To describe how everyone, from commander to signal-boy, looked forward to these spells of leave is unnecessary. Let the reader imagine how he himself would feel after nine or ten months of the monotony and danger, to say nothing of the hardships, of life at sea in time of war.
There was, however, another consideration, one seldom referred to but nevertheless unavoidably present in the minds of all. Each time a refit came round there were ships which would never be docked again, and comrades who had missed their leave. Men told themselves that the luck they had enjoyed for so long could not last, and it is about one of these, in a fight against overwhelming odds, that the following story deals.
Three of his Majesty's armed trawlers were plunging through the sea on their lonely beat in the Western Ocean. The Hebrides lay far to the southward, and less than two days' steam ahead lay the Arctic Circle. These cheerless surroundings, however, found no echo in the hearts of the watch below on the leading ship of the unit, who were lounging on the settees in the oil-smelling fo'c'sle discussing their prospects of long leave, for their ship was to "blow-down" for a thorough refit when they returned to harbour in less than three weeks' time.
On the deck of the same vessel two officers, standing in the shelter of the wheel-house, were sweating and shivering in patches, but also happy with the thought of the forthcoming reunion with their families and the brief enjoyment of the comforts of home after seven long winter months' wandering, with soul-destroying monotony, over the windswept wastes of England's frontier. The watch on deck, with the exception of the helmsman and look-out, crouched under the lee of the iron superstructure, alternately swinging their arms and stamping their heavily booted feet, but they too were mentally impervious to the dismal surroundings.
Of the second ship in the line the same cheery story cannot be told. She was jealous of the first. It would be another two months at least before she would go in dock for refit; and among the watch below there were three new hands on their first voyage, two of whom would, just then, have preferred the peace and stillness of the sea bottom to the friskiness of the surface.
The third trawler was a happy little ship, for although the junior of the unit she had been very fortunate in securing a "Fritz" all to her own cheek less than three months before.
This, then, was one of the units on the Outer Hebrides and Iceland patrol during the winter of 1915, and they seemed to be the sole occupants of the leagues of water around.
It was barely eleven o'clock, Greenwich time, when they reached the last ten miles of their beat, and speed was reduced so that they would not have to turn about and begin steaming back over the course they had come until the morning watch went below at midday. This was an artful though harmless arrangement to enable those going off duty to have a meal and at least an hour's rest in peace, as on the voyage back both wind and sea would be astern and the vicious lurching of the small ship reduced to a minimum.
The time passed slowly, as it generally did on patrol when nothing exciting was afoot, but a few minutes before the awaited eight bells the officer on duty snatched up the binoculars, and almost simultaneously the look-out gave a warning shout which caused the attention of everyone on deck to suddenly become strained.
Away to port, less than half-a-mile distant, the thin grey tube of a periscope could be seen planing through the waves, with a fringe of white foam blowing from its base. There was a hoarse cry down the fo'c'sle hatch for "All hands on deck!" The telegraph tinkled for "Full ahead!" A signal was made to the ships astern for concerted action. The gun was manned, and the leading trawler, now cleared for action, headed towards her under-water opponent.
The other two vessels of the unit put on speed and spread out until all three were line-abreast and about two cables apart. In this formation the chase was maintained for some twenty minutes, when a second submarine appeared above the surface away to starboard. She appeared to be a large vessel and would probably have turned the scale at 1000 tons.
It was at this early stage in the action that the mistake was made. The leading trawler immediately opened fire, but the range was considerable and the shells fell short. Signalling to the other two trawlers to continue the chase of the first submarine sighted, she headed straight for the largest of the two hostile craft to engage her at close range.
While this was in progress the first submarine came to the surface and proved to be also a larger craft than had been anticipated. The two trawlers chasing her immediately opened fire, but her superior surface speed soon placed her out of range of the comparatively small guns then carried by the trawler patrols.
Now came the surprise. Almost simultaneously the two submarines opened fire from heavy guns. The shells at first fell wide, but in a moment the British officers realised that they were outranged, for whereas their shells were falling short, those from the enemy whistled over their heads and ploughed up columns of white water over a cable's length astern.
