This, however, did not cause him to work less strenuously or to neglect to watch the large fishing fleet which he guarded on four nights out of the seven, but each letter he received from old friends in other branches of the King’s service brought tidings of excitement, rapid promotion, or at least a little of the pomp and circumstance of war, and he saw himself at the end of it all with nothing to show for years of danger, hardship and impaired health. The worry and the lonely monotony, trivial as he knew them to be, were slowly sapping his nerve and vitality.
The trawler glided from the harbour on to the broad expanse of tranquil sea, now aglow with the lights of a summer sunset. Slowly the coast-line faded into the blue haze of distance, and all around the watery plain was mottled with the shadowy patches made by the light evening breeze.
Settling himself in an old deck-chair, which he kept in the wheel-house, Smith lit his pipe and allowed his thoughts to wander, but every now and then his eyes would search the sea from slowly darkening east to mellow west.
Although the summer was well advanced, there were but few hours of darkness out of the twenty-four in these northern latitudes, and when the armed trawler came in sight of the widely scattered fishing fleet, which it was her duty to guard throughout the night, a mystic half-light subdued all colours to a shadowy grey, but a pale amber afterglow still lingered in the sky and the stars were pale.
Smith lingered a few minutes on deck to finish a cigar before going below for his evening meal. Seldom during the past year had all the elements been so long at peace, and the contrast appealed to him as a luxury to be enjoyed at leisure. Even the light breeze of sunset had died away, leaving an unruffled calm, and the sails and stumpy funnels of the little fishing craft appeared like “painted ships on a painted ocean.”
For nearly an hour he sat inhaling the fragrant and satisfying smoke from more than one cigar, preferring the cool of the deck to the stuffy cabin. Then a dark blot appeared from out of the luminous blueness of the eastern sky and it travelled rapidly downwards towards his flock.
Smith watched it for several seconds, then it suddenly dawned upon him that the hand of the destroyer was coming even into this haven of peace, and a fierce resentment entered his soul. He heard the distant shouting of fishermen as they cut adrift their nets and prepared to scatter before the approaching zeppelin, and in a moment he realised that the long-awaited chance had come. It all seemed too unreal to be true, but he rose up quickly and in a few terse sentences gave the necessary orders for the guns’ crews and engineers.
The whir of the airship’s propellers grew rapidly louder and its bulk loomed black against the bright sky. Determined, however, to take no risk of failure, Lieutenant Smith withheld the fire of his guns until the great aerial monster, now travelling down to less than 1000 feet, was well within range.
Attracted by the helplessness of a large number of fishing craft congregated in a comparatively small area of sea, the destroyer dived to the attack like some giant bird of prey, unable in the gloom which shrouded the earth to distinguish the presence of an armed escort.
The suspense was painful. Then the muzzles of two high-angle guns rose up from the well-deck and superstructure of the armed patrol, and in response to a low-toned order from the C.O., giving the height, time and deflection, they quickly covered the great black body of their objective. Tongues of livid flame leapt from their mouths and were followed by sharp reports. A few minutes of heavy firing and the nose of the monster appeared to sag.
The men at the guns yelled exultantly, redoubling their efforts, and shell after shell went shrieking heavenwards. Suddenly the sea around rose up in huge cascades of foam and a shattering roar, which completely dwarfed the voice of the guns, shook the small ship from stem to stern. Everything movable was hurled across the deck. Breaking glass flew in all directions, and the aerials at the mast-heads snapped and came tumbling down with a mass of other gear. The cries of injured men arose from different parts of the ship, but still the guns hurled their shells, and the zeppelin, now well down by the head, rose high into the upper air and made off eastwards. After dropping all her bombs in close proximity to the armed trawler she had lightened herself sufficiently to rise out of range, but whether or not she would be able to keep up sufficiently long to reach her base, over 300 miles distant, was extremely doubtful.
Flames spurted from the short funnel of the patrol as she steamed at full speed after the retreating zeppelin, endeavouring to keep her within range as long as possible. It was a question of seconds. Before she finally disappeared in the increasing darkness another long-range hit was observed and the zeppelin receded from view, drifting helplessly.
The disappointment at not being able to give the coup de grâce to the aerial destroyer was keenly felt by all on board, for a half success is of little account in the navy. The gunners had done magnificently, the ship had been manœuvred correctly and four of the crew had been wounded by fragments from the bombs dropped en masse, but notwithstanding their exertions and the luck which had brought the zeppelin down from the security of the skies, they had failed to secure the prize legitimately theirs. That the attack on the fishing fleet had been successfully beaten off appeared a minor detail, and the voyage back to port in the quickening light of a beautiful summer morning was a sad pilgrimage. Scarcely a word unnecessary for the working of the ship was spoken, except Lieutenant Smith’s brief explanation that it was just his luck.
* * *
About two weeks later the proverbially “unlucky Smith” was ordered to report at the office of the Admiral Commanding, and he had a sharp struggle to maintain a becoming composure when he heard the terse compliment and the mention of a recommendation from that austere officer, coupled with the intelligence that the zeppelin had dropped into the sea off the coast of Norway.
