CHAPTER V.
THE FATAL FOUNTAIN AND END OF U-C 6.
I.
I was sunk a thousand fathoms deep in sleep.
Came a loud rap at my cabin door, the stab of electric light in my eyes, and a voice saying, "Signal, sir."
The messenger, seeing I was more or less awake, crossed the cabin and passed me a signal pad. Propping one eye open, I read—
"0348 Trout, XUB top."
"Thanks," I said, and the messenger vanished.
The signal was a wireless fix of a Fritz. Sitting up in bed, I reached for the squared chart, and examined it. The message, interpreted, meant that at forty-eight minutes after three o'clock that morning, September 3, a German submarine had been on the surface off the Goodwins.
The commander of the U-boat had reported to Germany by wireless. He was probably taking no chances in that vicinity, and would not have up his aerial masts, but would be using as aerials the two jumping wires which ran from end to end of his boat, passing over his conning-tower and forming a protection against nets, hawsers, and mines. He could therefore dive immediately.
However, it was not my pigeon; he was not in the Felixstowe area. So I switched off the light, turned over, and was immediately asleep.
An hour later I was sitting up in bed again reading a second signal—
"0403 Trout, ANV centre."
"Wait," I said to the messenger.
The repetition of the word "Trout" meant it was the same Fritz again working wireless. I checked the positions and times of the two fixes on the chart. The commander of the submarine had come north about ten miles, and would soon enter the Spider Web. This was a different matter.
"Quartermaster," I said to the waiting messenger.
Jumping out of bed, I pulled on my uniform over my pyjamas, and met the Quartermaster as he entered the door of the mess. We stood together and looked across the quarter-deck. It was going to be a misty day. We walked down to the concrete, and looked across the harbour. Harwich, on the far side, a mile away, was invisible, but the big light-buoy, half-way across, could be seen.
"Can do," I said. "We'll take a chance. Turn out the hands; I'll call the pilots."
The weather had been so unpromising the night before that no early morning Duty Pilots had been warned off, so I hammered up Dickey for myself and Cuckney and Clayton for the second boat.
Cuckney was a stout fellow, who had been doing the two-trip-a-night stunt in carrying bombs from Dunkirk to Zeebrugge.
He was over the Mole one night at a low height in a Snider, a small float-seaplane, when his engine stopped. He pushed and pulled everything he could think of, but the engine would not start again, and he landed in Zeebrugge harbour. Searchlights blinded him, and the Huns let off everything that would bear. The enemy then saw that his engine had stopped. Fire ceased, and two launches raced out from the dock to capture him.
They were right on top of him when he found the trouble: he had opened the magneto-switch with his elbow. He started his engine, and ran along the water in front of the launches. And then he zoomed into the air, followed by howls of disappointment and a hurricane of high explosives.
After working some time at Dunkirk, he felt a bit weary, and somebody, who mistakenly thought that flying-boat patrols were a rest-cure, sent him down to Felixstowe.
Quickly despatching breakfast, we got into our two boats, and pushed off for the Spider Web, Cuckney taking up station on my port-beam, a quarter of a mile away. The water was invisible, and as he was travelling at the same speed and in the same direction, he looked to me as though he were standing still, suspended in the air by an invisible wire. It was an odd optical illusion.
The farther out we got the thicker got the mist. We could only see any distance by looking up the molten pathway made by the reflected image of the sun on the little waves.
After sculling about for two hours, I balanced the boat on the controls, and quickly climbed out of the first pilot's seat. Dickey was ready, and popped in. I now devoted my whole energies to observing. Turning my back on the sun, I tried to pierce the blank wall of fleecy white.
I saw something sparkle.
It looked like a tiny fountain glittering in the sunlight.
Through the binoculars it showed up as a thin thread of water standing up all by itself in the middle of the grey, calm, misty sea.
Taking a quick bearing on the compass, I bumped Dickey out of the control-seat, and swung the head of the boat towards the fountain. I opened out the engines and shoved the nose down. Looking back, I saw that Cuckney had turned in behind me.
One minute passed, two minutes, four minutes. We had roared over six miles of sea, and still I could see the little fountain ahead.