To increase speed and so reduce the range became imperative, and the steam-pressure in the trawlers' boilers was raised to bursting point by the simple expedient of screwing down the safety valve. For some minutes it looked as though the effort would be successful, and then the range slowly increased again and "short" after "short" was registered by the gunners.
At this psychological moment a German shell carried away the funnel of the leading trawler and smothered her decks with smoke. When a temporary shield had been rigged it was observed that one of the other patrol ships had been crippled by a direct hit and was in a sinking condition.
It now became evident that the superior speed and gun-power of the submarines enabled them to keep out of range of the trawlers' weapons and to ply their long-range fire with telling effect.
The officer in command of the patrol at once realised the mistake he had made when opening the action, in betraying the power of his own guns before he was sufficiently close to the enemy to ensure hits, and he cursed this want of foresight which looked like costing the life of the flotilla. Given one direct hit on each of his two powerful opponents and they would in all probability have been put out of action, but instead he had only the mortification of seeing every shell fired fall short, while his own vessels were being battered to pieces by the long-range guns of an enemy with whom he could not close.
The withholding of fire while hostile shells are bursting around is one of the many severe strains imposed on the human mind by modern war, and in anti-submarine tactics it often means the difference between victory and defeat, which, followed to its logical conclusion, is generally life or death.
One hope now remained—that by skilful man[oe]uvring the trawlers could be kept afloat until help arrived; but in those wastes of sea no vessel might pass for many hours, and even then not a warship.
Such is the working of Fate: the leading trawler of the unit was to have been fitted with wireless while under the approaching refit, and with its aid patrol cruisers or fast destroyers could soon have been brought to the scene of operations.
Thirty minutes later the crippled ship, the junior member, gave three defiant shrieks with her syren and slid under the surface with her colours flying. For over two hours the others man[oe]uvred to get one on each side of the submarines to enable them to get the few shells remaining in their magazines home on the target, but so great was the disparity of both range and speed that at five in the evening nearly half their crews were dead or wounded, and a little while later the ice-cold water closed over the leading ship. Still the other fought on, but as dusk closed over the sea she too went down in this obscure fight.
No search for possible survivors was made by the submarines, which glided westwards into the smoky red afterglow, leaving the bitter cold to finish the work of death.
A big armed liner of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron had heard the distant firing and came upon the scene just before darkness finally closed over. Four bodies were still lashed to a raft, but in all except one life was extinct.
When the doctors bent over the half-frozen form in which a flicker still lingered they shook their heads. Death waged a stern battle even for this last relic, but life triumphed, and when the agony of returning animation had ceased the sole survivor told the cruiser's mess how Trawler No. 1 had lost her refit.
CHAPTER XX
THE RAIDER
Comparatively few people are, however, aware that one of the largest and most destructive of German mine-fields was laid off the British coast during the Great War by a surface ship which escaped detection through darkness and storm.
The barometer had fallen rapidly, and clouds rolled up from the north-west in ragged grey banks which scudded ominously over a cold steely blue sky. For some days the sea had been moderately calm, but it was mid-winter and quiescence of the elements could not be expected to last. Slowly the face of the Atlantic grew lined with white. It began with a moaning wind which soon developed into a stiff gale, accompanied by heavy storms of sleet and snow.
One of his Majesty's ships coming up the west coast of Ireland found herself heading into the teeth of the gale. As the afternoon wore on the wind increased in violence and the ship rolled and plunged heavily, smothering herself in clouds of flying spume. The driving sleet made it difficult to see more than a cable's length in any direction, and when dusk closed over the storm-swept ocean the ship was headed for a sheltered stretch of water close inshore.
Every stay and shroud whistled its own tune as the gale roared past. Foam-crested waves hurled themselves in a white fury against the plunging, dripping sides, piling up on the port bow and racing aft in cataracts of water which threatened instant death to any luckless sailor caught in their embrace. The lashings on the movable furniture of the decks, although of stout rope, were snapped like spun-yarn, and much-prized, newly painted ventilators, boat-covers, fenders, deck-rails and other necessary adornments were swept overboard by the ugly rushes of green sea. The iron superstructure and bridge-supports resounded to the heavy blows of the water, and the ship trembled as she rose after each ghastly plunge.
