[Image unavailable.
TheRoyal Naval Air Service found itself “over the other side” about the time that the shells of the British monitors began feeling for the hidden batteries of the Boche behind the Belgian coast.
“I can’t see where they’re pitching,” said the Navy-that-Floats, referring to the shells of the monitors bursting twelve miles away. “What about spotting for us, old son?”
“That will I do,” replied the Navy-that-Flies. “And more also. But I shall have to wear khaki, because it’s done, out here; by everybody apparently. Even the newspaper reporters wear khaki. Also I must have the right machines and lots of ’em.”
“Wear anything you like,” replied the Navy-that-Floats, “as long as you can help us to hit these shore batteries. Only—because you wear khaki and see life, don’t forget you’re still the same old Navy as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
The Navy-that-Flies added “Amen,” and said that it wouldn’t forget. It garbed itself in khaki, but retained the ring and curl on the sleeve, and the naval cap (with the eagle’s wings in place of the crown and anchor in the badge), plus a khaki cap-cover. Wherever its squadrons were based they rigged a flagstaff and flew the White Ensign at the peak. They erected wooden huts and painted them service grey, labelling them “Mess-deck,” “Wardroom,” “Gunroom,” etc., as the case might be.
They divided the flights into port and starboard watches, and solemnly asked leave to “go ashore” for recreation. Those who strayed from the same stern paths of discipline suffered the same punishments asthe Navy-that-Floats. And at the conclusion of each day’s work the wardroom dined, and drank to their King, sitting, according to the custom and tradition of the naval service.
They filled in shell-holes and levelled the ground for aerodromes, they ran up hangars and excavated dug-outs—whither they retired in a strong, silent rush (the expression is theirs), when the apprehensive Boche attempted to curtail their activity with bombs.
And by degrees the right machines came along. The Navy-that-Flies swung itself into them critically, flung them about in the air three miles high, testing and measuring their capabilities. Then they fought them, crashed them, improved on them till they were righter still, and finally proceeded (to quote another of their expressions) to “put the wind up Old Man Boche” in a way that helped the Navy-that-Floats enormously.
But apart from spotting duties, which were necessarily intermittent, the R.N.A.S. undertook a photographic reconnaissance of the entire Belgian coast from Nieuport to the Dutch frontier. The work in progress at Ostend and Zeebrugge, the activities of submarines and destroyers inside the basins; locks, quays, and gun-emplacements, and the results of bombs dropped thereon the night before, were all faithfully recorded by these aerial cameras. The negatives were developed and printed, the resultant bird-pictures enlarged, studied through stereoscopic lenses, and finally given to the monitors “for information and guidance.” Since it is not given to everyone to recognise the entrance to a dug-out or a group of searchlights as they appear from a height of 20,000 feet, the photographs were embellished with explanatory notes for the benefit of anyone unaccustomed to such unfamiliar aspects of creation.
The Germans claim to be a modest people. They were as busy as beavers, and they resented these importunate photographers with all the fervour that springs from true modesty. Their anti-aircraft guns plastered the intruders with bursting shrapnel, and from every coast aerodrome Boche machines rose like a cloud of angry hornets to give battle. Yet day after day fresh plates find their way to the developing trays, and a comparison between the official reports of the flight—couched in a laconic terseness of phrase that is good to read—and the amazing results obtained gives perhaps the truest measure of the work performed by these very gallant gentlemen.
Not a spadeful of earth can be turned over, nor a trowel of cement added to a bastion along the coast, but a note appears a day or two later upon the long chart which adorns the record office of this particular squadron. A crumpled escorting machine may have come down out of the clouds, eddying like a withered leaf, to crash somewhere behind the German line; there may be somewhere near the shore a broken boy in goggles and leather lying amid the wreckage of his last flight. Such is the price paid for a few more dots added in red ink to a couple of feet of chart. But as long as the photographic machine returns with the camera intact, the price is paid ungrudgingly.
The work of these photographic recorders, pilot and observer alike, differs from all other forms of war flying. Their sole duty is to take photographs, not haphazard, but of a given objective. This necessitates steering a perfectly steady course regardless of all distractions such as bursting “Archies” and angry “Albatross” fighters. They leave the fighting to their escorts, and their fate to Providence. The observer, peering earthwards through his view-finder, steers the pilot by means of reins until he sights the line on which the desired seriesof photographs are to be taken: once over this, the pilot flies the machine on an undeviating course, and the observer proceeds to take photographs. When all the plates have been exposed, they turn round and return home with what remain of the escort. On occasions the escort have vanished, either earthwards or in savage pursuit of resentful though faint-hearted Boches; this is when the homing photographers’ moments are apt to become crowded with incident.
One such adventure deserves to be recorded. It happened about 12,000 feet above mother-earth: the official reports, typed in triplicate, covered some dozen lines; the actual events, an equal number of minutes; but the story is one that should live through eternity.
