Submarine Warfare of To-Day

by Charles William Domville-Fife

  To Mac, from the Orkneys, no such sentiment held sway, for Christmas to him meant little compared with New Year’s Day; but this was a special Christmas, for a big plum pudding was being boiled on the petrol stove below, and each roll of the little vessel threatened its useful existence. Eventually he could keep silent no longer and tentatively suggested a change of course to ease the violent lurching. The wheel was spun round with alacrity as the telegraph rang out below and the engines slowed down to a slow pulsating throb. The sharp bows of the patrol boat rose dripping from each green-grey mass of sea as it rolled up out of the white haze ahead and then fell gently back into the trough. The violent pitching gave place to a more easy see-saw movement, and in spite of the cold, which seemed to grow keener every minute to the half-numbed figures on deck, a grunt of satisfaction escaped the helmsman, and visions of steaming plum duff—a present from the Admiral’s wife—supplanted the more anxious thoughts of war and the dangers of mine and submarine which lay hidden in the white snow-mists and grey seas around.

  The four hands in the forecastle, who formed the watch below, were lying on their bunks, for sitting meant holding on, and were discussing orgies on past Christmas days and planning future ones with a nonchalance bred of daily rubbing shoulders with danger and death. Snatches of popular music hall songs penetrated the closed hatchways, but were drowned by the splash of the sea against the ship’s side.

  This silent battle with monotony, bitter cold and drenching showers of spray, with several numbing hours on deck, followed by an equal time lying on the bunks below—still cold and wet, for fires and dry clothes were almost unknown in the patrol boats during the long winter months in the cruel northern seas—might have lasted all day, until darkness and increasing cold added their quota to the sum of misery, and the day patrol crept silently into harbour, to be relieved by their brethren of the night guard.

  But such was not to be, for it was a Christmas Day that will live for ever in the memory of the men on Patrol Launch No. 822, to be recalled in the peaceful years ahead to eager listeners at many a fireside.

  Two bells in the afternoon watch had barely struck when from out of the haze ahead came a low reverberating boom! The three figures on the bridge stiffened to alertness and the chilled blood went coursing more warmly through their veins. A few seconds of strained listening, rewarded only by the noise of the sea, then the telegraph was moved forward, a sharp jangle of bells came from the engine-room and forecastle and the slow pulsating of the motors grew to a loud roar. The watch below came tumbling on to the wet deck, to be lashed with clouds of blinding, stinging spray, which now flew high over the little ship as the 400-horse-power engines drove her at 18 knots through the grey, misty seas.

  Experience had made that dull roar familiar to all on board, and it needed no order from the now hard-faced C.O. to cause every man to don his “capuc” life-belt in readiness for the hidden dangers which they knew to be strewn in the pathways of the sea ahead.

  Mines are moored at a given depth below the surface, usually from six to ten feet. The rise and fall of the tide, therefore, either increases or decreases the stratum of free water above them. This causes these invisible submarine weapons to be more dangerous to shallow-draught vessels, such as motor patrol launches, at low tide, when there is little water between the tops of their horns and the surface, than at high tide. More will, however, be said in a later chapter about mines and the difficulties of laying them.

  It so happened that on this occasion the tide was low and the mines consequently extremely dangerous to even the shallowest draught type of warship. The speed of the M.L. was increased until the twin engines were revolving at the rate of 490 a minute.

  The snow haze seemed suddenly to grow thicker and all around the flurries of white blotted out the distant view. The minutes of pounding through the slate-grey seas seemed interminably long, and the flying clouds of icy spray stung every exposed part of the human frame.

  When about three sea miles had been traversed the engines were stopped and all on board listened for a cry from the sea ahead. The C.O. pulled the peak of his drenched cap farther over his eyes and gazed out into the opaque greyness ahead.

  Minutes passed; but little ships cannot rest quietly on the open sea. The lash of the water and the slapping of the meagre rigging drowned any faint sound there might have been, and once more the engines throbbed to the order “Slow ahead!”

  Barely had the ship gathered way before a dark object appeared momentarily in the trough of the sea about two degrees on the starboard bow and the next instant seemed swallowed up.

  A warning cry from the look-out on the tiny sea-washed fo’c’sle head, a sharp order from the bridge, and, within its own length, the patrol boat swung rapidly to port. At the same moment a dan-buoy splashed overboard to mark the position of the floating mine. A few yards more to the eastward and No. 822 would have appeared in the list of the missing.

  Minutes of tense nerve strain followed, for all knew that the ship was in the midst of a mine-field, and the deadly horns which had been momentarily visible on the surface were but a single example of the many which lurked around. Eyes were strained into the grey-green depths, and yet all knew the impossibility of seeing. Again the look-out’s warning cry and the engines were reversed, but this time it was not a mine, but the victim of one, holding on to a piece of wreckage.

  Willing hands hauled the half-frozen form on board and stanched the blood that still oozed from cuts on the face and neck. Blankets and hot-water bottles were soon forthcoming, and the battered remnant—for both a leg and thigh bone were broken—was placed as carefully as the lurching of the ship would allow in the aft-cabin bunk. Before this could be accomplished, however, a cry again rang out from the watch on the fo’c’sle head and yet another body was hauled aboard, but the shock or the cold had here taken its toll.