The blasts of wind which struck the vessel with increasing violence had swept unimpeded over 5000 miles of ocean and carried in their breath the edge of the Arctic frost. The sleet felt warm compared with it, and the flying spray lost its sting.
The forty-eight sea miles lying between the ship and the sheltered strait seemed endless leagues, for the speed had to be considerably reduced to avoid serious damage from Neptune's guns. The minutes of twilight grew rapidly less, and with the coming of darkness a new danger threatened. The ship was approaching a rock-strewn coast with no friendly lights to guide her, and every now and then lofty masses of black stone rose up, dimly, from their beds of foam. It was an anxious half-hour, and ears were strained for the warning thunder from surf-beaten rocks which sounded at intervals even above the roar of the gale.
Fortunately the entrance to the sheltered waterway was broad, and almost before it could be realised the sea grew calm. Although the wind still shrieked and moaned, the waves rose barely three feet high. Great cliffs, invisible in the darkness and driving sleet, protected the strait, and as the vessel picked her way to a safe anchorage closer under the lee of the land the wind lost its giant strength and the howling receded into the upper air.
Throughout the night the comparatively small warship rode safely at anchor, innocent of what was taking place out in the blackness and the storm. When morning broke the gale had lost some of its force, and streams of pale watery sunlight shone between the low-flying clouds on to a boisterous sea.
Running before the wind and sea the German raider Frederick, carefully disguised and loaded with several hundred mines, approached the British coast. The gale was increasing in force as darkness closed down, and heavy showers of sleet shielded her from the view of any passing craft. The weather was ideal for her dark purpose, which was to lay a mine-field over a stretch of sea where it was thought the Anglo-American trade routes converged.
For the first few days out from Wilhelmshaven the weather had been misty with heavy snowfalls, conditions enabling the mine-layer (and afterwards raider) to run the blockade and elude the network of patrols, not, however, without some very close shaves. On one occasion a large auxiliary cruiser passed in a snow squall, and during subsequent movements the raider found herself in the midst of a British fishing fleet, but passed unrecognised in the darkness. And now that she was approaching the British coast, and the scene of actual operations, the barometer again obliged by falling rapidly.
It was a wild night and very dark when the first mine splashed overboard. A snowstorm set in, and as the work proceeded heavy seas broke over the vessel, smothering her with spray, but she was comparatively a large ship, built for ocean trade. Although the darkness and the snow were conditions favourable to the laying of mines in secret, and without their aid the danger of discovery would have been great, the rising gale and the heavy seas rendered the work both difficult and dangerous, notwithstanding that these deadly weapons were so arranged as to go automatically overboard.
Before the last of her cargo had been consigned to the deep it was blowing great guns, and one sea after another was breaking over the ship. Although sheltered waters lay less than fifty miles distant, to proceed there would mean certain discovery and destruction, so all through that wild night, and for many hours afterwards, the raider sought by every means in her power to battle seawards, away from the coast and danger, heading into the teeth of the gale and out on to the broad bosom of the North Atlantic, all unknowing that but for the severity of the storm she must have been observed, probably in the very act of laying the mine-field, by the small warship riding out the north-wester in the more sheltered waters close inshore.
It is interesting to note that it was on this mine-field a few days later that one of the largest transatlantic liners was sunk.
CHAPTER XXI
THE S.O.S.
Typical of the way succour was brought by the naval patrols to those unhappy victims of both sexes left adrift in open boats in calm and rough, sunshine and snow, all over the northern seas by the cowardly Unterseeboten of the kultured race was the rescue of the passengers and crew of a liner off the wild west coast of Ireland in the winter of 1916.
It was mid-December, and flurries of snow were being driven before a stinging north-westerly wind. The sea was moderate, but the heavy Atlantic swell caused the lonely patrol ship to sink sluggishly into the watery hollows, with only her aerials showing above the surrounding slopes of grey-green sea, and a minute or so later to be poised giddily on the bosoms of acre-wide rollers with nothing but the white mists obscuring the broad horizon.
It was a wild wintry scene, pregnant with cold and hardship. The officer who had just come up from the warmth of the wardroom to relieve his "opposite number" on the bridge pulled the thick wool muffler closer round his neck and dug mittened hands deep into the pockets of his duffel coat.