“While exposing six plates” (says the official report of this youthful Recording Angel) “observed five H.A.’s cruising.” (“H.A.” stands for Hostile Aeroplane.) “Not having seen escort since turning inland, pilot prepared to return. Enemy separated, one taking up position above tail and one ahead. The other three glided towards us on port side” (observe the Navy speaking), “firing as they came.
“The two diving machines fired overone hundred rounds, hitting pilot in shoulder.” As a matter of sober fact, the bullet entered his shoulder from above and behind, breaking his left collar bone, and emerged just above his heart, tearing a jagged rent down his breast. Both his feet, furthermore, pierced by bullets, but the observer was not concerned with petty detail.
“Observer held fire until H.A. diving on tail was within five yards.”
Here it might be mentioned that the machines were hurtling through space at a speed in the region of one hundred miles an hour. The pilot of the “H.A.,” having swooped to within speaking distance, pushed up his goggles and laughed triumphantly as he took his sight for the shot that was to end the fight. But the observer had his own idea of how the fight should end.
“Then shot one tray into pilot’s face,” he says, with curt relish, and watched him stall, sideslip, and go spinning earthward in a trail of smoke.
He turned his attention to his own pilot. The British machine was barely under control, but as the observer rose in his seat to investigate, the foremost gun fired, and the aggressor ahead went out of control and dived nose-first in helpless spirals. Suspecting that his mate was badly woundedin spite of this achievement, the observer swung one leg over the side of the fuselage and climbed on to the wing—figure for a minute the air pressure on his body during this gymnastic feat—until he was beside the pilot. Faint and drenched with blood, the latter had nevertheless got his machine back into complete control.
“Get back, you ass,” he said, through white lips, in response to inquiries as to how he felt. The ass got back the way he came, and looked round for the remainder of the “H.A.’s.” These, however, appeared to have lost stomach for further fighting, and fled. The riddled machine returned home at one hundred knots, while the observer, having nothing better to do, continued to take photographs. “The pilot, though wounded, made a perfect landing.” Thus the report concludes.
The Navy-that-Flies had been in France some time before the Army heard very much about its doings. This was not so much the fault of the Army as the outcome of the taciturn silence in which the Navy-that-Flies set to work. It had been bidden to observe the traditions of the silent Navy, and it observed them, forbearing even to publish the number of Boche machines it accounted for day by day.
But there came a time when its light could no longer be hid under a bushel. “Hullo,” said the generals and others concerned with the affairs of the entrenched Army, speaking among themselves, “what about it?” They consulted the Army-that-Flies.
Now the Army-that-Flies had been confronted in the early days of the war with perhaps the toughest proposition that was ever faced by mortals of even their imperturbable courage. In numerical inferiority to the enemy it had been called upon to maintain a ceaseless photographic reconnaissance far behind the enemy’s trenches; to spot for the guns of the Army along a suddenly extended front: to “keep the wind up” the Boche so that for every ten of our machines that crossed the German lines, barely one of his would dare to cross ours. This is called aerial supremacy, and they established and maintained it with fewer and worse machines than they care to talk about to-day.
“Of course we know all about these naval Johnnies,” said the Army-that-Flies. “They’d steal grey paint from their dying grandmothers, and they fear nothing in the heavens above, nor the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. They arecomplaining that things are getting a bit dull along the coast.... We might show them a thing or two if they cared to join up with us for a while.”
“Let’s ask them,” said the Army.
So the Navy-that-Flies was invited “to co-operate with the Royal Flying Corps on such portions of the line where its experience of escort work and offensive patrols would prove of the greatest value.” Or words to that effect.
The Navy-that-Flies accepted the invitation with suppressed exultation, and detailed certain squadrons of fighters. It admits having selected picked pilots, because there was the credit of the old Navy to consider. Each squadron was entrusted to the care of a seasoned veteran of fully twenty-five summers, and of the flight leaders there was one that had even turned twenty-one. In short the Navy-that-Flies was sending of its best; and its worst was very good indeed.
They flew away from the coast and the sea, and their motor transport rumbled through the empty plains of France, till they closed upon the fringe of the entrenched army. Here perched above the surrounding country on some plateau or hill-side, with the ceaseless murmur of theguns in their ears, each of the squadrons rigged its flagstaff and hoisted the White Ensign, set up the grey-painted huts and the ship’s bell that divided the day into ship-watches, slung their hammocks, and announced that they were ready to “co-operate” with anybody or anything.
The Army-that-Flies laughed at the ship’s bell and the rest of the naval shibboleth, but it took the visitors to its heart. With hands deep in the pockets of its “slacks” and pipe in mouth it came over and examined the fighting machines of the Navy-that-Flies and the “doo-hickies” thereof, and it said things under its breath.
