by John Masters
2. The blockade, upon which such methods are partly founded, is ineffective, illegal, and indefensible.
3. The judicial procedure offered as a means of reparation for an international injury is inherently defective for the purpose.
4. In many cases jurisdiction is asserted in violation of the law of nations.’
The Note proceeds:
‘The United States, therefore, cannot submit to the curtailment of its neutral rights by the measures which are admittedly retaliatory, and therefore illegal, in conception and in nature, and intended to punish the enemies of Great Britain for alleged illegalities on their part.
‘The Government of the United States desires, therefore, to impress most earnestly upon His Majesty’s Government that it must insist that the relations between it and His Majesty’s Government be governed, not by a policy of expediency, but by those established rules of international conduct upon which Great Britain in the past has held the United States to account when the latter nation was a belligerent engaged in a struggle for national existence. It is of the highest importance to neutrals not only of the present day but of the future that the principles of international right be maintained unimpaired.
‘The task of championing the integrity of neutral rights, which have received the sanction of the civilized world, against the lawless conduct of belligerents arising out of the bitterness of the great conflict which is now wasting the countries of Europe, the United States unhesitatingly assumes … ’
Such are the general contentions of the United States Government … The Note does not comment on the remarkable figures quoted by Sir Edward Grey as to the increase of American trade since the beginning of the war, but proceeds to discuss the detention of American vessels and cargoes … (and) the complaint to which all the others are more or less subsidiary:
‘The further contention that the greatly increased imports of neutral countries adjoining Great Britain’s enemies raise a presumption that certain commodities, such as cotton, rubber, and others more or less useful for military purposes, though destined for those countries, are intended for reexportation to the belligerents, who cannot import them directly, and that this fact justifies the detention for the purpose of examination of all vessels bound for the ports of those neutral countries … cannot be accepted as laying down a just or legal rule of evidence …’
Christopher Cate put the paper down – it was four days old, and he had been keeping it in his study, waiting for an opportunity to study it more carefully; for it was a complicated subject but obviously an important one. He did not think he could have made head or tail of it without the benefit of the evening his brother-in-law Tom had spent here, in June, when on six days’ leave while his ship, Penrith, was having sea damage repaired before joining the blockading squadron in the North Atlantic.
‘To be legal under international law,’ Tom had said, ‘a blockade has to be effective – all ships of all nations to be stopped and seized. Our blockade of Germany is not totally effective because we can’t station ships in the Baltic, so there is a free two-way trade between Germany and Sweden, Denmark, and Norway …’: that was one point the Americans were making now, Christopher noted. Tom had added, ‘And because of submarines and aircraft we can’t blockade ports as closely as we used to. Distant Blockade can’t be as effective as Close Blockade … but I don’t think the Americans will press that argument. During their Civil War the North – the United States – declared a blockade of the South. It was not effective, but we recognized it because some day, somewhere, we might need the Americans to recognize one of ours. We’ll draw on that note, if we have to.
‘But this isn’t really a blockade any more. In a blockade, ships and goods trying to run it are seized and confiscated. After the Germans started submarine piracy – that’s what we call it, anyway – the Prime Minister said we were going to prevent goods of any kind from reaching or leaving the German Empire, but without risk to neutral ships or crews. We were going to do that by stopping ships at sea that might be carrying goods of presumed enemy final destination, ownership, or origin.’
And now the Americans were saying there was no legal basis for that action, Christopher thought.
Tom had explained: ‘There used to be a distinction between absolute contraband – shells, guns, and so on – and conditional contraband – food, fuel, clothing. You could seize absolute contraband even though it was manifested to a neutral nation, as long as you had reason to believe that it was in fact going on to your enemy … the doctrine of continuous voyage. But that doctrine did not apply to conditional contraband. Now just about everything is absolute contraband.’