In the Marconi cabin, situated on the deck of the sloop, a young operator was sitting with the receiving instrument fixed to his head and the clean and bright apparatus all around. He was city born and bred, and felt keenly the monotony of life at sea, although to him came the many interesting wireless signals from the vast network of patrols which covered the Western Ocean—linking the sea-divided units into a more or less homogeneous fleet.
Presently a message began to spell itself in Morse. Taking a pencil, the operator scribbled various hieroglyphics on the naval signal paper lying on the desk in front of him; then after a pause of a few seconds he pulled forward a tiny lever and began a rhythmic tap on an ebonite key.
It was the "S.O.S." call and the reply that had flashed through the ether. A minute or so later the written signal, giving the appeal for help and the position and name of the torpedoed liner, was handed to the commander. A glance at the chart told that young but experienced officer that he could not hope to bring his ship to the scene of the disaster before dusk closed down, and a message was sparked across the eighty miles of intervening sea asking how long the crippled ship could be kept afloat.
To this, however, there came no reply, and the engines of the sloop were put to full speed ahead. A heavy spray now commenced to sweep across the deck in drenching showers, and the snow haze thickened. The pitching of the ship increased as she raced over the ocean swell, driving her sharp bows deep into the masses of sea. The limbs of the watch grew stiff and numb, and a fine coating of wet salt stung their faces. Eyes ached from gazing into the bitter wind, and for over four hours the race against approaching night continued. If darkness closed down before that eighty miles of sea was covered all on board realised that the chances of finding any survivors would be greatly diminished. Even the strongest vitality could not long resist exposure to the intense cold, and there might be women and children in the sea ahead.
Many of the officers and crew of the sloop had experienced the agonies of cold, wounds and salt water when cast adrift on wintry seas, and the memory acted like a whip. As the hours went by the greenish tint of the sea slowly turned to leaden-grey, and the pure white of the driving snow contrasted sharply with the quickening dusk of the December night.
It was in the last half-hour of the dog watch that the sloop reached the scene of the disaster and the speed was reduced. Scattered over the sea around, and floating southwards in grim procession, was a mass of wreckage—a broken raft, a number of deck-chairs, spars and cordage, a life-belt and some oars—but of boats with living freights there was not a sign.
Steaming slowly round in widening circles, the sloop searched while the light lasted, but the whirling haze of fine snow blotted out the distance, and soon the early darkness of a winter night settled over the sea. The cold became intense. The white beam of a searchlight now flashed out over the black waters. There was a grave risk in this betraying light, one not sanctioned by the theory of war. It made the warship a target for any hostile submarine lurking around, but it seemed impossible to believe that a 6000-ton liner, with probably several hundred human beings on board, could have been so completely obliterated, and to the commander of the sloop the risk seemed justified.
Other ships might have intercepted the S.O.S. call and reached the scene of the disaster earlier, but the sloop's wireless, although put into action, could not confirm this, and so the search was continued.
On and off during the bitter night the white beam of light flashed out through the snow. For a few seconds it swept the sea close around and was then shut off. In the pall-like blackness which followed ears listened intently, but could distinguish nothing except the lash of the sea.
The sound-deadening qualities of falling snow would have cut short the range of any cry, for the human voice at its strongest, and with the atmospheric conditions favourable, can seldom be heard more than 1000 yards distant. So hour after hour of numbing cold went by with nothing to show except the occasional pathway of light on the grey slopes of sea and the low moaning wind.
The snowing ceased, and in the cold stillness which so often precedes daybreak in the north a faint cry came from the sea, at first so indistinct and mingled with water noises that it would never have been heard at all if the engines of the sloop had not been shut off, as they had been at frequent intervals during the night, to enable those on board to listen. The cry was quickly followed by the "snore" of a boat's fog-horn. A few turns of the sloop's propellers and in the grey light of the December dawn a large ship's life-boat could be dimly seen, away to starboard, when it rose on the bosom of the swell.
Careful man[oe]uvring placed the warship alongside the boat-load of half-frozen castaways and the work of rescue commenced. It was a sad task. Amongst the thirty-two survivors there were twelve women and children, seven of whom had died of cold and exposure during that bitter night. One, a young Canadian wife coming home to her wounded soldier husband, had been crushed by the explosion of the first torpedo and suffered agonies in the open boat before sinking into the peace of death.