The Navy-that-Flies did not waste much time looking about it. One fire-eater setting off to explore the country some thirty miles behind the German lines came upon a school of “Quirks.” Quirks, it may be explained for the benefit of bipeds, are young Boche aviators in an embryonic stage. From the convenient ambush of a cloud he watched their antics for a while, as they flopped about above their aerodrome; and then, descending like a thunderbolt, he tumbled three over, scattered the remainder and returned to make his report. The squadron listened gravely to the story and concluded that the Golden Age had dawned.
But sterner work lay ahead, and a fair sample of it is contained in the report of another young gentleman who went scouting singlehanded over the German lines what time the “gentlemen of England” were, if not abed, cracking the first of their breakfast eggs.
He was attacked by two single-seated “Albatross” machines and a Halberstadt fighter. Into the engine of the latter he emptied a tray of cartridges, with the result that it immediately went spinning down; to make assurance doubly sure he fired another fifty rounds into the whirling wreck as it fell.
By this time a veritable hornet’s nest appears to have risen about his ears; three more “Albatross” machines whirred to the attack, and in his subsequent report he notes with artistic enjoyment that the head of one pilot precisely filled the ring of his sight. This eye for detail enabled him to recall the fact that he actually saw three bullets strike the pilot’s head, with the not surprising result that the would-be-avenger heeled over and sped to the ground.
By this time he had been driven down to a height of 200 feet above German-occupied territory, and, having lost sight of the remainder of his aggressors, he decided to return home at that height.
As was to be expected, his adventures were by no means terminated by this decision. An astonished company of German cavalry drew rein and peppered him with rifle-shots as he whisked over the tops of their lances. Five minutes later another “Albatross” attacked him.
He rocked the machine in giddy sweeps until within fifty yards of his opponent, and side-looped over him (this, remember, at 200 feet from the ground), fired a short burst and drove the Hun off for a moment while he regained equilibrium. Then once more the enemy swooped upon him.
From this point onwards the reader may be warned against vertigo. The pilot’s own version, the bald official report of the affair, requires no embellishment or comment, though the latter is not easy to suppress.
“These operations,” he states, “were repeated several times with a slight variation in the way I looped over him (flying against a head wind). When he was about 150 yards behind me, I looped straight over him, and coming out of the loop dived at him and fired a good long burst. I saw nearly all the bullets go into the pilot’s back, just on the edge of the cockpit. He immediately dived straight into the ground.
“I then went over the German trenchesfilled with soldiers, and was fired on by machine guns, rifles, and small field guns, in or out” (Ye Gods and Little Fishes!) “of range. There were many shells bursting in and about the German trenches.”
The report concluded with estimates of the strength of various bodies of infantry and cavalry, movements of convoy and artillery noticed during the intervals between aerial somersaults. The pilot landed at the first aerodrome he saw—adding, in explanation of such an irregular proceeding, that his machine was badly shot about.
The squadrons co-operating with the R.F.C. commenced by faithfully recording all aerial combats in which their machines were engaged. But after a while such events became too commonplace to chronicle. They fought from dawn to dusk, generally a day’s journey for a horse behind the German lines. They fought at altitudes at which in spring a thermometer registered 50° of frost, returning with petrol tanks frozen, and hands and feet and ears swollen by frost-nip. One squadron had a hundred decisive fights in a month (omitting skirmishes), and accounted for twenty-five Boche machines. Its log (unofficially termed “Game-book”) contained such entries as the following: “Four machines went up:managed to bag five Huns before breakfast.”
For the first time in their lives the pilots got all the fighting they wanted, and revelled in it gluttonously. They grew fine-drawn, with the accentuated brilliancy of eye common to men in perfect condition living at the highest tension. They met Winged Death hourly in the blue loneliness above the clouds; the rustle of his sable wings became a sound familiar as the drone of their own engines, so that all terror of the Destroyer passed out of their souls—if indeed it had ever entered there.
And Death in his turn grew merciful, amazed. At least this is the only explanation to offer for certain tales that are told along the Front, where the White Ensign flies.
But hear for yourselves and judge.
A Naval pilot—a Canadian, by the way—attacked a single-seater “Albatross” scout at 8,000 feet above the German lines. He disposed of him after a short engagement, and was then attacked by seven others who drove him down to 3,000 feet and shot his machine to pieces. He plunged to the ground and crashed amid the wreck of his machine a couple of hundred yards behind the Canadian lines, breaking a leg and dislocatinga shoulder. A furious bombardment from German heavy artillery was in progress at the time, and he crawled into a shell-hole, where he remained from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Fire then having slackened, a party from the trenches went in search of his body with a view to burying it, and found him conscious and cheerful, though very thirsty.
The Navy-that-Flies is witness that I lie not.
As far as bombing operations are concerned, the Navy-that-Flies confines its attentions principally to the German bases along the Belgian coast, and any lurking submarines or vagrant destroyers observed in the vicinity. Bombing is carried out by both aeroplanes and seaplanes, and differs from other forms of war flying in that it is principally performed at night.