Then I saw the submarine. She was a mile away—a big grey Fritz of the U-class, long flush deck rising toward the bows, conning-tower between bow and stern, two guns, one before and one aft of the conning-tower, and a straight stem. She was shoving through the water at top speed, about thirteen knots, and above her bow was the little fountain.
It was caused by a thread of water running up her straight stem and leaping into the air about five feet.
It glittered in the sun.
Two men were on the conning-tower, but they did not see or hear us coming. We were attacking up wind and down sun. We read part of her number, U 4?, but the second numeral was blurred.
Forty seconds after seeing the U-boat Dickey pulled the release lever and dropped one bomb. He threw up his arm. I banked over and looked down. The bomb had detonated on the starboard side half-way between the conning-tower and the stern.
The submarine heeled slowly over to port. She stopped in her own length and began to sink.
Cuckney close behind me passed over. I saw a bomb burst on the starboard side right in front of the conning-tower. Her decks were now awash. An explosion occurred in her bow and several smaller explosions between the stem and the conning-tower.
By this time I was again in position, and Dickey dropped a second bomb. The bomb detonated about thirty feet away from her. Only the very top of her conning-tower was showing. And then she vanished.
The little fountain had been fatal.
Later on in the same day, in the vicinity where the submarine had been met, Gordon and Faux in one boat, and Hallinan and Hodson in another, were surprised from the rear by four enemy seaplanes. The Huns failed to get home with the first attack and sheered off, and as they proved faster than the boats they could not be brought to action.
About this time, on an absolutely clear day, with no wind, and in a boat with a well-tested compass, conditions under which navigation should be certain and easy, I was extremely surprised and annoyed to arrive over the position where I thought the North Hinder should be and not see her.
I buzzed round in a circle, saw that my compass card was apparently all right, took a look at my notes of navigation, compared my watch with the watches of the crew, and then felt quite helpless.
On straightening up the machine, and deciding to carry on the patrol, I saw a black speck on the water about fourteen miles away. Through the binoculars I thought it looked like the North Hinder, but it appeared more bulky than usual and smoke seemed to be coming from it.
Deciding that I had made some silly error in time or course I started off for the light-ship, and found when I got near it that two tugs were lugging it along at about six knots towards the Dutch coast. It was being taken in to be repainted and overhauled. The following day a new North Hinder, with the paint of the name very white and the red sides unstained by rust, was lying at the moorings on the shoal. The new vessel could be told from the old one by a small black ball on the mast above the lantern, a decoration which the original light-vessel did not possess.
On the morning of September 13th the Commander of a Harwich submarine was coming in from a four days' surface patrol outside the mine-fields in the Bight of Heligoland. He was one of the little lot of submarines who kept the continuous watch, day and night, for the coming out of the German High Sea Fleet. But he had been relieved, and had come down homeward bound past Terschelling, across the Brown Ridge, and when near the North Hinder, finding he was a bit early, he went to the bottom to rest.
He had been down but a short time when he heard through the E-boat's ears, which are hydrophones, the propeller noises of another submarine. It was on the surface and passed directly over him.
He was just about to give the order to blow the tanks and come up and stalk the Fritz, when two heavy underwater explosions shook his boat. He remained on the bottom. He listened for a long time. But with the explosions the propeller noises had ceased abruptly and did not start again. Finally he came up to periscope depth, took a good look around, saw nothing, and broke water.
He said: "I started in for Harwich on the surface. I hung out all my signal flags, let some of the crew stand on deck, and looked as friendly as possible."
While the E-boat was down at the bottom of the sea and the Fritz was up above churning up the muddy water with her twin propellers, a Beef Trip was threshing along on the surface, and up in the air, in the sunlight, were the flying-boats.
The pilots of the two flying-boats, on their way out to the Beef Trip, saw the Fritz on the surface and whooped over to investigate.
But the pilots of the first boat to pass over him, knowing our own submarine was expected to be in the vicinity at this time, and not identifying the submarine as a German, passed over without bombing him. They did not know that the Commander of the E-boat was lying snug on the bottom.
The Commander of the U-boat, who was out after the Beef Trip, when he saw the first boat pass over, gave orders to dive and waited for the bombs which did not come.