The spell was broken, and the brisk step and gleam in his dark eyes told their own tale as he walked quickly back to his ship.
CHAPTER XXVI
On the Sea Flank of the Allied Armies
It is a mere truism to say that the sea outflanks all land operations in warfare. Yet how many people fully realise that the left wing of the Allied armies in Belgium and France depended for its safety on the naval command of the North Sea and English Channel? Had this sea flank been permanently penetrated or forced back by the German fleet, the result must have been disastrous to a large section of the Allied military line, which actually extended from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
Although the security of the North Sea flank did not entirely depend upon the naval forces based on Dover, Dunkirk and Harwich—as all operations, whether on land or sea, were overshadowed by the unchallenged might of the Grand Fleet, which hemmed in the entire German navy—it was upon these light forces, largely composed of units of the new navy, that the brunt of the intermittent flank fighting and the repeated attempts by the enemy to break through—with the aid of all kinds of ruses and weapons—was borne for four and a half historic years.
The detailed story of their work on the Belgian coast and in the Straits of Dover could only be told in a separate volume, but the following account of a bombardment and its sequel may not be without interest here. Its relevance to anti-submarine warfare lies in the fact that the bombardment was carried out with the object of destroying the nests of these under-water craft established in and around Zeebrugge. Much that has also been said in former chapters bases its claim to inclusion in this book almost entirely on the fact that although it did not deal exclusively with submarine fighting or minesweeping, it nevertheless formed part of the daily operations of the anti-submarine fleets, and no account of their work would bear any resemblance to the actual truth in which such seemingly extraneous episodes were excluded as irrelevant.
The Bombardment and its Sequel
There was a flat calm, with the freshness of early summer in the air. Zeebrugge lay away in the darkness some fifteen miles to the south-east—awake, watchful, but unsuspecting—when the British bombardi
ng squadron steamed in towards the coast to take up its allotted position and wait for daybreak.
It was a heterogeneous fleet, screened by fast-moving destroyers, torpedo-boats, trawlers, M.L.’s and C.M.B.’s. The great hulls of monitors loomed black against the paling east, and the long thin lines of destroyers moved stealthily across the shadowy sea. No lights were visible, and only the occasional rhythmic thud of propellers and the call of an awakened sea-bird broke the stillness of the morning calm.
The sky was not yet alive with the whir of seaplanes, and the air remained undisturbed by the shattering roar of guns and shells. It was that brief space of time in which even Nature seems to hold her breath and make ready for the coming storm. The only movement other than the continued circling of destroyers was towards the shallow water close inshore, where powerful tugs were towing large barges—flat-bottomed craft carrying gigantic tripods made of railway metals. At predetermined places these were dropped overboard into the shallow sea and, with their legs embedded in the sandy bottom and their apices towering high above the surface, they formed observation platforms from which, in conjunction with aerial scouts, the fire of the big ships could be accurately directed on to the fortifications ashore.
These tripods were laid a distance apart and quite away from the bombarding ships, but a system of range-finding and signalling had been organised and an officer chosen as a “spotter” in each trestle.
The post of honour was on one or other of these observation towers, alone with the necessary instruments. The big shells from the shore batteries would scream overhead; some would plough up the water close by, smothering the tripod with spray, and the smaller guns would direct their fire against these eyes of the bombarding fleet. The chances were in favour of a hit, then there would be nothing left of the tripod or the spotter, simply a brief report to the Admiral Commanding that No. —— observation post had been destroyed and later a fresh name in the casualty lists. It was, however, accepted as the fortune of war, and many volunteered.
The sky brightened until a pale yellow glow suffused the east, while behind the bombarding fleet the western horizon was still a cold, hazy blue. A flight of seaplanes buzzed overhead and a few minutes later the dull reports of anti-aircraft guns echoed across the miles of still water. Tiny bright flashes from white puffs of smoke appeared in the central blue, and then having got the range the great guns of the monitors roared away their charges and the scream of shells filled the air. The calm of the morning vanished, and with it the oppressive silence which precedes a battle.
It was some time before the German airmen could rise from the ground and evade the British fighting formations. In the meantime a rain of heavy projectiles from the fleet was destroying all that was destroyable of the harbour and works of Zeebrugge. With the aid of glasses huge clouds of smoke and sand could be seen rising into the air almost every second. Objects discernible one minute had disappeared when the smoke cloud of bursting shells had moved to another point of concentration a short time later. When at last the enemy’s planes, in isolated ones and twos, succeeded in hovering over the fleet the surface of the sea was almost instantly broken by great spouts of white water, at first far away, then nearer, and the battle commenced in earnest.
A vast cloud of smoke now hung like a black curtain between the fleet and the shore. The M.L.’s were emitting their smoke screen to cover the bombarding ships. Shells splashed into the sea all around. The noise and vibration of the air seemed to bruise the senses, and lurid flashes came from the smoking monitors.
