. "I did. Pyecroft, here, preferred a swim in the North Sea. By the by, Meredith, old Cumberleigh's knocking around somewhere. He was on the pier five minutes ago. We're off to Stenness Air Station—it's not far from Scapa—for aerial observation duties. Hello! This our boat?"
A large, two-funnelled vessel was approaching the jetty, her decks deserted save for a few muffled and greatcoated passengers. Usually she brought a full complement of liberty men from the Grand Fleet, but now, in anticipation of a move on the part of the Hun Navy, all leave had been stopped.
"Better than crossing in a tug," commented Wakefield. "And we'll be under the lee of the land till we clear Duncansbay Head. Hello! here's Cumberleigh. Cheerio!"
Greetings were exchanged between the R.A.F. captain and the R.N.V.R. officers, while Morpeth came in for a fair share of congratulations.
"Thank goodness I found my sea-legs aboard your old hooker, Morpeth," remarked Cumberleigh. "My word, there's a swell running!"
The steamer made fast. The wire hawsers were made fast and the gangways run out.
"Bless my soul," ejaculated McIntosh, pointing to a cloaked figure descending the gangway, "'if that isn't my Sub! Wonder what he's doing here?"
He detached himself from the crowd and confronted Sub-lieutenant Jasper Clinch.
"Hello, Sub!" he exclaimed. "Got leave?"
"No," was the reply. "No such luck. The S.N.O. ordered me to Auldhaig. There's a Court of Inquiry about something. Has the train left yet?"
Jefferson nudged Cumberleigh in the ribs.
"Good enough!" exclaimed the R.A.F. captain, and to the surprise of everyone standing around, the two officers literally leapt at the astounded Clinch.
Before the latter had time to consider the situation he was lying on his back on the wet and muddy jetty, with Cumberleigh sitting on his chest and Jefferson gripping his ankles.
"Find the A.P.M., somebody," exclaimed Cumberleigh in an exultant tone; "or a picquet will answer the purpose. Now then, Captain Fennelburt, or whatever you call yourself—no, don't wriggle, it's bad form—there's no need to worry about the Auldhaig train. You'll soon be in safe quarters, my festive!"
"Supposingthe Huns won't sign," remarked Wakefield, somewhat wistfully.
"They will," said Meredith reassuringly. "We've got them cold—absolutely."
"And the sooner the better," added Jock McIntosh. "It was a close thing to say who would be fed up first—Fritz or us. Fritz did win that, but by a short length."
"You are speaking for yourself, my lad," said Wakefield. "You can see your release in sight, but I'll bet you'll be wishing yourself back again before you're out six months."
It was the morning of the memorable 11th day of November. The three M.L. skippers, just back from patrol, had foregathered in the ward-room of No. 1497 during the period known as "stand easy."
The M.L.'s were lying in a fairly sheltered creek—one of the numerous indentations of Scapa Flow. Beyond a neck of rocky ground could be discerned a forest of tripod masts and lofty funnels, marking the war-time anchorage of the most powerful fleet that the world has yet seen.
"You are a bit far-seeing, my festive," remarked Meredith.
"I am," admitted Wakefield. "After four years of it, are we going to settle down to a humdrum life, rubbing shoulders with those blighters who stayed at home and made pots of money out of the Empire's days of supreme trial? Can you imagine yourself, Meredith, on the beach with all your kit, demobbed and with nothing to do? It'll come to that. The Government were jolly glad to get hold of us, and when the war is over it'll be a case of 'Thank you and get out.' There will be thousands of young fellows, used to command and innured to peril, who will be literally on their beam ends, because they never had the chance of completing their peace-time education."
"There's the sea behind us," suggested Meredith.
"Is there?" questioned Wakefield, "I doubt it, unless it's potting around in private yachts and small sailing-boats. We've learnt to handle M.L.'s pretty efficiently, but after the war you try for a post as skipper of a trading steamer. Think you'll get it? You won't. You'll be up against all the red tape of Board of Trade officialdom and all that sort of thing. But Fritz hasn't accepted the terms of the Armistice yet."