The function of the bombing machine is to reach its given objective in as short a time as possible, without provoking more “scraps” on the way than are inevitable, to “deliver the goods,” and, if not brought down by anti-aircraft fire, to return with all speed. They are not primarily fighters, and when laden with bombs are not theoretically a match for a hostile fighting machine with unfettered manœuvring powers.
Engine-trouble or loss of stability over enemy territory means almost infallible capture or death for the pilot of a bombing aeroplane. Yet in cases of disablement, rather than come down on the ground and suffer themselves or their machine to be taken prisoner, it is their gallant tradition to try to struggle out to sea. Here they stand about as much chance of life as a pheasant winged above a lake, but the machine sinks before German hands can touch it.
Now it happened that on one such occasion the descent into the sea of a bombing machine was observed by two French flying boats which were out on patrol. The distressed machine was still within range of the shore batteries, and the Boches, smarting under the effect of the bombs she had succeeded in dropping, were retaliating in the most approved Germanic manner by plastering the helpless machine with shrapnel as she slowly sank.
The two French flying boats sped to the rescue and alighted in the water beside the wrecked British machine. One embarked the observer, who was wounded, and, in spite of redoubled fire from the shore, succeeded in returning safely. The other French flying-boat actually embarked theremaining occupants of the bombing machine, but was hit as it rose from the water and fell disabled. The French pilot, seeing a Boche seaplane approaching, and a bevy of small craft in-shore coming out against them, scribbled a message to say that his venture had failed; he found time to add, however, with true Gallic dauntlessness of spirit, “Vive la France!” This missive he fastened to the leg of his carrier pigeon, and succeeded in releasing it before rescuers and rescued were taken prisoners.
From time to time curt official announcements of successful bomb-raids upon German destroyer and submarine bases appear in the press. It may be that the Naval honours or casualties lists are swelled thereby. But no one who has not stood in the wind that blows across the bombers’ aerodrome at night, in those last tense moments before the start, can form any idea of the conditions under which these grim laurels are earned.
One by one the leather-clad pilots conclude their final survey and climb up into their machines. They adjust goggles and gloves: there is a warning “Stand clear!” and the darkness fills with roaring sound as No. 1 starts his engine. For a moment longer he sits in the utter isolation of darkness and the deafening noise of his ownengine. No further sounds can reach him; not another order nor the valedictory “Good luck!” from those whose lot it is to only stand and wait. He settles himself comfortably and fingers the familiar levers and throttle; then with a jerk the bomber starts along the uneven ground, gathers way, and rising, speeds droning into the darkness like a gigantic cockchafer. A moment later No. 2 follows, then another, and another. The night swallows them, and the sound of their engines dies away.
A couple of hours later in one of the grey-painted huts that fringe the aerodrome a telephone bell jangles. The squadron commander picks up the receiver and holds converse with a tiny metallic voice that sounds very far away; the conversation ends, he puts on his cap and goes out into the darkness; a few minutes later a sudden row of lights across the aerodrome makes bright pin-pricks in the darkness. From far away in the air comes the hum of an engine growing momentarily louder. It grows louder and clearer as the homing machine circles overhead and finally comes to earth with a rushing wind and the scramble of men’s feet invisible.
The pilot climbs stiffly out of his seat, pushing up his goggles, and puckers hiseyes in the light of the lanterns as he fumbles for his cigarette case. “Got ’em,” he says laconically. “Seaplane sheds on the mole. Time for another trip?”
There is time, it appears. He drinks hot coffee while the armourers snap a fresh supply of bombs into the holders and test the release gear. He answers questions curtly and his replies are very much to the point.
Their “Archies” are shooting well, and they’ve got a lot more searchlights at work than they had last time. Rather warm work while it lasted. He thinks No. 1 was hit and brought down in flames. No. 2 seemed to have engine trouble this side of our lines on the way back. No. 3 ought to be along soon. And while he gulps his coffee and grunts monosyllables there is a whirring overhead and No. 3 returns, loudly demanding a fresh supply of bombs with which to put an artistic finish to a row of blazing oil-tanks.
They climb into their machines again and lean back resting, while the finishing touches (which sometimes come between life and death) are put to the machines and their deadly freight. Then once more they soar up into the night.
Dawn is breaking when No. 4 returns,tired-eyed, and more monosyllabic than ever. It came off all right, but No. 3 had seemed to lose control and slid down the beam of a searchlight with shells and balls of red fire (some new stunt, he supposed) bursting all about her. However, she got her bombs off first, and touched up something that sent a flame 200 feet into the air. He himself bombed a group of searchlights that were annoying him, and some trucks in a railway siding. The speaker has an ugly shrapnel wound in the thigh and observes with grave humour that his boots are full of blood—this is a Navy joke, by the way. Also that he could do with a drink.