Billiken and Dickey, in the second boat, got into position when only the light-grey conning-tower, with a tumble of white water behind it, was showing. But they recognised him as a Fritz and let him have two bombs. They circled over the spot for some time, and finally saw oil coming up, which spread, and spread, and spread.
Things now moved rather fast. On September 15 Young and Barker bombed a submarine. Poor Young, almost at the very end of the war, was shot at the controls of his boat in a fight against heavy odds off Borkum. He landed the boat safely in spite of the terrible wound, and died before the boat had stopped running on the water. The rest of the crew were made prisoners, setting the boat on fire before being taken off.
On the same day Perham and Gooch had a brush with three enemy seaplanes, and Hallinan and Hodson in one boat, and Gordon and Faux in another, dropped four bombs on a Fritz on the 25th.
While on a Beef Trip with Watson on F 2 C, an experimental boat, I sighted an enemy submarine about eight miles away and hastened towards it at eighty knots.
The boat was fitted with a marvellous arrangement of brass taps, pipes, a compressed air bottle, and a long release lever. This was a gadget for dropping bombs by compressed air, which, according to its proud inventor, was to supersede the good old way of dropping them by pulling a bowden wire.
When over the submarine the lever was pulled, but the compressed air escaped with a derisive hiss and the bombs refused to leave the racks. The submarine submerged and a destroyer summoned to the place dropped depth charges, but there is a feeling that Fritz went off safely about his business.
The area was now being made so hot for Fritz that the Germans began to be convoyed up through it by destroyers.
II.
U-C 6 pushed out from Zeebrugge before daybreak.
It was on September 28, a thick day, a very thick day.
With her were three other U-boats, three destroyers, and two float seaplanes.
The Commander of U-C 6 kept station in advance of the other three submarines as they passed through the swept channels into the North Sea. He was fully blown. The whole flotilla rippled along at eight knots.
The U-C 6 was an old boat, the last survivor of fifteen similar mine-layers. But it was his first command, and he was very proud of her. She had just been overhauled. Her paintwork was bright and the brass inside shone. True, she only had one periscope, but they had mounted a 22-pounder for him in front of the conning-tower, an ornament which no other of her class had carried. It was an old gun and not very accurate, and the recoil, when he tested it, had threatened to sheer the holding-down bolts or pull up the deck. But, as he said, it was better than nothing.
He led the flotilla up the coast of Belgium until he came to the Schouen Bank buoy, with its red lattice-work top hamper surmounted by a ball. Here he turned west towards England, along the northern edge of one of our mine-fields. At half-past eight o'clock he touched the southern arm of the Spider Web.
Suddenly, in the mist, only a mile away, he saw, six hundred feet in the air, a black body with wings.
At the sharp word of command his gun crew raced along the narrow deck to the 22-pounder. The breach was snapped open, a shell shoved home, the gun elevated, and then its discharge shook the whole structure of the submarine, which had not been designed to take the recoil.
The shell burst just in front of the flying-boat.
As the gun flashed the Hun Commander saw a long narrow object detach itself from beneath a wing of the boat.
It began to fall.
It wabbled slightly at first, but steadied.
It was coming straight towards him on a slanting path. Its black nose was pointing downwards and it looked to be travelling sideways.
In a shattering roar his universe disintegrated.
Partially stunned, shaking, and bleeding from a long gash across his scalp, he stumbled to his feet.
Passing his hand through his hair he felt that it was wet. He looked at it stupidly and saw that it was red. He could not understand.
He looked at the stern of his boat. The superstructure was torn away, and the steel deck, rent open like a sardine tin, gaped like a great lacerated mouth, the twisted metal turning up at the edges. His gun crew had vanished, where he knew not, but a pallid hand appeared above the surface of the water beside him, flapped feebly, made a few ripples, and disappeared.
Pulling himself together, and acting by instinct, he dropped down into the wrecked boat. At the foot of the conning-tower ladder he splashed into water. All electric lights were out. The interior was in darkness, except for the light from the conning-tower hatchway and the tear in the deck. He swayed unsteadily on his feet on the slippery deck, which sloped sharply down aft.
His crew below had been killed or stunned by the force of the explosion within the cramped and confined steel walls. A sodden mass, shapeless and horrible, washing against his feet, had been his second in command. The once orderly interior, a maze of intricate machinery, cunningly and carefully arranged by the sane intellect of an engineer, was distorted and twisted into an insane jumble. The bottom of the boat had been blown out at the stern, and he realised dimly that it was only the air in the tanks that was keeping her afloat. The chlorine gas, generated by the sea water mixing with the sulphuric acid in the storage batteries, bit into his lungs. The stern was sinking.
He felt sick. He had a great desire to get out of it all. He seized the lower rungs of the iron ladder.
A second heavy explosion shook the boat. Her stern went down suddenly. There was no light. He was thrown into the water.
The submarine sank.
Between the bow of the boat and the water was an air space. He flopped feebly on the surface in the inky blackness.
It was the end.
He let himself sink.
Only two minutes had elapsed from the time the flying-boat had been first sighted.
Up above in the mist were Billiken and Dickey in the flying-boat. They had pushed off that morning from Felixstowe in company with another boat, but the pilots in the second boat had found the mist too thick and had returned.
Suddenly, dead ahead, they had seen the U-C 6. As they roared towards her they saw her gun crew gather round the 22-pounder, and as Dickey pulled the release lever a shell burst just in front of their bow. The bomb hit the stern of the submarine.
Shells were now bursting all around them. This, to the pilots, was a mystery, for the gunners on U-C 6 were no longer at the 22-pounder. Then through the mist, and about a mile away, gun flashes were seen, and the crew of the flying-boat made out three submarines in line abreast firing at them. Behind the submarines were three destroyers, and behind the destroyers were two float seaplanes.
The pilots saw that U-C 6 was in serious trouble. She was down by the stern, the water was up to her conning-tower, and her bow was sticking up in the air. But they knew that submarines are hard to kill dead, often getting back to port after damage which makes the feat appear miraculous, and they were taking no chances.
Disregarding the shell fire, the flying-boat was taken again across the submarine, and the second bomb was dropped from a low height. It detonated immediately in front of the bow. With the explosion the whole structure of the submarine vibrated, she slid down backward under the water, and left on the surface, to show where she had gone down, a large quantity of blackish oil, foreign matter, and a silver cluster of breaking air bubbles, a cluster ever renewed from below.
Immediately on receipt at Felixstowe of the signal about the enemy destroyers and the sinking of U-C 6, flying-boats were shoved down the slipways and boomed out over the North Sea. Cuckney and Clayton sighted a hostile seaplane close to the water, but it sheered off and was lost in the mist. Young and Keesey found another enemy seaplane and chased it until it led them to two enemy destroyers. It was now very thick indeed, the mist changing rapidly into a fog, and while climbing to get well above the enemy in order to bomb them, the pilots lost their way and failed to find the surface ships again.
The following day, which was still misty, Gordon and Faux, while ten miles south-east of the North Hinder, saw a ripple on the surface, a streak of white water, and then the conning-tower of a U-boat breaking surface. It navigated along awash at about five knots. The pilots were at thirteen hundred feet.
Gordon dived, to eight hundred feet, but Fritz had seen him coming and submerged twenty seconds before the two bombs exploded about the place he should have been.
It was thought that this submarine was at least damaged, for when the black circles left by the explosion of the bombs had cleared away, oil came to the surface, and by the time the pilots left the vicinity it was covering a fair-sized area.
III.
October was almost the last good month of submarine hunting to be had. Four enemy submarines were sighted, but their commanders were keeping a good look-out while in the Spider Web, and only one was bombed, by Hodgson and Wilson.
The 23rd of October was rather a dirty day, with a falling barometer, and that unpleasant taste to the north-west wind which usually means trouble of some sort for somebody.
The Harwich Light Forces were off the Dutch coast looking for the elusive Hun, and sundry patrols had therefore been shoved out from Felixstowe. Two of these boats, Tiny in charge of one and Perham and Gooch in the other, boomed off at ten o'clock to look in the Spider Web.
On starting out Tiny's wireless operator let the aerial wire run off the reel unchecked, so that when it fetched up with a round turn at the end, the weight snapped off the copper wire just inside the boat. This made it impossible for him to send or receive wireless signals.