To dwell here on the suffering caused by intense cold, exposure, hunger, thirst, untended wounds, and the mental agony of suspense, often to delicate women and children, when cast adrift on the open sea, would be merely to repeat what has so often been written, and which will live for ever in the memory of sailormen.
When the survivors had all been lifted on board—and many had suffered badly from frost-bite—the search for two other life-boats which it was learned had succeeded in getting away from the wrecked liner was commenced.
Shortly before midday the snowing began again and the wind moaned dismally through the rigging. Spurts of icy spray shot upwards from the bows and were blown back across the fore-deck of the ship, searing the skin of the tired men on watch. For several hours the sea around was searched in vain. Flurries of snow obscured everything more than a few hundred yards distant. Then towards four bells the storm passed and the air cleared of its white fog, but nothing was visible except the wide sweep of colourless heaving sea and leaden sky.
It came suddenly—an indescribable explosion with a violent uprush of water, followed by the hoarse shouting of orders, the low groans of wounded men and the sharp crack of cordite. The bows of the sloop had been blown off by a torpedo, and the vessel commenced to rapidly settle down.
The two undamaged boats were lowered and the survivors from the liner once again cast adrift to face the horrors of the previous night. Rafts floated free with all that were left of the crew of the sloop—two officers and thirty men. Their condition was pitiable. There had been no time to get either food or extra clothing, and so heavily laden were the light structures of capuc and wood that the occupants were continually awash.
Barely had the boats and rafts got clear of the ship before she took the final plunge, going down in a cloud of steam. A few minutes later the U-boat rose to the surface about 300 yards distant, and after remaining there for some time, without making any effort to render assistance, she steamed slowly away.
The boats took the rafts in tow, and the wounded, who suffered terribly from the cold and the salt water, were all transferred to the former. One of the women survivors from the torpedoed liner collapsed during the first hour, and although given extra clothing cheerfully discarded by the men, she died soon afterwards.
Seas washed over the rafts and sent clouds of stinging spray into the crowded life-boats. A biting frost stiffened the wet garments, which rasped the raw and bleeding wrists of the men who tugged at the oars—partly to increase their circulation and partly to keep the boats head-on to the sea. The only hope of rescue lay in keeping afloat until daylight, when the "S.O.S." call sent out before the sloop foundered might bring them aid. The coast of Ireland lay 300 miles to the south-east, and so intense was the cold that few expected to live through the night.
The gloom of a winter afternoon gave place to darkness, and with the fading of daylight the cold increased. Men became numb and were washed unnoticed from the rafts. Others were dragged unconscious into the already overcrowded life-boats, which sank so deep in the water with the additional weight that green seas now splashed inboard and baling became necessary. Limbs stiffened in the sharp frost and had to be pounded back to life by unselfish comrades. Even under cover of the sails the cold was so intense that only five women and two children were left alive by midnight.
Through the long dark hours men struggled under the drenching showers of bitter spray. When dawn broke, throwing a pale mystic light over the acre-wide Atlantic swell, each one knew that life depended on the coming of a ship before the light of day again faded in the west.
The snowing had ceased some hours before darkness lifted, and in the clear morning cold men stood up painfully and searched the watery horizon for the sign which would bring them life. Just before three bells, as the boats rose on the bosom of the swell, a thin blur of smoke could be seen low down on the eastern horizon. Had there been strength left in the worn-out bodies there would have been a cheer, but now only a slight stir of suppressed excitement and many a silent prayer.
The limit of human suffering and endurance had, however, not yet been reached. Some twenty minutes later it became evident that the ship had not received the wireless call and was passing too far off to be reached by any sound signal short of a big gun. Slowly the trail of smoke disappeared in the haze of great distance without even a glimpse of the ship itself.
The spirits of all began to sink as hour after hour went by without sight of the hoped-for sail. Then, about eight bells, one of the men standing up in the centre of the first officer's boat gave a little inarticulate cry and some few minutes later the dim outline of a big ship hove in sight. The suspense was unbearable. Women to whom any sign of religious emotion was alien knelt openly and prayed, while men who had suffered similarly before gazed fixedly at the distant object, knowing how fickle is Fortune to sailormen in distress. But the hull grew larger and hope shone on the faces of all. Men pulled frantically at the oars, while others waved pieces of sail or clothing to attract attention.
Now came a surprise. From the pocket of his duffel coat the first officer produced what he had hitherto kept hidden for just such an emergency—a Very's pistol, with its small-sized single red rocket. A hoarse cry of joy went up from all in spite of their exhaustion when they saw the rocket soar into the air and burst into a blood-red glow.
A short time later keen eyes made out the string of flags which fluttered from the halyards of the oncoming warship, and although minutes seemed like hours, none could quite remember what happened after. Some say that the cruiser came alongside them and others that she lowered her boats and steamed round in a circle. But forty-eight survivors were landed in Liverpool three days later, leaving in the wastes of the Western Ocean a murdered two hundred.
It is interesting to note that survivors from torpedoed ships frequently showed great reluctance to leave their life-boats and go aboard the rescuing vessel, especially when they were within easy sailing distance of a harbour. After being torpedoed, rescued and torpedoed again they often preferred the comparative safety but hardship of the small open boat to the risk and luxury of the big ship. This applied more especially to Scandinavian sailors, whose powers in small boats are well known.
It should, however, be stated that, so far as British and American seamen were concerned, men sailed again and again, after being torpedoed or mined six, seven and even eight times. It was this remarkable fortitude of the Mercantile Marine which saved Europe from starvation.
CHAPTER XXII
IN THE SHADOW OF A BIG SEA FIGHT
In the intelligence office an assistant paymaster, weary of decoding cypher wireless messages from flotillas, patrols and sweepers spread far out over the leagues of sea lying between this port and the German coast, sat talking to the executive officer on night duty.
About 8 p.m. a messenger from the wireless cabin entered with the familiar signal form and the A.P. spread it out carelessly on the desk in front of him, taking the sturdy little lead-covered decipher book from the safe at his side. A few scratches of the pen beneath the secret signal and the deciphering was complete. He looked up quickly and with a gesture of keen satisfaction handed the signal to the officer temporarily in command of the base.
The older man read it and paused for a moment before replying. It was the brief and now historic statement that an action between Sir David Beatty's battle cruisers and the German High Seas Fleet was imminent. A crowd of orders to be executed in the event of all kinds of emergencies were rapidly reviewed in his active brain. For a brief space the scene of what was occurring out in the blackness of the North Sea occupied his thoughts, for he had fought in the battle of the Dogger Bank and knew what those brief words really meant. It was the evening of the battle of Jutland.
Rising quickly to his feet, the night duty officer seized the telephone, rang up the Admiral Commanding, who had gone home to dinner, and hurriedly left the intelligence office to carry out a host of prearranged orders.
The "old man," as admirals are invariably called, was evidently ready for the emergency, for his large grey car tore past the sentries at the approaches to the base, and in a few minutes he was closeted with his commanders and other officers in the small matchboarded cabin. Charts were pinned down on the table in front of him, and for the next half-hour officers and messengers were kept busy with telephones and other means of rapid concentration.
In the neighbouring large town the police had received the order for a "general naval recall" and were active in the streets politely informing officers and men on short leave that their services were required immediately at the bases. In the theatres and cinema halls the cryptic message, "All naval officers and men to return at once to their ships," was given out from the stage or thrown on the screen, a replica of the night before Waterloo.
Men wondered and women grew anxious. Did it mean an invasion or an air raid? Many were the questions asked as silently seats were left and files of blue and gold streamed out of the places of amusement. Taxi-cabs full of officers raced each other along the streets. Civilians had to give place to sailors on the tram-cars, and then, in less than thirty minutes, all was quiet again, except for groups of people discussing possibilities in front of the big public buildings. Even these soon dispersed when reassuring messages were circulated which hinted at the reason for the recall, and the level-headed Scottish citizens went home wondering what the great news would be on the morrow—for the fate of empires might be decided during the night.
As each officer and man entered the base the gates were closed. The sentries and the officer of the guard knew nothing "officially," but in the wardroom at the end of the stone quay the news of the action was being discussed in imaginative detail. At 11 p.m. orders were received for certain small ships to get under way with sealed orders. An hour later came the message that six drifters were to be cleared of all their war appliances and were to be given stretchers, cots, slings and other appliances for the carriage of wounded. They were to be ready to proceed to sea at 2 a.m.
All was ordered hurry. Piles of anti-submarine devices were taken from the holds of these ships. Other vessels came alongside and unloaded stretchers, cots and slings, which had been obtained from local naval hospitals and hospital ships. The officers were grouped round a commander in the wardroom having typed orders, which had evidently been prepared long beforehand, carefully explained to them. Red Cross flags were served out, and by 1.30 a.m. all were ready for sea.
Other ships stole silently out into the blueness of the night to strengthen patrols and prevent hostile submarines from getting into position to attack the main battle fleets on their return to harbour.
Wireless messages indicating a concentration of German submarines on the lines of communication were received. Every armed ship was in great demand, but over the dark waters, lashed by a stiff easterly breeze, the gunners of many batteries gazed steadily as the searchlights played around, investigating everything that moved on the face of the waters. Beams flashed heavenwards for hostile aerial fleets.
On the dark quaysides and on the decks of the ships hundreds of sailors moved noiselessly about getting ready for sea. Columns of smoke from the short funnels of destroyers, trawlers and drifters showed up black against the indigo void, and ever and anon hoarse voices shouted orders, unintelligible from the distance. It was quiet preparation rather than noisy haste, and although an air of suppressed excitement did prevail when the men were mustered and extra hands told off to the different ships by the light of battle lanterns, it was more a feeling of hope than one of satisfaction.
For nearly two years these men had quietly fought the elusive submarine, the nerve-shattering mine, and endured uncomplainingly the terrible hardships, arduous work and monotony of patrol, and now their one fervent hope was a glimpse at least of the real thing.
In the wardroom on the quay about sixty officers of all ranks were discussing the possibilities of the fight while waiting impatiently for the last command before the relief of action—"Carry on as ordered." Conversation centred on the Grand Fleet, under Sir John Jellicoe, steaming down from the north. Many had seen those miles of gigantic warships, whose mere existence had preserved for the Entente the command of the sea and all that it implied. Others had served in ships whose names have been familiar to Englishmen since the days of Nelson, and now opined that when at last the "old ship"—perhaps a brand-new super-dreadnought—was going into action on the great day it was their luck to be in command of a "one-horse" boat miles from the field of glory.
Four bells had struck when the signal came for all ships under orders to proceed to sea. Oilskins were rapidly slipped on, for a fine rain had commenced to fall and the damp wind was penetratingly cold at this early hour. Almost silently the small grey ships slid out of harbour and were lost in the blueness of the night.
When dawn broke over the choppy tumbling sea the different flotillas were far apart, each attending to its allotted task. Those engaged in patrolling the route by which the battle cruisers would return found themselves acting in conjunction with a division of destroyers, some of whom had been under refit but a few hours previously, but when the tocsin of battle rang out had made themselves ready for sea in an incredibly short time, thereby earning the praise of the commander-in-chief.
Information had been received, and later in the day was confirmed, that no less than five hostile submarines were known to be waiting in the vicinity with the object of attacking any crippled ships from the battle fleets, and it became the duty of the patrols to clear them away from the lines of communication. For over twenty hours the seas around were churned by the keels of a heterogeneous fleet of ships armed with equally heterogeneous weapons. Guns' crews stayed by their weapons until their limbs ached and look-outs searched the sea with burning eyes. Through the short dark hours of a May night in northern latitudes searchlights swept the near approaches, while in the black void of sea and sky beyond myriads of mosquito craft moved over the face of the waters with all lights out and their narrow decks cleared for action. Alarms were frequent, and the occasional yellow flashes and sharp reports of cordite, some too far distant to be visible, told their own tale. In the treacherous light of early dawn the fins of big porpoises were more than once mistaken for the hunted periscope.
With the Red Cross flotilla waiting behind the screen of patrols and defences things had moved rapidly. Each little ship had been told off to attend on one or other of the great warships which were hourly expected from the battle zone. Stretchers, bedding, cots and slings were piled on the decks, and extra hands had been lent for the work of removing the wounded.
Another flotilla was in readiness to replace the casualties with reinforcements, which had been concentrated by special trains, in order that the battle fleets and squadrons might be again ready for sea in the shortest possible time.
At the base trains and big ships were waiting with every known appliance to alleviate the suffering which was coming in from the sea.
It was a typical May morning, with a light easterly breeze, when the first of the great line of ships—H.M.S. Lion—came into view. A hurricane of cheers greeted her from the deck of every ship that passed. Then the gallant Warspite, low by the stern and scarred and torn by tornadoes of shell; the New Zealand, scarcely touched by the fiery ordeal; the plucky little light cruiser Southampton, holed and battered; followed by cruiser after cruiser with attendant destroyers, some with great bright steel splinters of shell still sticking tight in the gouged armour-plate; others with holes plugged with wood and broadsides stained with the bright yellow of high explosives. Gun shields caught by the gusts of shell were cut out like fretwork; funnels were blotched with blackened holes; but of them all not one was out of action. Few, if any, of the heavy guns and armoured barbettes were damaged, and all except one—the Warspite—came in proudly under their own steam. This was the return of the battle cruiser and light cruiser squadrons, which, under Sir David Beatty, had met and defeated practically the entire German navy. Steaming back into the northern mist was the Grand Fleet—the largest assembly of warships ever known—which, had it been given the opportunity so eagerly sought, would undoubtedly have annihilated the remains of Von Hipper's fleet.
An observer from a distance would have found it difficult to believe that this was the fleet which had just fought the greatest sea fight in the history of the world. Yet the decks of the seaplane carrier Engadine were covered with men in motley clothes, a grim reminder of the severity of the ordeal, for they were the survivors from the thousands who had manned the Princess Royal and Invincible. On the high poop a fleet chaplain was surrounded by figures in borrowed duffel suits giving thanks to the God of Battles for their rescue.
As the engines of each great ship came temporarily to rest a vessel of the Red Cross flotilla ranged alongside and the more sombre work of war began. A shell through the sick-bay of H.M.S. Lion had caused Sir David Beatty to have many of the wounded on that ship placed in his own cabins. The only casualty on the New Zealand was caused by a gust of bursting steel over the signal bridge. A big shell had passed longitudinally through the line of officers' cabins in the battered little Southampton, and many were the curious escapes from death. In modern naval war a heavy casualty list seems unavoidable, and the deadly nature of a sea fight will perhaps be better realised when it is stated that on one of the battle cruisers there were just over three hundred casualties, of which number very nearly two hundred were killed outright, and this on a ship which still sailed proudly into port in fighting condition. Where the shells had burst in the steel flats the fierce heat generated had burnt off the clothes and skin of many who were untouched by the flying slivers of steel, and the crews of the secondary batteries of smaller guns suffered severely.
Cot cases were the first to be lowered from the decks of the warships to the waiting Red Cross boats. The patience and care with which this difficult operation was carried out may be gauged from the fact that there were no casualties or deaths during the work of transportation. Human forms, swathed from head to foot in yellow picric-acid dressings, were lowered on to the decks or carried down the gangways. By a curious ordinance of fate, picric acid, one of the most deadly explosives known, also provides a medical dressing for the alleviation of the pain which in another form it may have caused. The walking wounded, with arms in slings or heads covered in lint, were helped down the ship's sides by smoke-blackened comrades in uniforms torn to shreds by the fierce work of naval war.
All serious cases of shell shock were conveyed at the utmost speed by special units to the big and lavishly equipped hospital ships. Those with minor injuries were taken ashore and placed in ambulance trains for distribution among the big naval hospitals. So perfect was the organisation that within three hours all the sick-bays had been cleared and fresh crews placed on board. The squadrons were again ready to give battle.
Twenty-four hours later the patrol flotillas returned to their base to commence once again the dangerous and monotonous but less spectacular work of minesweeping and patrol. Their work in preventing a concentration of German submarines on the line of route of the returning fleets and in the removal of the wounded received high praise from the commander-in-chief. In the wardroom on the little stone pier a silent toast was given that night to those who had gone aloft in the greatest sea fight since Trafalgar.