But it came off all right.
Now the seaplanes, who undertake much the same sort of job, keep pigs, and contemplate their stern mission with an extinguishable and fathomless sense of humour. This may be accounted for by the fact that in life and death they are more in touch with the native element of the Navy-that-Floats and share much of its light-heartedness in consequence.
Aerial gymnastics are not in their line. They fight when they must, and the straightest shot wins. If hit, unless hopelessly outof control, they take to the water like a wounded duck. If the damage is beyond temporary repair they sit on the surface and pray for the dawn and a tow from a friendly destroyer.
No aerial adventure is ever recounted (and the array of medal ribbons round their mess table is witness to the quality of these blindfold flights) without its humorous aspect well-nigh obliterating all else. One who fought a Zeppelin single-handed with a Webley-Scott pistol and imprecations found himself immortalised only in the pages of a magazine of Puck-like humour they publish (Fate and funds permitting) monthly. Another, disabled on the water off an enemy’s port, succeeded in getting his engine going as the crew of an armed trawler were leaning over the bows with boat-hooks to secure him. He rose from the water beneath their outstretched hands, and recalled with breathless merriment nothing but the astonishment on their Teutonic faces. A third, similarly disabled, was approached on the surface by a German submarine. He raked her deck with his Lewis gun and kept her at bay—by the simple expedient of picking off every head that appeared above her conning-tower—until she wearied of the sport and withdrew.From a seaplane point of view it was a pretty jest.
At the conclusion of a day’s aerial fighting on the Somme front a certain officer of the Navy-that-Flies was asked how he felt about it.
“Wa-al ...” he drawled, and paused, groping in his mind for metaphor. “It’s jest like stealing candy from a kid.”
Making all allowances for poetic licence, this is a very fair illustration of the spirit in which the Navy-that-Flies went about the business. On the other hand there were a few who took a graver view of their responsibilities.
Among the possessions of one of the naval squadrons co-operating with the Army-that-Flies along the front is a foolscap manuscript notebook bearing the superscriptionNotes on Aerial Fighting. The youthful author of these notes will never handle either pen or “joy-stick” again, but he has left behind him a document that is, in its way, one of the epics of war literature. It has since been printed (in expurgated form), and has doubtless found its way into textbooks and treatises on the subject. But to be appreciated to the full it should be read in the original round, rather boyish handwriting, within hearingof the continuous murmur of the British guns and the drone of a scouting fighter passing overhead.
It contains ten commandments, which, for a variety of reasons, need not be recapitulated here. But the introduction epitomises the spirit of them all:
“The man who gets most Huns in his lifetime is the man who observes these commandments and fights with his head. The others either get killed or get nerves in a very short time and the country does not get the full benefit of having trained them.”
The commandments conclude with the following exhortation: “A very pleasant (sic) help in time of trouble is to put yourself in the enemy’s place and view the situation from his point of view. If you feel frightened before an attack,just think how frightened he must be!”
The Navy-that-Floats possesses for its “pleasant help” an awesome volume of some 946 pages (not counting Addenda), entitledThe King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions. Yet in all its pages there is not one clause which can compare with this brave sentence: for this is youth speaking to youth, for the guidance and comfort of his soul.
Now in one of the squadrons of the Navy-that-Flies there are three flight leaders, and the sum total of their ages is fifty-nine. The youngest, whatever his birth certificate may testify, looks something under sixteen. Of him it is related that in his early youth, having brought down a hostile machine within the British lines and captured the two occupants (with Iron Crosses complete), he approached a certain general, demanding transport for his prisoners—covering them the while with an automatic pistol.
“Transport?” said the general. “Where d’you want to take them?”
“To my squadron headquarters,” was the grave reply. “I’d like to keep ’em for a bit. I’d like the others to see ’em.”
“Damn it,” replied the General, “they ain’t canaries. Certainly not. Send ’em to the cages with the rest of the prisoners.”
The victor flew sorrowfully homewards, and on arrival gave it as his opinion that professional jealousy was the ruination of the Junior Service....
They are not given to talking over-much of their achievements in the hearing of a stranger within their gates. The second youngest of the trio admitted, contemplating his cow-hide boots, to have “done-in” twelve hostile machines in single combat—and lapsed into agonised silence.
“Of course,” said the third, coming to the rescue of a comrade in palpable distress, “N., the star Frenchman, is the fellow to talk if you want to hear some good yarns.” The speaker had the grave, sweet face of a mediæval knight, and the owner of the cow-hide boots shot him a swift glance of gratitude.
“He’sdone-in fifty Huns,” he confirmed, nodding.
It was on the following day, as it happened, that Fate introduced the Frenchman to the Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies. The flying man landed on one of the aerodromes of the Navy-that-Flies, a florid-faced young man, chubby and blue-eyed. The squadron strolled out to greet him with ready hospitality and hero-worship.