It was at this stage of the bombardment that the curious and unexpected happened. A white wave raced along the surface towards a monitor. It was too big for the wake of a torpedo and quite unlike the periscope of a submarine. The small, quick-firing guns of all the ships within range were trained on it and the sea around was ploughed up with shell. The white wave swerved to avoid the tornado of shot, but continued to make direct for the hull of the great floating fort at a considerable speed. Then, as it drew very near to its objective, a shell went home and the sea was rent by the force of a gigantic explosion, eclipsing that of any known weapon of sea warfare.
It was, however, soon discovered that the mysterious wave came from a fast torpedo-shaped boat which was evidently being controlled by electric impulses from a shore wireless station some twelve to fourteen miles distant, the necessary information regarding direction of attack being transmitted by means of wireless signals from a seaplane hovering overhead, the abnormal force of the explosion being due to the heavy charge of high explosive which such a craft was able to carry in her bow, so arranged as to fire on striking the object of attack.
With the failure of this ingenious but costly method of attack precautions were at once taken against a repetition and the seaplane hovering inconveniently overhead was driven off. The bombardment was carried on for the allotted span, by which time the shore batteries that still remained in action had found the range, notwithstanding the heavy smoke screen emitted by the M.L.’s. “Heavies” were ploughing up the water unpleasantly close to the monitors, one of which was struck, though but little damaged.
It was now considered time to draw off seawards, and the spotting officers, perched on their tripods, had to climb down the railway irons under a heavy fire and swim to the ships sent to rescue them. The tripods were then pulled over on to their sides by ropes attached to their summits and left lying in the shallow water.
Under cover of the smoke screen the bombarding fleet withdrew, after inflicting severe damage on the submarine base of Zeebrugge.
* * *
Some two weeks previous to this bombardment a warship patrolling off the Belgian coast had reported a curious explosion in the direction of Nieuport. The night was dark and the stillness of summer rested over the Pas-de-Calais. Waves lapped gently the distant sand-dunes and war seemed a thing far away, remote as the icy winds which blow around the Poles.
In the conning-tower and at the gun stations both officers and men watched keenly, silently, for the predatory Hun. At any moment the thin blackish-brown hulls of a raiding flotilla from the bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend might slide out of the blueness of the night. The beams of searchlights would momentarily cross and recross the intervening sea and then the guns would mingle their sharp reports with the groans of dying men.
To the nerve-racking duties of night patrol in the Straits of Dover they had grown accustomed—indifferent with the contempt born of familiarity—but this did not cause any relaxation of vigilance. The element of surprise is too important a factor in modern war to be treated lightly.
So it happened that when, shortly after eight bells in the middle watch, a momentary flash of lurid flame stabbed the darkness away over the Belgian coast, and was followed by the rumble of a great but distant explosion, no one stood on his head or lost his breath blowing up a patent waistcoat, but all remained at the “still.” Minutes passed and nothing happened. Slowly the destroyer crept closer inshore, but the night was dark and no further sound broke its stillness.
For two hours she scouted and listened. Little more than five miles away lay the German lines, and the theory was that somewhere in that maze of trenches and batteries an explosion had occurred.
Next day the mystery deepened, for it became known that a large portion of Nieuport Pier had been blown away during the night. As this little seaport was, however, inside the German lines, the mystery remained unexplained until after the bombardment of Zeebrugge, when it became known, in divers manner, that one of the electrically controlled boats had been out on a night manœuvre and, owing to the difficulties of seaplane observation in the dark, had accidentally struck the breakwater of Nieuport.
Many of the patrol boats guarding the Straits of Dover or minesweeping under the fire of German coast batteries off the Belgian sand-dunes spent their days or nights of rest (!) in the French seaport of Dunkirk, returning to Dover only after considerable periods of work on the opposite coast.
It may be thoug
ht that there was but little difference between life in the British port and that in the French town, considering the short stretch of sea between them. The following account of a night in Dunkirk will, however, give some idea of the advantage gained by having even thirty miles of blue water between an active enemy and a comfortable bed.
A Night in Dunkirk
The night seemed uncannily quiet. In time of peace it would have passed unnoticed as just ideal summer weather, but when the human ear had grown accustomed to the almost perpetual thunder of the Flanders guns any cessation of the noise gave a feeling of disquietude, only to be likened to the hush of great forests before a tropical storm. The little town of Dunkirk, with its many ruins, was bathed in shadow, unrelieved by any artificial light, but the narrow, tortuous harbour showed a silvery streak in the brilliant moonrays. Above the sleeping town, with its Poilu sentries and English sailors, was the deep indigo sky, spangled with stars.
Custom had taught the few civilian and the many naval and military inhabitants of Dunkirk to regard calm moonlight nights with very mixed feelings. It was seldom indeed that the Boche neglected such an opportunity for an air raid. Not merely one brief bombardment from the skies, but a succession of them, lasting from dusk until early morning, and repeated night after night while the weather remained favourable.
Submarine Warfare of To-Day Page 20