About twelve o'clock, at a position about ten miles south of the North Hinder, Tiny missed Perham's boat. Turning back on his course he searched for the missing boat, but failing to see it, concluded that the pilots had pushed off for harbour with engine trouble. But not being certain, he released a pigeon with a message, giving details, and continued the search.
After the boats went out the wind kept steadily rising. Wireless signals sent out warning the two boats were not answered. Messages were sent up and down the coast asking for news. Then a pigeon dropped down on the ledge outside its loft, walked through the swinging wires which rang a bell, and so into a little cage. The pigeoner, warned by the bell, went into the loft, removed the crumpled slip of flimsy paper from the carrier, and sent it down to the station.
Two boats were shoved out on the slipway and their engines warmed. Then Tiny came into the harbour and reported that he had been unable to find the missing boat.
In spite of the rapidly rising wind, which had now got to thirty knots, the quickly decreasing daylight, and the barometer that was falling with ominous persistence, Gordon and Faux, and Hodgson and Wilson, volunteered to go out and look for Perham. They pushed off in two boats from the slipway. The harbour was a froth of whitecaps, and the boats took off in a smother of spray.
Half an hour later a great-hearted pigeon came battling in against the quartering breeze carrying a message from Perham. Smoothing out the crumpled paper on the desk in the flying office we read the signal.
"Port engine crank-shaft fractured. Good landing. Approximate position ten miles south of North Hinder."
I rang up the naval authorities at Harwich, informed them of the state of affairs, and asked for assistance. I was told that the Harwich flotilla had run into a mine-field off the Dutch coast. The flagship of Rear-Admiral Tyrwhitt had struck a mine with her stern and the explosion had detonated a depth charge carried on her counter. She was returning to port at about two knots, with the sea that was running outside, and all available destroyers were required to guard the disabled light cruiser. However, help would be sent.
At dusk the two flying-boats returned. The pilots had made the North Hinder, had gone ten miles south and had searched a large area, but had failed to locate Perham.
And then a signal came in that the two destroyers sent to the position had been unable to find the flying-boat.
With the shutting down of night the wind increased in violence. In the open, when you stood up to it, it was like a solid wall.
The disabled cruiser outside was in a precarious condition, and many of her attendant destroyers had to leave her and return to Harwich, making heavy weather of it.
The wind got up to forty knots, fifty knots, and finally to sixty knots in gusts. The wooden mess groaned and protested beneath the heavy hand of the storm.
To a chorus of chattering windows, fierce spurts of smoke from the stove due to violent back drafts down the chimney, a chart was spread out on the Staff-room table and the probable course of the drifting flying-boat was laid out. All this, with the reservation in our own minds, if the boat would live through the gale. But it was at least something to do, and three boats stood ready to push off next morning, if required.
A chart is a representation of a portion of the surface of the earth intended to be useful to a seaman, and it therefore deals in detail with the portions of the earth covered with water. It gives the positions of lights and buoys, details of the sea bottom, and heights, magnetic variations, and soundings.
We drew a line on the chart from the positions, ten miles south of the North Hinder, where Perham had come down, towards the Dutch coast. This represented the direction the boat would drift owing to the wind.
The flying-boat, with two sea-anchors out, checking the drift, and also with weigh knocked off owing to the tossing of the waves, would probably not drift faster than three knots. Therefore the wind line was dotted off at three mile intervals.
Beside the movement due to the wind the flying-boat would move with the tide, so the set due to the tide was dotted on the chart at right angles to each three-mile mark.
When these dots were joined a wavy line was the result, a line first setting away from the main line of drift, then coming back to it, crossing it, and then setting away in the other direction. When the line got near the Dutch coast it could not be calculated owing to the curious currents, rips and eddies, set up by the low-lying nature of the land.
It was seen at once that the three boats would not be required next day. For Perham would drift past the Schouen Bank light-buoy about two o'clock in the morning and would be off the Dutch coast at Schouen by daybreak.
If the boat lived.
An extra heavy gust shook the building, and a great fall of soot down the chimney almost beat out the fire.
There was a general feeling of thankfulness and relief when the Duty Steward entered and asked if any one wished to give an order before the bar closed.
When, with a grinding crash, the crank-shaft of his port engine fractured, Perham snapped off the switches and glided down to the water.