"By the by," remarked Kenneth. "Have you heard any more news of Cumberleigh's pal, Karl von Preussen?"
"Now, how could I?" expostulated Wakefield. "Haven't we been on patrol for umpteen hours? Just before we left we heard that he was being sent under escort to London."
"He's a plucky fellow, in any case," observed McIntosh.
"Deucedly daring," corrected Wakefield.
"I don't know," remarked Meredith. "It may be pluck or daring, or both. Hanged if I should like the job! Yet both sides employ spies. These fellows go about their work with the utmost certainty of finding themselves up against a wall and looking down the muzzles of a dozen rifles if they're caught."
"Seems to me it's a despicable sort of job," said Wakefield, as he relit his pipe. "Sort of stabbing-your-foeman-in-the-back business. If, for instance, von Preussen hadn't been at Auldhaig the chances are that Morpeth wouldn't have lost his arm, and a dozen or so Q 171's men wouldn't have been killed in action."
"And yet, from von Preussen's point of view, his activities resulted in two Hun submarine-cruisers being prevented from being sent to the bottom," argued Meredith. "Put the boot on the other foot and imagine von Preussen working for us, you'd say he was a dashed smart fellow. Hello! here's Cumberleigh coming alongside."
A dinghy had just brought the R.A.F. captain from the beach, and Cumberleigh was looking down the ward-room ladder.
"Come down," sung out Meredith, who, since the informal gathering was held on his M.L., was master of the ceremonies. "We're discussing your friend, von Preussen. We were debating whether he were plucky or not."
"He's slippery, at any rate," declared Cumberleigh, as he settled himself in one comer of the settee and lit a cigarette. "You know I was warned as a witness at the court-martial. Rotten job giving evidence against a fellow. To my mind it's like murdering him in cold blood. I was to have left for London this afternoon, but this morning I had a wire postponing the most unpleasant duty. Then I learnt from the adjutant that von Preussen was at liberty again."
"Released?" asked Meredith and Wakefield in one voice.
"After a fashion," replied Cumberleigh.
"Details please?"
"There are none—except that he managed to escape. However, I don't fancy von Preussen will count after to-day. The Armistice——"
"Has it been signed?" asked McIntosh.
Before Cumberleigh could reply there came a low roar of distant cheering, accompanied by the hooting of steam whistles and the long-drawn boom of sirens.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Wakefield.
The four officers started to their feet and scrambled indecorously for the ladder. Gaining the deck, they found the signalman of the anchored M.L.'s taking in a message from the swiftly moving arms of a shore semaphore.
"What is it, Signalman?" inquired Meredith.
"'Report rounds of quick-firing ammunition on board,' sir," was the unexpected reply.
But on the heels of the first came a second signal——
"ARMISTICE SIGNED."
The M.L. crews cheered lustily. Hostilities had ceased. Gone, for all time presumably, were those long, tedious vigils on the grey North Sea, those hazardous patrols through the mine-infested waters, those anxious nights when, blow high or blow low, the frail little craft had to put to sea on an apparently trivial errand.
Germany had caved in. Without striking a blow, the powerful fleet with which the Kaiser had hoped to wrest the trident from Britannia's grasp was to pass into inglorious internment. The strangle-hold of the British Navy had triumphed.
More than that. The Freedom of the Seas was established more firmly than before. In the subsequent words of Sir David Beatty, "The surrender of the German Fleet has secured the Freedom of the Seas for such as pass thereon upon their lawful occasions, and is a testimony to the value of sea power which the people of the British Empire will forget at their peril."
A week later the vast anchorage of Scapa Flow was practically empty. The Grand Fleet had left for the Firth of Forth to arrange the actual surrender of the pick of Germany's battleships, cruisers and destroyers. Of the U-boats the first batch of a total of 120 was due to arrive at Harwich on the 20th, but "Beatty's Day" was fixed for the 21st.