  The sea around was searched in vain for further survivors. A few planks, a signal locker, a broken life-raft and a meat-safe were all that was left of the trawler Mayflower, homeward bound from Iceland to Grimsby.

  A silence seemed to brood over the patrol boat as she slowly picked her way out of the mine-field. The crew went about their tasks without the usual jests and snatches of song, and the pudding, which but a few short hours before had seemed the most important event of the day, lay unheeded on the floor of the galley, where it had been thrown by the cook in the haste for hot water.

  In the failing light of the December afternoon the bow of the patrol boat was turned shorewards, and, with a rising sea curling up astern, she raced through the slate-grey water with her burden of living and dead. It was one of those moments which call for a rapid decision on a difficult point, when the order had to be given for the course to be laid for harbour, and the C.O., cold and miserably wet after seven hours on the bridge, wore an anxious look. He knew not which had the greater claim, the desperately wounded man in the cabin or other ships which might bear down on the mine-field during the long bitter night. It was a point on which the rules of war and the dictates of humanity clashed.

  Again the ship was turned into the rapidly darkening east, and all through that bitter night the field of death was guarded. Stiffened fingers flashed out the warning signal when black hulls loomed out of the darkness. Numbed limbs clung for dear life when green seas washed the tiny decks, and when dawn broke over the waste of tumbling sea the men on M.L.822 knew that Christmas Day, 1916, would live for ever in their memory.

  CHAPTER XVI

  The Derelict

  There are few things more heart-breaking than sea patrol, which forms the principal duty of anti-submarine fleets. Hours, days and even months may pass with nothing to relieve the monotony of grey sea and sky, with occasional glimpses of wave-tossed ships.

  There are, of course, intervening periods in harbour, when fierce gales howl overhead, and guard duty on rain-swept quaysides, or sentry-go in blinding snowstorms, comes almost as a relief from the sameness of winter days on northern seas.


  It is, however, the unexpected which generally occurs in war, and during those terrible winters from 1914-1918 it was the ever-present hope of action that kept the spirits of many a sailorman from sinking below the Plimsoll line of health.

  Sometimes the happenings were grave and at other times gay, but always they were welcomed eagerly, as providing excitement or change, with something to talk about in the unknown number of dreary weeks ahead.

  An episode of this kind occurred one snowy January night in 1917 on the quayside of a northern seaport. The commanding officer of one of the patrol boats in the harbour was going ashore to stay for the night with some friends. Knowing that his ship was due to proceed to sea early the following morning, he took the precaution to place a small alarm clock in the big pocket of his bridge-coat. Groping his way in the darkness and blinding snow across the gangway leading from the ship to the quay, he succeeded in reaching the dock wall. Almost instantly he was challenged by a military sentry on duty and was about to reply when a loud buzzing noise came from his pocket. He had not thought of ascertaining at what time the alarm clock had been set for and the consequences were distinctly unpleasant.

  The sentry, hearing the curious buzzing sound coming from the darkness directly he had given the challenge, and thinking it came from some form of bomb, lunged smartly with his bayonet at the spot from which the sound emanated.

  Fortunately the officer was near the edge of the dock wall and did not receive the full effect of the thrust. The bayonet tore his coat and pushed him violently over the edge into the icy water of the harbour. His lusty shouts caused searchlights to be turned on and he was rescued promptly, but the episode, small and unimportant as it was, caused considerable merriment—except to the principal actor—for many days afterwards.

  All this may sound much like heresy to those who think that naval war means constant fighting, with all the pomp and circumstance of old-time battles. There are, it is true, never-to-be-forgotten moments when the blood surges and pulses beat rapidly, when the months of weary waiting are atoned for in as many minutes of swift action. Such were Jutland, Zeebrugge, Heligoland, the Falklands and many an unrecorded fight on England’s sea frontier in the years just past. Such times pass rapidly, however; they are the milestones of war, leaving the weary leagues between, in which there is so much that is sordid and even ghastly, as will be seen from the following.

  The sea offers but few sights more melancholy than the wave-washed derelict—the now desolate, helpless and forlorn thing that was once a ship, the home of men—seen in the half-light of a winter dawn, rising and falling sluggishly on the dirty grey swell—the aftermath of storm—with white water washing through its broken bulwarks, yards and sails adrift, a thing without life on the sad sea waves.

  A wireless message from a ship passing the derelict on the previous day had brought an M.L. from the nearest naval base to search the area, and after a night of wandering over shadowy grey slopes of water the dawn had revealed it less than two miles distant.

  There could be no doubt as to its nationality, for the white cross of Denmark, on the red ground, was painted on the weather-beaten sides, now showing just above the sea. Deserted and half-waterlogged, it was being kept afloat by a cargo of timber, some of which could be seen in chaos on the deck.

  The M.L. approached cautiously, with thick rope fenders over her rubbing-streak to prevent the frail hull from being damaged. This coming alongside other ships in the open sea, except in the very calmest of weather, is a ticklish manœuvre, and requires considerable skill in the handling of these small and very fragile craft. What would be considered quite a light blow on the stout hull of any ordinary ship would crush in the thin timbers of a patrol launch, for in the construction of these boats speed and shallow draught were the predominant factors considered.

  When the M.L. had been made fast on the lee-side of the derelict a boarding party scrambled over the damaged bulwarks on to the sea-washed deck. Here was a scene of chaos—rigging tangled and swinging loosely from masts and yards; sails torn and shreds still clinging to ropes and spars; loose planks of her deck cargo lying all over the place, and a general air of abandon and desolation difficult to describe.

  A mass of broken woodwork in the well of the ship was soon discovered to be the remains of a deck-house, and this gave the first clue to the reason for her sorry plight. Pieces of shrapnel were found sticking in the timbers, and further search revealed shell-holes through the hull and cut rigging. A signal was flying from the mizen halyards, and the name on the counter, although spattered with shot, was still, in part, decipherable—Rickivik, Copenhafen.

  So the officer in charge of the boarding party commenced his report with the name of the ship and the port from which she hailed, adding thereto the evident fact that she had been heavily shelled—just a brief statement which left to the imagination all the incidents and, alas! tragedies of an unequal fight.

  A high-explosive shell had struck the little raised poop, demolishing the hatchway leading to the cabins beneath, and some heavy work with axe and saw would have been necessary to obtain an entry had an easier way not been available through the shattered skylight. In the low-roofed cabin all was disorder. Tables and lockers were smashed, and the shell which had burst overhead had filled the place with heavy broken timbers from the deck above.

  So low was the cabin roof of this small three-masted barque, and so dark the interior, that it was difficult to see about. A lantern was procured and a careful search commenced. The yellow light fell on drawers pulled out and their contents—when worthless—flung on the floor; glasses and bottles smashed and a quaint old China figure lying intact on the broken timbers. But of the ship’s papers there was no trace, with the single exception of an old Bill of Health, issued six years previously in Baltimore. Then the area of search moved from the cupboards and drawers to the floor—broken by a shell which had evidently penetrated the ship’s stern and passed longitudinally through the cabin, exploding near the base of the companion-hatch.

  Presently a startled exclamation, followed by a call for the light, came from the gloom around the stairway. Two of the boarding party searching among the debris had stumbled across something which, instinctively, sent a cold shiver through them. The light, when moved in that direction, dimly revealed the body of a man lying face downwards on the floor. Only the lower half of the figure was, however, visible, a mass of shattered timbers having collapsed on the head and shoulders. That life had been extinct for some considerable time was evidenced by the sickly odour which hung heavily in the less ventilated parts of the cabin, and the work of extricating the body was not commenced before the whole ship had been searched for possible survivors.

  This work occupied a considerable time, but nothing of importance was discovered until a slight noise, not unlike the feeble, inarticulate cry of a child in pain, came through the timbers from some distant part of the hold. It was repeated several times, and the sailors, without waiting for orders, set hastily to work to find out the cause.

  The hatches were carefully removed, but only floating timber could be seen. Then the sound came again. This time it was unmistakable and relieved the tension. A little grim laugh from the searchers was followed by much poking about with a long piece of wood on the surface of the flooded hold under the decking, and some minutes later a large pile of timber floated into the light from the open hatchway, supporting a big tortoiseshell cat, looking very wet and emaciated. “Ricky”—for such is her name now—proved to be the only living thing on that ill-fated ship.

  The boarding party returned to the cabin and commenced the objectionable task of extricating the dead body from the mass of wreckage. The work proceeded slowly, for the heavy broken timbers pressed mercilessly on the object beneath, and when at last it lay revealed in the dim lantern light its ghastly appearance caused all to step back in horror. It was a headless corpse!

  CHAPTER XVII

  Mined-In

  How many people rea
lise that, with a single unimportant exception, there was no part of the English or Scottish coast which was not mined-in at least once by German submarines during 1914-1918? Harbour entrances, often less than two miles from the shore, were repeatedly blocked by lines of hostile mines, laid by U-C boats through their stern tubes, in which they seldom carried less than fifteen to twenty of these deadly weapons, without the vessels rising to the surface either when approaching the coast, laying the mines or effecting their escape.

  Many important waterways, such as the Straits of Dover, the mouth of the Thames, the approaches to Liverpool, the Firth of Forth, Aberdeen, Lowestoft and Portsmouth, were repeatedly chosen for this form of submarine attack. At one base alone no less than 400 mines were destroyed by the attached anti-submarine flotillas in one year, and round the coasts of the United Kingdom an average of about 3000 of these invisible weapons were located and destroyed annually.

  What this meant to the 24,000,000 tons of mercantile shipping passing to and fro through the danger zone every month will be better realised when it is stated that less than 400 merchant ships were blown up by mines during the three years of intensive submarine warfare.

  The losses among the minesweeping and patrol flotillas, which were mainly responsible for the crushing defeat of this piratical campaign, were, however, very heavy. They amounted to over 200 ships and several thousand men. Few will therefore deny to those who lived and to those who died a share in the glory of the great victory.