Christopher closed his eyes, still hearing Tom’s voice: ‘In America our consuls will give shippers Letters of Assurance, if they prove that none of the cargo is going to the enemy, either directly or indirectly. Those Letters will pass them through the patrol lines at sea … We have established how much of all commodities the neutral countries bordering Germany imported in each year before the war, and we’re not letting them have any more now. In late 1914, for instance, Denmark was importing three times the total quantity of goods each month that she was before August that year … We can stop many ships moving by Bunker Control – we own most of the coal and coaling facilities for ships all round the world.
‘It’s a tricky business, though … wish I were back in the South Pacific, hunting for von Spee. That was clean hard fighting. This will be … well, it’s dirty work. They’re torpedoing our merchant seamen, and trying to starve our women and children. So are we …
‘And it’s hard on neutrals, whatever way you look at it. If any of them had a navy strong enough to bother us, we’d have to go more carefully … but there’s only one neutral in that position, and that’s America. They fought us in 1812, while we were dealing with Napoleon, largely over contraband, blockade, and other naval matters. They didn’t matter much then, but now they’re a big country and a strong one, and we can’t afford to make them feel they must fight against us for the sake of their trade … They talk about the rights of neutrals, but that’s eyewash. If they do come in on our side, they’ll be wringing the little neutrals’ necks even harder than we do … but you have to be careful … we have to be careful, the fellows that actually man the blockade, where all this theory and law we’ve been talking about is put into practice …’
32 North Atlantic: Thursday, December 2, 1915
Standing in the wing of the bridge, the hood of his duffel coat raised, the spray protectors of his binoculars extended, his back hunched against a steel bridge stanchion, Tom Rowland waited for the light to strengthen. A few feet to his left the officer of the watch leaned over a voice pipe, ‘Captain, sir … first light in ten minutes.’
Tom shifted his feet, aching in the cold, and yawned widely. When the brief light came, he knew what he would see – a heaving waste of grey water, wind torn, a grey lowering sky that blended into the surface of the water, Penrith’s narrow bow plunging into the long-crested rollers as they marched east towards Norway, the wildly swaying mast behind him, the reeling funnels, torrents of water rushing over the fo’c’sle, half submerging the 6-inch gun turret … It had been the same yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, ever since they had left Scapa in the Orkneys, after their last coaling.
On patrol in the North Atlantic, between Iceland and Norway … it was hard to say whether it was worse here than in the Southern Ocean. The seas were bigger down there, but when Penrith had been in those waters there had been a real hunt on, two pitched battles, and the dramatic last curtain at Robinson Crusoe’s Island. Those had been days of excitement, of purpose. This patrolling had a purpose, too, of course – to enforce the blockade of Germany and its allies, and to a lesser extent to protect British shipping against German attack. Lesser, because there was not much a lone cruiser could do against marauding submarines; and there were very few German surface raiders left – and what there were, were all disguised merc
hant ships, flying false neutral colours. Germany’s outlying warships had all been disposed of – Emden by HMAS Sydney on Cocos Island a year ago. Konigsberg up the Rufigi river, four of von Spee’s ships last December off the Falklands, and the fifth, Dresden, at Robinson Crusoe’s Island off Chile this March. Unless or until the German High Seas Fleet came out of harbour, this would be the Royal Navy’s task: combing the seas for contraband, in all weathers – searching, seizing, inspecting, escorting to port; trying to let nothing suspicious through while at the same time doing everything possible not to interfere with the legitimate trade of neutral countries. He remembered a quote from the American writer Mahan about the navy during the Napoleonic Wars: ‘The world has never seen a more impressive demonstration of the influence of sea power upon its history. Those far distant storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world.’
Still, it was better here than being with the Grand Fleet, cooped up in Scapa Flow, fearful of attack by submarines, Zeppelins, Gothas, or some other as yet unheard of product of Hun ingenuity – a chemical that would instantly rust the battle fleet’s steel walls, perhaps. Here he was at least at sea. He yawned again, quickly stifling it and stiffening in a salute as Captain Leach came up on to the bridge.