"Here's luck, Meredith," exclaimed Wakefield. "Five of us are to represent the M.L. flotillas, and have a joy-trip to meet Fritz. The S.N.O.'s just drawn the names. You're one, and so am I, so pack up and get ready. We're to be temporarily accommodated on board theLion."
The Day dawned grey and misty as the mighty steel-clad battleships steamed eastward to meet their surrendering foes. Grey predominated everywhere, from the leaden-coloured skies to the leaden-hued water churned by the propellers of a hundred grey-hulled warships. The fluttering White Ensign and the Admirals' flags flying from the leading ships of each division provided a fitting contrast to the otherwise sombre yet soul-inspiring pageant of "Might and Right."
"We're taking no risks," thought Meredith, as a bugle rang for "Action Stations." "It only shows how low a Hun's honour is rated."
Silently yet rapidly the battle-cruiser's ship's company fell in at their appointed stations. The securing chains of the huge turrets were cast off and the monster guns trained and elevated to test the intricate mechanism. The quick-firers were manned and trained abeam, ammunition was sent up from the magazines, torpedoes launched home into the under-water tubes, fire hoses were coupled up and watertight doors closed. Officers and men, with gas-masks ready to hand, were keenly on the alert, those whose stations prevented them from seeing what was going on without plying their more fortunate comrades with eager questions.
Kenneth and Wakefield were standing just under the fore-bridge. Above them every tier of "Monkey Island" bore its quota of sightseers, all looking steadily ahead into the grey mirk in a kind of competition as to who should first discern the masts of the expected Hun ships.
"Think they'll show up? If so, will they fight?" asked Wakefield.
A naval officer standing by answered him.
"They'll show up all right. As to fighting, it's a toss up. Judging from our standpoint, I shouldn't be surprised if they did; but, by Jove! they will be smashed in twenty rounds."
The whirr of an aerial propeller sounded overhead, and a large seaplane, literally skimming over the fore-topmast truck, raced noisily eastward, and was lost to sight in the grey dawn. Another, passing well to windward, followed, and then a huge airship, her yellow gas-bag glinting in the pale light, sailed serenely overhead at a great height. The scouts of the modern navy were at work.
"They're coming, sir!" announced a messenger, as he flung himself at the bridge ladder. "Airship's just wirelessed through."
"Then that's done it—one way or the other," murmured the naval officer. "I look like getting Christmas leave after all."
Approaching rapidly, came the line of pale-grey Hun battle-cruisers, led by the British light cruiserCardiff. As far as could be seen, they flew no ensigns. Either in fear or in shame they hesitated to hoist the dishonoured Black Cross—the battle-cruisers had figured prominently in the raid on Scarboro' and Hartlepool, and the Huns were far from comfortable at the thought of their reception.
The German vessels had rigorously carried out the conditions of surrender. Their guns were trained fore and aft. The slightest deviation from that position would invite a veritable tornado of shells into the vitals of any ship that disregarded that command. Their own supply of ammunition had been left ashore, together with the war-heads of their torpedoes. The huge warships were like pythons with their poisonous fangs removed—formidable in appearance yet powerless to do harm.
From the British flagship a string of bunting streamed in the wind. With mathematical precision the two parallel columns turned sixteen degrees in succession, so that the head of each line was parallel to and on the same course as the leading German vessel.
Simultaneously the Huns hoisted their colours. Surrounded by a galaxy of White Ensigns, the Black Cross fleet was being shepherded into captivity, while the British battle-cruisers, led by theLion, formed a supplementary column betwixt the Hun vessels and the British battleships following the mightyQueen Elizabeth.
The "Cat Squadron" had been within sight and within range of the German battle-cruisers on more than one previous occasion, but for the first time since the outbreak of war the former were almost within hailing distance of the hitherto elusive but much-sought-afterSeidlitz, Derfflinger, Moltke, andVon der Tann.
And so into the Firth of Forth passed the Hun Armada on the first stage of the final journey to Scapa Flow. One signal did the gallant Beatty make. It was brief, peremptory, and left in its exactitude no possibility for doubt. It was sent to Admiral von Reuter, the Commander-in-Chief of the surrendered fleet:
"The German Flag is to be hauled down at 15.57 to-day, Thursday, and is not to be hoisted again without permission."
Precisely at sunset, the time mentioned in the signal, the Black Cross Ensign fluttered down on every Hun ship—but von Reuter had his tongue in his cheek.
It was a fitting climax to the Bloodless Trafalgar of November 21, 1918.
Throughoutthe winter and the following spring Kenneth Meredith still carried on at Scapa. Wakefield, too, was temporarily retained, but otherwise the band of R.N.V.R. officers and men of the M.L. patrol was steadily and rapidly diminishing.
Almost brand-new boats would steam out for the last time, bound south to lie, neglected and forlorn, in a Hampshire river, where a tier, four-deep and lengthening daily, was one of the many signs that the Great War was practically over, even if Peace were not yet signed.
Jock McIntosh was one of the first to be "demobbed." He went smilingly, confident of the future, yet something about him seemed to strike Meredith that his bright, almost jocular demeanour was a little simulated.
There were reductions amongst the Air Force people, too. Blenkinson and Jefferson went almost at the same time, reluctantly, into an unaccustomed world to start life afresh, as it were—Blenkinson into an office, setting aside the "joy-stick" to take up the pen; Jefferson into slightly more congenial surroundings—to wit, a large motor business.
Some months later Pyecroft went, via a demobilisation centre in the south of England, to take up the almost forgotten threads of study at an Engineering College.
Of all the R.A.F. fellows who, by chance, had been Meredith's comrades on board Q 171, only Cumberleigh remained, "carrying on" until the order came for the Air Station to "pack up."
During those months following the Armistice, Kenneth and Wakefield saw a good deal of Cumberleigh. Although there was much work to be done with the remaining M.L.'s, there was plenty of opportunity for leisure, and it was not to be wondered at that after months of strenuous and perilous occupation there was a decided tendency to "slack." Joy-riding, both afloat and in the air, was freely indulged in. For one thing, it "kept one's hand in," and it was better to make use of both boat and machine than to allow them to rust and deteriorate for want of use.
Several times Meredith accompanied Cumberleigh on a flight in a blimp over the interned German fleet. It was a novel sensation, driving along at fifty miles an hour in a motor-propelled gas-bag above the now impotent Hun navy and observing battleship, battle-cruiser, cruiser and destroyer rusting at their respective moorings.
"I can't imagine why we don't shunt those Huns," remarked Cumberleigh, during one flight. The ignition of both motors had been switched off and the blimp was floating almost motionless in the still air. "They're supposed to be 'care and maintenance parties,' but I'm hanged if I've ever seen them at work. The ships ought to have been surrendered and prize crews put on board."
"Wakefield and I were talking to a pukka commander on the very subject," said Meredith. "He quite agreed that Fritz ought to be shunted, but it appears that the Allied Council insists upon the German ships being kept in a state of internment."
"What for?" asked Cumberleigh.
"Pending a decision as to their disposal," replied Meredith. "Personally I think it's rather a good scheme towing the lot out to sea and sinking them, as the Admiralty suggested."
"Why?" asked the R.A.F. captain. "It would be a precious waste of good material."
"It would," agreed Kenneth; "but at the same time it would do away with any danger of friction between the Allies as to the sharing-out deal. Without a doubt it was the British Navy that brought about the surrender. The Yanks, too, helped considerably. But neither we nor the Americans want the ships. France, Italy and Japan might; but there, you see, is a chance of squabbling. However, there they are, and seem likely to remain until Peace is signed."
"At the same time it's a risky business leaving Fritz on board," declared Cumberleigh. "Everyone on the station is of the same opinion, but, I hear, the Commander-in-Chief is helpless in the matter. Virtually the ships are German territory, even though they daren't hoist their dirty flags."
"And we cannot board them to see what's going on," added Meredith. "All we can do is to overhaul the weekly relief boat to see that she carries no war material. There was a yarn knocking around that the Huns were deliberately tampering with the big guns."
"Yes," said Cumberleigh, "cutting deep grooves round the chases and filling them in with putty and paint, so that if they were fired they would burst and kill the guns' crews. That was authenticated, and photographs printed showing Fritz's rotten trick."
"The Hun relief boat's due to-morrow," observed Meredith. "Wakefield and I have to meet her at the entrance to Pentland Firth. Like to come along with us?"
"Delighted," replied Cumberleigh, as he motioned to the mechanic to "carry on." "Look there a minute," he added. "See that Hun just abaft the after-turret?"
Kenneth levelled his binoculars upon the deck of the ship indicated—the giantHindenburg. The blimp was barely five hundred feet up, and at that height it seemed as if one could touch the trucks of her mast with a fishing-rod.
Standing on the quarter-deck was a burly German bluejacket. Others were sitting or sprawling on the formerly almost sacred deck, where no officer or man would step without saluting the Black Cross Ensign. The fellow had his head thrown back and was gazing upwards at the British coastal airship, the while making hideous grimaces and shaking his fist, while his comrades were laughing at his antics and doubtless applauding his expressions of anger.
"Sort of thing you'd expect from a Hun," observed Cumberleigh. "He knows we can't strafe him, so I suppose he thinks he's getting some satisfaction in making faces at us."
Meredith replaced his glasses.
"Yes," he remarked. "Case of little things please little minds. Good heavens! Can you imagine our fleet lying in captivity at Kiel? I can't. And yet those fellows don't seem to realise their rotten position in the slightest."
"Well, we've seen all that there is to be seen," said Cumberleigh. "Outwardly the Hun fleet seemsin statu quo, but I'd like to know what's going on 'tween decks."
"And so would a good many people," added Meredith.
The noise of the motors interrupted further conversation, as the blimp, describing a graceful curve, headed for the distant sheds.
The airship made a faultless descent. With plenty of hands available, she was guided into her lofty stable, while Meredith, declining an invitation to stay to lunch at the mess, bade Cumberleigh good-day.
"And don't forget to-morrow," he added. "We are getting under way at nine."
At the landing-stage he encountered Morpeth.
"Been up?" inquired "Tough Geordie." "I mean to have a trip aloft before I finish here."
"Find things a bit dull?" asked Kenneth.
"A bit," admitted Morpeth. "Since the Grand Fleet pushed off there's not much doing. A fellow gets sick of looking at a crowd of Hun ships day after day and not knowing what's going on."
"Eh?" inquired Kenneth curiously.
"'Twouldn't have been my way with the brutes," explained Morpeth. "Practically leaving them to their own devices. We made them come out: why can't we put the stopper on them?"
"What's the matter with your foot?" asked Meredith, noticing that his "companion walked with a slight limp.
"For over four years," he said, "I never had a chance to lay a Fritz out. I don't call blowing a few dozen up the same thing. But I did to-day. I was up beyond Stenness, where you know the Huns are allowed the run of the show. Hanged if I didn't bear a woman yelling like billy-o. So I ran up in double quick time and found three Huns robbing her hen-roost. Took a fowl under her very nose, as cool as brass. When they saw me they looked a bit scared, until they found that I had only one arm and there was no one else about. Three of them to a one-armed man is about their mark. They showed fight. So did I. I forgot my missing arm and imagined I was handling Dagoes in the old Foul Anchor Line. Biffed one right in the jaw, staggered another on the solar plexus. The third hooked it."
"And your foot?"
"Travelled a little faster than the fellow who hooked it," replied Morpeth grimly. "Three knots faster, I'll allow, but I forgot that I was wearing thin shoes and not fat, solid sea-boots. By the way Fritz yelled I reckon I hurt him more than he did me, and he won't go robbing hen-roosts again in a hurry."
"Have a trip to-morrow?" asked Meredith. "We're going out to look for the Hun relief ship. Cumberleigh's coming."
"Suppose I can manage it," replied Morpeth. "I'll fix it up with my opposite number. Right-o. I'll be aboard by eight bells."