It was just twelve o'clock noon.
He saw Tiny in the air in front of him, roaring along with his well-found engines turning off a steady sixty knots. The clouds were rather low and the air at a thousand feet was hazy. Gooch fired Very's lights, but the crew of Tiny's boat did not see them, and boomed on.
The wind was blowing about twenty knots from England, and a bigger sea was running than the wind seemed to warrant—always a bad sign.
The crew got out two sea-anchors to check the drift and keep the bow of the flying-boat from yawing off the wind. They fitted the covering over the forward cockpit to keep out water thrown over the bows. The bombs were dropped safe in order to lighten the boat. The engine was carefully examined.
The wicker pigeon basket was passed forward and the message-book taken from the pocket at the side. Two messages were written and rolled up. The wireless operator opened one of the two lids, took out a pigeon, inserted a message in the holder, shoved home the cap, and threw the pigeon into the air, head to wind. The crew watched the bird rise, circle twice, and start off for home. When it was out of sight the second pigeon, with the duplicate message, was released.
As the daylight hours passed the weight of the wind increased. The waves got higher, and finally their crests began to break. Riding to her sea-anchors the boat sat high and free. But as darkness set in the waves began to throw the water over the bow into the pilot's cockpit.
The petrol in the tanks, splashing about, gave off a heavy vapour which filled the boat, and this, with the pitching, added sea-sickness to the discomforts of the crew; for petrol vapour will make the stoutest-hearted seaman wish he had never sold his little farm.
Later on, blowing backwards through the darkness, as the force of the gale increased and the waves got higher, the flying-boat began to roll from side to side. The wing-tip floats on the lower planes buried themselves in the sea—first on one side and then on the other. When they did this a great weight of water poured over the planes, wrenching, twisting, and tearing with all the leverage afforded by the length of the wing.
Perham thought of making an attempt to cut off the fabric on the lower planes in order to prevent the water from getting a grip.
Instead of this the crew took turns at standing, two at a time, on the lower wings, one outboard from each engine, and as a float went under the man on the opposite wing would scramble out on the plane as fast as possible, his weight tending to right the flying-boat. It was a hazardous expedient.
About two o'clock in the morning the crew saw the Schouen Bank light-buoy.
Here in the very shoal water, and with the clear sweep of ninety miles behind them, the waves were perilously steep, and the trough being retarded by the bottom the crests were breaking forward in a thunder of foam.
The sea-anchors carried away.
The boat, rolling and pitching, yawed first one way and then the other. Each time she got off the wind white water was driven across her from bow to stern. The crew were blinded and drenched. The wracking strained the boat, and she began to leak. The wood on the bottom of the flying-boat was not over a quarter of an inch thick. One man had to work the bilge-pump continuously, and the three other men in the crew bailed.
Finally they were over the shoal. The seas here, though big, were not so bad, as their force was somewhat expended in the shallow water.
With the coming of the dawn the worn-out crew saw that they were off the coast of Holland. There were long white sandhills and green hummocks, and a lighthouse with a circular stone tower and a black gallery, and Perham knew that they had made a landfall at the Hook of Schouen. They were now being carried parallel with the coast by a strong current, so they made an attempt to start up the one good engine so as to taxi in to shore. After great difficulty they succeeded. Then they saw a Dutch gunboat, rolling heavily in the sea, approaching them. They shut down the engine.
The code-book, with its weighted covers, was thrown overboard.
The chart, weighted with machine-gun cartridges, was sent after it.
The wireless installation was pulled out and tossed over the side, and the machine-guns and ammunition followed.
Perham retained one machine-gun.
The gunboat hove to to windward and gave the flying-boat a lee. It dropped a boat, which pulled down to them. The engineer and wireless man scrambled on board, followed by Gooch. They shouted to Perham to follow.
Perham was busy with the machine-gun breaking a hole in the bottom of his flying-boat. So far no neutral or enemy Power had had a boat to examine at leisure. When finished, he joined the rest of the crew.
But once aboard the cutter, not satisfied with the way his boat was sinking, he seized a boat-hook and broke a hole in the tail, for the tail contained a water-tight compartment.