‘Morning, Tom. Morning, Johnson.’
‘Good morning, sir.’
The light was spreading, and all was coming into existence, just as Tom had envisioned it … the sea, the waves, the spray, the plunging fo’c’sle, the wash of water over the turret.
‘What speed, Johnson?’
‘As ordered, sir – ten knots.’
‘She pitches like an old cow at this speed,’ the captain muttered, ‘go and see the Chief, Tom, and ask him whether I can safely do thirteen, and leave enough fuel for emergencies.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘And then get your head down. You look weary.’
‘Just bored, sir. Wish we’d sight a tramp … a trawler … a Liverpool bumboat … anything.’
He slid down the bridge ladder, his hands on the railings, and worked his way down to the engine room, the domain of Engineer Commander Warner. Tom’s feeling that Warner did not like him had become a certainty in the year since Coronel, and, as with Captain Brandt, Tom had not been able to find an overt reason for it. Warner never spoke to him except professionally, and seemed to draw imaginary skirts a little aside whenever in Tom’s presence. Tom prayed that John Leach would not be forced to take official notice of it … but it was not in Tom’s hands; he had nothing against Warner and would have liked to be a friend. That was never going to be.
Warner explained the coal situation with frigid precision, answered Tom’s few questions, and turned his back. Tom spoke to the captain on the navyphone to the bridge, then scrambled up the steel ladders out of the engine room as fast as he could. It was warm down there: but not the kind of warmth he needed. Before going to his own cabin he took a look round the mess deck, feeling the engines increase speed as he did so. The crew’s quarters were half-flooded, as they had been when he last saw then at evening rounds with the captain yesterday.
‘Pretty uncomfortable, I’m afraid,’ he said to a seaman standing to attention in four inches of water beside his hammock, the water surging and sloshing back and forth as the ship pitched.
‘It’s fine, sir,’ the seaman answered lugubriously, ‘for ducks.’ Tom laughed. ‘We’ll be back in Scapa soon. Everything else all right?’
‘Wish we could see something … something to shoot at.’
‘So do we all. Get back into your hammock.’
He went up to his own cabin off the quarterdeck, took off his coat and scarf, unfastened his tie, took off his sea boots, and stretched out on the bunk, otherwise fully dressed, two blankets spread loosely over him. The ship pitched with a long slow motion, each downward lurch ending in a metallic thank and a long-drawn shudder as the shifting buoyancy of the sea lifted first the bow, then the stern, exerting tremendous pressure on the cruiser’s steel plates and keel. Her present course was north forty-five degrees west – so that Penrith was heading across the seas. That would continue for another couple of hours when, unless something had to be investigated, she would alter course to due west and continue on that heading until 3 p.m., when she was due to meet another cruiser at the ends of their respective patrol ‘beats’. Then back … all the rest of the short day, all night, until tomorrow morning she should sight the Norwegian coast, and turn again.
Tom swore softly. He had been weary enough on the bridge, yawning his head off. Now that he had nothing to do but rest, sleep would not come. He reached out his hand, lit a cigarette, lifted the nose cone of a 4.7-inch shell that was acting as a paperweight, and riffled through the letters below. He’d received them in Scapa on their last coaling, and had read them two or three times each since … one from the Governor about Mother’s operation. That must be a serious business, reading between the lines; it was clear that the surgeon could not guarantee that the cancer would not return in some other part of her body. Tom liked and respected his mother, but had never felt very close to her. She had been a rather remote figure to him as a small boy, often upholding standards he felt he could never attain, and so, unwittingly, making him feel inadequate … and now, perhaps they were going to lose her. He tried to feel that it would make a difference to him, in his emotions, but could not. And the Governor had been elected to Parliament; but he’d known that the day after the election, when the Admiralty had sent the ship a signal about it.
Letter from Richard, about losing the same election. He didn’t seem to be a bit sorry. That might be sour grapes, but Richard had always been a straightforward fellow. And he was certainly right in wanting the management of the war improved. The navy seemed to be doing its job – the iob hadn’t changed, and the navy had done it before; but the army was something quite different in this war from what it had ever been, and it was obvious that neither the politicians nor the generals knew how to control or use it. Some local gossip and news: John had resigned from the Hunt; it was a symbolic action, really, Richard thought, meant to emphasize that High Staining was now going to be a working farm, and John a working farmer. Of course, many ordinary farmers were keen followers of the Hunt, Tom thought; apparently they could both farm and hunt: John obviously couldn’t … Hoggin had visited Lord Swanwick at Walstone Park, not once but twice; no one knew what it was about. Hoggin had also offered to put some money into Rowland’s, an offer which had been refused. The Governor hadn’t mentioned that in his letter … The man variously called the Walstone Ripper or the Full Moon Strangler was on everybody’s mind, but the police were no closer to capturing him than they had ever been. A strange and horrible compulsion, Tom thought, but a compulsion … like his own? He picked up the last page quickly: here was the postscript and, pinned to it, the short newspaper clipping about the shooting attack on a pair of off-duty policemen in Dublin. A man and a woman had been involved: the man – pictured alongside – had been killed; he had been identified as Dermot Daugherty, a notorious Sinn Fein leader; the woman, thought to have been Mrs Margaret Cate, had been wounded, but had escaped … My poor sister, Tom thought. For her sake, he hoped the wound was not painful. He hoped, too, that it would persuade Margaret to give up her traitorous activities … but of course to her they were not traitorous, they were patriotic.
He picked up the next letter. It was from Guy – a member of the Upper Ten this, his last, term. Not captain of the XV but doing reasonably well, he said. Engaged in some kind of a plot with Probyn Gorse, which he was not at liberty to say anything more about, except that a Very Prominent Person had promised to help. And his friend John Kipling was missing in action at Loos, believed killed, and – Tom acknowledged to himself that he was looking through the letters just to re-read these next lines – ‘You will be sorry to hear that Dick Yeoman was also killed at Loos. I do not know whether you knew that he left Wellington over a year ago to join
up. He was a private in the Sherwood Foresters when he was killed.’
The sense of guilt returned to him, as palpable as the blankets. He knew that young Yeoman had not volunteered in the heroic way that Guy’s letter implied, for one of the subs in Penrith had a younger brother at Wellington; and had long ago received a gossipy letter in which was mentioned the expulsion of Dick Yeoman for … that.
… a private … when he was killed. He felt cold and tired and oppressed. Surely he had killed the boy. Surely he would kill others, through the fatal flaw in him. Surely he would bring not only death, but disgrace, to his family and the Service. He saw Dick’s face clearly before him, but – he stifled a groan – it was changing to Bennett’s … Ordinary Seaman Charlie Bennett’s … as had happened before, with increasing frequency during the past year. He had tried to wipe Bennett from his mind … tried to hate the young man … tried everything; to no avail. Bennett’s image now stood in front of him, smiling, trembling, as Dick had done, that last night.
This was what Warner had smelled out in him, and turned away from in disgust. Oh God, he needed comfort, to be told what to do, how to rid himself of this curse – but there was no one to turn to, for fear; except perhaps a woman, and there were none here.
The voicepipe over his head spoke eerily, ‘Commander, Captain’s compliments – to the bridge, sir.’
Tom threw off the blankets, shoved his stockinged feet into the sea boots, shrugged into his duffel coat and hurried towards the bridge. As he went the alarm buzzers were screeching through the ship for action stations.
On the bridge Leach handed him a telescope. ‘What do you make of that?’ and pointed.
Dim in the poor light to the west, off the port bow, the circle of the lens showed a single-funnelled merchant ship of about 5000 tons. She was deep in the water, and making heavy weather, heading to cross Penrith’s bows. From the foretop the gunnery officer’s voice came down the voicepipe, ‘Target’s range oh-nine-oh, sir, speed 8 knots, course north 45 east.’