“Bon jour, N.,” said the squadron commander. “How goes it?”
The famous French fighting pilot swung himself out of his machine and pulled off his gauntlet. He wore, in addition to the regulation flying helmet, a bright-blue muffler wound with many turns round the lower part of his face, and a soiled aquascutum with a row of medal-ribbons reaching half-way across his breast. The windfluttered its skirts, disclosing a pair of tight red breeches above top-boots of a light yellow. As an additional protection against the cold his feet were encased in fur moccasins. He greeted the Navy-that-Flies in rapid French and threw their ranks into some disorder.
“Translate, George,” said the squadron commander.
“He says he’s on sick leave,” explained one of the hosts. “He’s just flying to keep his eye in. He scuppered five Boches last week.”
“Si,” said the Frenchman, nodding, and held up his hand with outstretched fingers, “Cinq!”
“Good on you, old sport,” said the squadron commander. They shook hands again, and the remainder clustered rather curiously round the sinister machine with the black skull and cross-bones adorning its fusilage.
“Makes one sort of sorry for the Hun, doesn’t it?” said one musingly.
“George,” said another, “ask him what that doo-hickie on the muzzle of his gun’s for.” He indicated a detail on the mounting.
The Frenchman explained at some length, and the interpreter interpreted.
“Bon!” said the squadron commander.
“Oui,” said the Frenchman, “tres bon!You ’ave not eet—cette—comment dites vous?—doo-hickie? No?”
“No,” was the reply, “mais nousblooming wellallons——”
The Frenchman presently climbed back into his machine and took his departure. The squadron commander summoned his chief armourer, and for a while deep called to deep.
“He’s a red-hot lad, that Frenchman,” said the squadron commander, when the chief armourer had gone. “I fancy he only came down to let us see that doo-hickie of his on his gun. You ought to hear some of his yarns, though.”
The Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies gazed after the aerial speck against the blue of heaven, and his soul was glad within him, because it was all the purest Navy.
“That’s all right,” he said. “But what I should like to know is, what the deuce is a doo-hickie?”
“A doo-hickie?” replied the squadron commander. “A doo-hickie? H’m’m. George, how would you describe a doo-hickie?”
The officer appealed to puffed his pipe insilence for a moment. “Well,” he said at length, “you know more or less what a gadget’s like?”
“Yes.”
“And a gilguy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, a doo-hickie is something like that, only smaller as a rule.”
There was a silence. Then the squadron commander leaned forward and flicked a speck of fluff off the shoulder of the Stranger within their Gates.
“There you are!” he exclaimed triumphantly—“that’sa doo-hickie!”
“Have a drink, anyway,” said the officer who answered to the name of George, soothingly.
The Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies had the drink, and from then onwards forbore to ask any more questions.
But he still sometimes wonders what the functions of a doo-hickie might be.
H.M.S.Shark, under the command of Commander Loftus W. Jones, went into action about 5.45 p.m. on May 31st, 1916 with a complement of ninety-one officers and men; of that number only six saw June 1st dawn.
In spite of the soul-shaking experience through which they passed, these six men have remembered sufficient details of the action to enable the following record to be pieced together. Many stirring acts of gallantry and self-sacrifice, and much of interest to the relatives and friends of those who were lost, must inevitably be lacking from this narrative. But the evidence shows such supreme human courage and devotion to duty in the face of death, that, incomplete as it is, the story remains one of the most glorious in the annals of the Navy.
At two o’clock on the afternoon of May 31st theSharkand three other destroyers,Acasta,Ophelia, andChristopher, were acting as a submarine screen to the Third BattleCruiser Squadron, with the light cruisersChesterandCanterburyin company. The force was steaming on a southerly course in advance of the British Battle Fleet, which was engaged in one of its periodical sweeps of the North Sea.
This advance squadron was under the command of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace A. L. Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., flying his flag inInvincible.
The main Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron were considerably farther to the southward, and at 2.20 p.m. the light cruisers attached to this force signalled by wireless the first intimation that the enemy’s fleet was at sea. Subsequent reports confirmed this, and acting on the information contained in these intercepted messages, Rear-Admiral Hood ordered the ship’s companies to “Action Stations,” and shaped course to intercept the advancing enemy.
At 3.48 p.m. the Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron engaged the German Main Fleet and turned north with the object of drawing the enemy towards the British Battle Fleet. It must be remembered that at this point the enemy was presumably in complete ignorance of the approach of the British Main Fleet. The weather was hazy, with very little windand patches of mist that reduced the visibility to an extent that varied from one to eight miles.
At 4.4 p.m. Rear-Admiral Hood received orders from Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief, to proceed at full speed with his squadron and reinforce the Battle Cruiser Fleet; the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron altered course as necessary, and an hour and a half later the first sounds of firing reached them out of the mists ahead.