The gunboat's crew made an attempt to salve the flying-boat, but were unsuccessful, as she sank. An attempt to grapple for her five days later also failed—only the engines being recovered.
The cable announcing the safety of Perham and his crew was received at Felixstowe before seven o'clock, on the same morning.
IV.
November had sixteen flying days, and one submarine was bombed by Tiny and Moody on the 3rd.
And now there comes a little yarn which might be entitled: The Pirates, the Birdman, and the Grateful Fisherman, and could be told thus:—
A poor but honest Dutch fisherman had cast his nets and made a great haul of fish. His smack was filled to overflowing. He was exceedingly joyful, for he had a wife and three at home, and was expecting another. But, as he was thinking with pleasure of the pieces of silver which the finny spoil of the sea would put in his pocket, the sun was obscured, the wind blew, and the sea rose in mountainous waves.
When the wind abated and the waves subsided the smack was far from land, and neither the fisherman nor any of his men knew in what part of the sea they were.
While consulting with each as to what had best be done, the water near them boiled, a mysterious white wave broke along the surface, and a loathly grey monster of the deep heaved itself out of the sea and lay beside them. On its back were pirates—bloodthirsty men, outlaws, a cut-throat crew—the deeds which they and their fellows had committed having made the whole world shudder.
The poor fisherman and his men shook with terror.
The Chief of the Pirates, in a terrible voice, demanded that the fisherman come to him, so with great reluctance and many misgivings he put a small boat over the side, rowed slowly across, and was taken up on the back of the horrible sea-monster.
To him the Chief of the Pirates said in great anger, "We had a secret channel, of which none knew, through the dangers beneath the waters set for us by our enemies. Across the entrance to the channel I have found strong nets and cunning machines placed to destroy me. And you, miserable man, are floating over the very spot. Prepare yourself for destruction."
The poor fisherman protested his innocence of all knowledge of the trap, pleaded his wife and three, and the other that was expected, but it availed nothing. With a sorrowful heart he got into his little boat, and rowed towards his smack, thinking best how to tell his men of the fate in store for them.
But before he had completed the short journey he heard a roar in the air, and looking up he saw a huge grey bird approaching with two great eggs under its wings.
Fear now fell upon the pirates, and they incontinently caused their monster to dive, disappearing instantly beneath the waves. The great bird circled over the fisherman twice, the men on its back signalling to him, and then flew away.
While yet the fisherman and his men were congratulating each other on their narrow escape, swift ships, driven by fire, appeared. A strong rope was thrown to the fisherman, which he made fast to the bow of his smack, and he was pulled along the water at an incredible speed to the Island of England. Here he was brought before a man in authority, who had laid the trap for the pirates—a man clad in rich blue and gold, and with a gold hat on his head. After answering questions for many hours, the fisherman was allowed to send his fish to the market, in the fabulously rich city of London, and received more pieces of silver than he had hoped for.
Indeed, if the one expected proved to be two, he could now easily afford it.
The grateful fisherman asked to be allowed to thank the Birdman who had rescued him, and one, Billiken, was sent for. The fisherman hailed him as his saviour, enveloped him in a long, odorous, fish-scaly embrace, and attempted to reward him by pouring out at his feet all the silver he had obtained for his fish.
But the Birdman in a noble voice replied, "For what little I did I want no reward, but please do not embrace me again; the emotion I experience is more than I can bear."
That afternoon the fisherman and his men set out for home, all the sails of their smack set and drawing in a fair wind, and English silver jingling in their pockets.
Two days before Christmas, Tiny and Moody barged into two Fritzes, apparently in a great hurry to get home before the 25th. One of them was presented with two big bombs as a Christmas-box.
About this time, while tearing through the sea at full speed in the dark, the Harwich Light Forces bumped into a newly-laid mine-field off the Dutch coast. Four destroyers were damaged and a cargo-boat sunk. As it was not known if the destruction was due to mines or a nest of submarines, an urgent request was made to the War Flight to send a flying-boat across to photograph the wreck of the cargo-boat, which showed above water at low tide.
The weather was impossible.
But every little while a request would come through by telephone asking for an explanation as to why the desired photographs were not forthcoming. With each repetition of the request the telephone became more and more impatient.
On December 27 Clayton and Purdy pushed off to try and get the photographs. It was a bad day. A twenty-five knot wind was blowing. They returned very shortly and reported—
"Wind very strong, and visibility six miles from coast, nil. Had to turn back before even reaching Shipwash, as heavy clouds reaching to the water barred progress in every direction."
But this did not satisfy the telephone.
Clayton and myself pushed out at noon. It was a wretched flying day. The clouds were low, snow-squalls swept down before the north-east wind, and the air was bumpy. The heavy boat wallowed in the rough air. With the exertion of handling her I broke out in a perspiration. Although it was bitterly cold, I pulled off my short flying-coat and gauntlets.
We drove at seventy knots through low clouds and snow-flurries for an hour. But against the head wind we had only won forty-two sea miles from Felixstowe. Here, barring our path, was a nasty-looking bank of snow-clouds reaching to the water. We turned north to skirt them and look for an opening. Heavy gusts shook the boat: she rolled from side to side, answering her controls slowly; it was impossible to steer a decent compass course.
Dutch Sailing-vessel photographed from a Flying-boat.
Within five minutes of changing course the engineer came forward and shouted in my ear that the inboard petrol pipe on the port engine was leaking badly. Then he climbed out on the wing and attempted to bind it with tape. The attempt was not successful.
I turned the nose of the boat for home. She started down wind at a rate of knots. In ten minutes we were eighteen miles on the homeward stretch. And the petrol pipe split from end to end. It was too bumpy to fly on one engine, so I shut both off and made a landing. The boat had a new design hull, and got into the heavy sea with ease. She rode light and free.
Three destroyers were slipping along at slow speed, about a mile away, rolling heavily in the beam sea. One of them turned out of line and headed for us. Her Commander flashed a signal asking if we wanted a tow. We did. The wind was blowing about thirty knots, and increasing.
The Commander crossed our bows, and a heaving-line snaked out. But with the wind and tide we were drifting very fast, and the line fell short. As the destroyer came around I put over a sea-anchor. This time the destroyer stopped across our bows. The heaving-line reached us. But we were in the lee, and our drift was checked. The destroyer, broadside on to the wind, came down on us before the sea-anchor could be cast adrift.
A wave threw us against the steel side. Once, twice, and with a crackling of mahogany the bow of the flying-boat was crushed in down to the water-line. One of the wings went on board the destroyer, and threatened to dump overboard the mines she was carrying on her stern. The crew of the destroyer, now all activity, fended us off with boat-hooks, hands, feet, and anything available. I cast off the sea-anchor. The destroyer went ahead. We drifted clear. The three other members of the crew were out on the tail keeping the bow out of the water.
I pulled in the heaving-line. To it was attached a grass line which I made fast to the towing pennant. We fitted a leather flying-coat over the hole in the bow. The destroyer went slowly ahead, and we followed after. The tow parted in an hour. Again the destroyer came alongside, again the bow was damaged, and again, after a time, the grass line parted.
It was now dark. A wire hawser was sent across, and we made it fast. The wire sank down in the water, and when the destroyer went ahead the bow of the flying-boat was pulled down. The flying-coat held for an instant, burst inwards, the sea rushed in, cascaded over the front bulkhead, and flooded the hull from bow to stern. The top of the boat was just above the surface of the water.
Luckily I was standing with the Very's pistol in my hand. I discharged it, and the destroyer stopped.
I reached down in the boat for the pigeons. Poor birds, they were drowned. The boat pitched forward suddenly, and the wireless operator and myself were thrown into the water. We climbed up again. But before I could do so I had to kick off a fine new pair of thigh-length flying-boots, woolly inside, which sank, and were lost.
A cutter was dropped from the destroyer to take us all off, and the Commander made a determined effort to salve the boat or the engines, but it ended in failure, the boat finally sinking.
This was the last patrol to be carried out in 1917.
In the eight and a half months of the life of the War Flight it had received fourteen flying-boats in all, five of which were still in good condition. With this small amount of material the pilots had carried out five hundred and fifty-four patrols, flown a distance of seventy-seven thousand and five hundred sea miles, brought a Zeppelin down in flames, sighted forty-four enemy submarines, and bombed twenty-five of them.