The first faint intermittent murmur of sound increased momentarily as the two forces converged, and at 5.40 p.m. the haze on the starboard bow was pierced by flashes of gunfire; a few minutes later a force of German light cruisers and destroyers became visible, heavily engaged with an unseen opponent to the westward.
Fire was immediately opened and Rear-Admiral Hood turned to starboard, bringing the enemy on to the port bow of his squadron. Three light cruisers, a flotilla leader, and ten destroyers were now visible, the latter apparently turning to launch a torpedo attack upon the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron. The four destroyers who had hitherto been disposed in two subdivisions, one on each bow of theInvincible, were thereupon ordered to attack the enemy.Led by Commander Loftus Jones in theShark, the division swung round, and hurled itself at the German force, opening fire with every gun that would bear.
In the meanwhile the enemy opened a heavy though ill-directed fire on the battle cruisers. A large proportion of the salvos were falling short, and the British destroyers had in consequence to advance through a barrage of fire which surrounded them on all sides with columns of water and bursting shell.
In spite of their numerical superiority, the German destroyers turned away in the face of this determined onslaught, and Commander Loftus Jones, satisfied that the intended torpedo attack on Rear-Admiral Hood’s squadron had been frustrated, and having fired two of his three torpedoes, turned sixteen points to regain his position on the bow of theInvincible. The remaining three destroyers followed in his wake.
Three German battle cruisers had then appeared out of the mist in support of the enemy light cruisers, and the gallant division, withSharkat their head, turned under a concentrated deluge of shells from the entire German force.
A fragment of a projectile struck theShark’swheel, shattering it, and wounding the coxswain, Petty Officer Griffin, on theright hand. The captain immediately ordered the after wheel to be manned and followed the coxswain down the ladder to the shell-torn upper-deck to con the ship from aft. The yeoman of signals, Petty Officer Banham, who up to this point had been the third occupant of the bridge, hurried after the captain.
The enemy were now using shrapnel, and the captain was wounded in the thigh and face as he reached the bottom of the ladder. He stumbled aft, endeavouring to staunch the flow of blood with his hands, to find on reaching the engine-room hatchway that a shell had burst inside the engine-room, and the main engines and steering gear were completely disabled. The coxswain had been struck at the same time as the captain, and dropped insensible from a wound in the head. The foremost gun, under the command of Sub-Lieutenant Vance, had been blown away, and only one survivor of its crew lay badly wounded amid the wreckage.
TheSharkwas then lying with disabled engines helpless under a heavy fire, and Lieutenant-Commander John O. Barren, who commanded theAcasta, and had been second in the line, gallantly brought his destroyer between theSharkand the enemy’s fire, and signalled to ask if he could be of anyassistance. The captain of theSharkwas then aft, cheering and encouraging the crews of the midship and after guns. The yeoman of signals, who remained at his side, read the signal and reported it to the captain, who replied, “No. Tell him to look after himself and not get sunk over us.”
The yeoman of signals accordingly semaphored Commander Jones’s last signal to the division under his orders, and theAcastafollowed in the wake of the other two boats which were rejoining the battle cruisers.
It is probable that at this juncture Rear-Admiral Hood sighted the British Battle Cruiser Fleet, which he had been ordered to reinforce, and proceeded to carry out his orders. The Third Battle Cruiser Squadron vanished into the mist, and the enemy closed in upon theShark, which lay rolling helplessly in the swell, blazing defiance from her after and midship guns.
The after gun was almost immediately put out of action and its crew killed and wounded. Amid a hail of shrapnel bullets and flying splinters the spare torpedo was hoisted off the rack, and, under the directions of the captain, was being launched into the tube, when it was struck by a shell and burst with a violent explosion, causing heavy casualties.
Only one gun, the midship one, nowremained in action. The ship was settling down by the bows and every moment she shuddered with the impact of a fresh hit. The riven upper-deck was a shambles, and the dead, mingled with shattered wreckage, were blown hither and thither by the blast of exploding shell. Projectiles, pitching short, flung great columns of water into the air, or passed screaming overhead; the upper-works were riddled by splinters from bursting salvos.
One by one the wounded crawled brokenly into the lee of the casings and funnels in pitiful attempts to find shelter; among them knelt the devoted figure of the surgeon (Surgeon-Probationer Robert Walker, R.N.V.R.), endeavouring single-handed to cope with his gallant, hopeless task. When last seen he was bandaging a man who had lost a hand when the torpedo exploded. He was then himself severely wounded, and was apparently shortly afterwards killed.
The enemy had then closed in to a range of about 1,500 yards; the survivors of the engine-room staff had come on deck and the captain ordered the collision-mats to be placed over the shot-holes, and every attempt to be made to plug them and keep the ship afloat. This was accordingly done under the direction of Lieutenant ErnestT. Donnell, the first lieutenant, who appears to have been still unwounded, and maintained a cheering spirit of indomitable pluck to the last. The coxswain, who had recovered consciousness, though half-blinded by blood from his wound, superintended a party who under the captain’s orders were turning out the boats and endeavouring to launch the rafts. The boats were smashed by shell-fire while still at the davits, but three rafts—two regulation life-saving rafts, and an extemporised affair of four barrels lashed together—were placed in the water.
In the meanwhile the midship gun, under the command of Midshipman T. Smith, R.N.R., maintained a steady fire. The stock of percussion tubes threatened to run short at one time, and the gunner, Mr. W. Gale, though severely wounded, crawled down below and fetched a fresh supply, shortly after which he was killed. Leading Signalman Hodgetts, who had been previously working as one of the ammunition supply party, was blown overboard by the explosion of a shell; a few minutes later his dripping figure appeared over the rail, and he coolly resumed his work; by some curious freak of chance he was again blown overboard by the blast of a shell, but again he clambered back to his place of duty, and his death.
The crew of the midship gun was ultimately reduced to two men, Able Seaman Howell, the gunlayer, and Able Seaman Hope. The midshipman trained the gun while Hope loaded and Howell fired. The captain stood beside the gun giving them the range, heartening the remnant of the crew by his example of cool courage. Howell, who had been severely wounded, eventually dropped from loss of blood, and the captain took his place. A moment later he was himself struck by a shell, which took off his right leg above the knee.
He lay on the deck in the rear of the gun while the coxswain and a chief stoker, named Hammell, between them improvised a tourniquet from a piece of rope and fragment of wood. While they were endeavouring to stop the bleeding, Commander Loftus Jones, in the words of an eyewitness who survived, “gentleman and captain as he was,” continued to direct the firing of the gun.
In all history the unquenchable spirit of man has rarely triumphed so completely over shattered nerves and body. As his strength ebbed, Commander Loftus Jones seems to have been overtaken by fear lest the ship should fall into the hands of the enemy, and seeing the German destroyers approaching, he gave orders for theSharkto be sunk. A moment later, however, the gun fired another round; and apparently realising that the ship was still capable of further resistance, he countermanded the order, adding “Fight the ship!”
The gaff on the mainmast at which the Ensign was flown had been broken by a shot, and the flag hung limp against the mast. The mind of the captain must have turned at the last to that emblem of all he was dying for so gallantly, for presently he asked faintly what had happened to the flag. One of the men tending him replied that it had been shot away, and in great distress he ordered another to be hoisted immediately.
Able Seaman Hope accordingly left the gun, and climbing up, detached the ensign and handed it down to Midshipman Smith, who bent it on to a fresh pair of halyards and hoisted it at the yard-arm. The captain, seeing it once more flying clear, said, “That’s good,” and appeared content.
The end was now drawing very near. The bows of theSharkhad sunk until the foremost funnel was awash, and the waves were lapping over the waterlogged hull. Seeing that two German destroyers had approached to within a few hundred yards with the evident intention of administeringthecoup de grâce, Commander Loftus Jones gave his last order to the ship’s company, “Save yourselves!”
He was helped into the water by the coxswain and a number of others who had tended him devotedly after he received his mortal wound, and floated clear of the ship with the support of a life-belt. The remainder of the crew, to the number of about a score, swam towards the rafts and pieces of floating wreckage.
Two torpedoes struck theSharkamidships almost simultaneously. With a muffled explosion she lurched violently to starboard, flinging overboard the dead and wounded who still remained on deck. Her stern rose until it was almost perpendicular and she sank with colours flying, about an hour and a half after firing her first shot.
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul and Able Seaman Smith succeeded in placing the captain on the raft of barrels, where they propped him in a sitting position with the aid of life-belts and buoys. While this was being done the captain attempted to smile, and shook his head, saying, “It’s no good, lads.”
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul remained by the captain, and Able Seaman Smith swam to one of the other rafts on which the coxswain, Petty Officer Griffin, Chief Stoker Newcombe, Yeoman of Signals Banham, Stoker Swan, and Able Seamen Hope and Howell had succeeded in crawling. The three rafts drifted within sight of each other through the long northern summer twilight.
Shortly after theSharksank, the British battle cruisers swept past in pursuit of the enemy. The captain asked if the pursuing ships were British. Filleul replied that they were, and the captain said, “That’s good!”
Not long afterwards his head fell forward and his gallant spirit fled.
The second life-saving raft had been so damaged by shell-fire that only two men could be accommodated upon it. The two most severely wounded (one of them had lost a leg) were helped on to it by a number of others who themselves clung to the edge, among them being the first lieutenant. Able Seaman Smith, on the other raft, realising that the majority were badly wounded, and being himself only slightly hurt, swam over to render what assistance he could. The first lieutenant, who had unfailingly cheered and comforted the stricken little band, presently asked if any could still sing, and then, without faltering, himself began: