by Pete Ayrton
The wind is blowing from the north and throwing fields of broken ice at us. In front, at the sides, under the keel, ice everywhere. Vast herds of great grey pieces. The hull echoes under the hard blows. Now and then the dammed-up sea hurls a piece on deck. It then moves back and forth like a freight car being shunted on a swaying track, crushing superstructure and emplacements. A torpedo bay is gone. Number II windlass is smashed to pieces.
The blocks of ice are wedged in and dumped overboard again, making use of the ship’s motion. Cables, crowbars, other hand tools! One hundred and fifty pairs of arms and legs! And we’ve got nothing on our bones, are drained of strength by scurvy, when we bend down we’re already wet with weakness. A prisoner jumps overboard, Captain Tominaga of the sunken Japanese steamer ‘Hitachi Maru’.
The Denmark Strait is blocked.
The ice forces us south. Finally we find our way into the North Sea between Iceland and the Shetland Islands and reach the Norwegian coast without catching sight of one of the English patrol boats.
We sail on within the three-mile zone, at night pass the lights of fishermen lying by their nets – Skagerrak, Jutland, the Little Belt!
We drop anchor in Kiel Bay. After 444 days at sea.
Sent out on our voyage to sink and drown! The death notices have already been written and sent to relatives by the Admiralty Staff. But now we have returned and put in to Kiel. A hospital ship takes off the sick, another the prisoners. Twenty-six of our men are in prison in Bombay for murder and piracy. The four victims of our own guns lie in the Indian Ocean.
The rest of us have fallen in on deck.
The commander of the Baltic Station, a white-bearded admiral, inspects the ranks and puts ‘affable’ questions, always the same ones: ‘What is your name?’ – ‘How old are you?’ – ‘What is your position?’ – ‘Geulen, Sir!’ – ‘Twenty-five, sir!’ – ‘Seaman, sir!’
A welcoming telegram from the German Emperor is read out and the order ‘Pour le mérite’ placed around the commander’s neck. Then the Iron Crosses are distributed.
Two days later:
The Iron Crosses have been taken away from us again, the ‘Pour le mérite’ from the commander. The admiral has come on board again, this time with a captain from the ‘Propaganda Office for Raising War Morale in the Hinterland’. A film camera! Close-ups: of the commander, of the pack of dachshunds, of the crew.
The cameraman turns the handle. The admiral awards the confiscated Iron Crosses for the second time, puts the same idiotic questions, reads the same telegram from the Emperor, places the ‘Pour le mérite’ round the commander’s neck again. A big cinema show! The nation’s highest military honour has become a prop. The commander who is not allowed to marry his wife because she is an actress is himself forced to take the part of an actor. All the other officers including the admiral and head of the Baltic Station make up the extras. The crews of the warships in harbour, the jetties populated on orders provide the big and cheap background. We roar hurrah half a hundred times until we’re hoarse and grin as we do so: propaganda to raise war morale in Germany!
Sixteen hundred feet of film for the hinterland and the military hospitals. The captured cargo to the value of 40 million marks, raw rubber, copper, human hair, rice, coffee, tea, tinned meat, delicacies, spirits is not intended for the hinterland and the military hospitals. The Kiel Officers’ Mess is interested in the cargo, sends out a number of barges in a kind of surprise attack and wants to begin the unloading. But as commander of a ship operating alone the commandant is not subordinate to any unit and has sole right of disposal. On his instruction the prize goods are taken off in the open harbour of Lübeck beyond the control of the naval authorities.
We are loaded with decorations. The Kings of Saxony, of Bavaria, of Württemberg, the Free Hanseatic Cities send medals on board by the box load. The officers are promoted. The commandant gets his fourth gold stripe: means a salary rise of 800 marks a month. The Artillery Officer his second stripe, 400 marks a month.
We remain coolies, on a daily wage of 50 pfennigs. The prize money due to us gets stuck somewhere in the maze of bureaucratic procedure. The soldiers’ wives of Lübeck, who take us into their beds, wear nightshirts of coarse cloth, wash themselves with soap lacking oils or fat; they don’t even have enough money to buy the rationed ersatz foodstuffs. We steal as much of the cargo as we can, split with customs and police, sell to the black marketeers and middlemen who have turned up. A retired senior naval officer resident in the town writes to the Admiralty Staff: ‘…the celebrated crew of His Majesty’s Ship “Wolf” – no heroes, but robbers and thieves! Making off with state property! Should all, right down to the youngest sailor, be court-martialled!’
But we’re loaded onto the train, transported to Berlin, march through the Brandenburg Gate, flanked on either side by a guard of honour. The city commandant gives a speech. The Empress waves her hand when we are allowed to march past her. Women from ‘patriotic associations’ hand out flowers. The city hosts a lunch for us, the Kempinski restaurant a supper. At the Zirkus Busch, in the theatre foyers, at the Zoo we are almost crushed by vast crowds of patriotic ladies. The directors of this show have their offices in the War Ministry. The march past of the crew of the auxiliary cruiser is just one item in the generals’ programme against increasing war weariness.
*
We’ve had eight weeks convalescent leave. Twenty per cent are left behind in hospitals, in gonorrhoea wards or prison cells. The remainder of the crew of His Majesty’s Ship ‘Wolf’ returns to Wilhelmshaven.
Personnel Office: ‘Fall in with kitbags! In ranks wheel to the right! Break step, march!’
Onto ships on forward position!
Onto minesweepers!
After a privateering expedition across the North Atlantic and the sinking of eighteen merchant steamers Count zu Dohna-Schlodien has been appointed aide-de-camp to His Majesty. After an unparalleled voyage across five oceans, after laying mines outside important harbours and sinking 300,000 tons of enemy shipping the middle-class commander of the auxiliary cruiser ‘Wolf’ has been made minesweeper in chief of the North Sea.
C-Boat 212.
The boat is like a cardboard box and as flat as one. When we leave harbour with the other boats, then the crews of the proper ships know what’s happening: ‘The crab louse squadron is putting to sea.’
Before fleet movements the crab louse squadron each time clears a passage through the mine-infested waters of the North Sea. Two boats always trail the search device, which consists of a cable with a blade, behind them. The wire cable catches on the mine and separates it from its anchoring. The mines drifting on the surface are then dealt with by rifle fire. The silly thing is that we drag the cable behind us and have to sail over the minefields in front.
There are eighteen of us on board.
When the device is out, we crouch in the stern, the stoker off-watch, the deck crew, also the commander, a deputy helmsman, whom we call ‘Sea Duster’. We sit on the railing, ready to jump overboard. That way we at least stand a chance of saving our arses, the stokers and the man at the helm next to none.
On the last trip out ‘110’ blew up. We fished out eleven men. At Cuxhaven they got a new kitbag, after that a new boat. The kitbags are stored packed and ready at barracks. The missing men are replaced by a couple from the fleet and one pardoned from prison.
The summer has passed.
One leave, three detentions! We have a new boat now. ‘C 212’ blew up with the stokers’ watch, the deck officer and cook. Since then we’re allowed to call our commander ‘Sea Duster’ even when he’s around.
The system is going to pieces.
The Emperor gives a speech, in Essen, to 1500 starving factory workers: ‘My dear friends of the Krupp factories…’
New troops being sent up to the front have written on their railway carriages: ‘Cattle for slaughter for Wilhelm & Sons’. – His Majesty’s Ship ‘Nürnberg’ on forward duty in the North Sea: I
n the mess they’re all drunk. The Engineer Officer has his bare backside smeared with mustard and sticks it out the window. The lieutenants declare: ‘It’s our latest searchlight!’ –There are still wild parties in the messes of the naval officers with musicians playing every evening. – Ten death sentences, 181 years penal servitude, 180 years imprisonment have been imposed on the men of the fleet. And the apparatus of the courts-martial goes on working.
28th October 1918!
Quartermaster-General Ludendorff has taken his leave. The newly installed civilian government has offered the Entente an armistice. The whole of the German High Seas Fleet has been concentrated in Wilhelmshaven and in safe anchorages.
The minesweeper flotillas have orders to go fishing for mines, the squadron chiefs have received sealed operational commands: ‘Forces of the High Seas Fleet are to go into action to attack and defeat the English fleet!’
Squadrons I, II, III, IV! Stoke all boilers! The ships raise steam, black balls of smoke ascend into the starless sky.
Anchors are to be raised at 10 p.m.
His Majesty’s Ship ‘Thüringen’ blacked-out. Not one ray of light coming from it. Nothing is to be seen of the next ship anchored in line. A call through the damp air: “Thüringen” ahoy!’A boat emerges from the fog, a steam launch, then another, a third, a fourth. The first launch ties up by the jack ladder. The rest sail on to the other ships. The officers are coming on board again, from the officers’ mess ashore.
On the ‘Thüringen’, at the top of the jack ladder, a bunch of sailors, off-duty stokers, critical expressions: ‘They’re all pissed out of their minds again!’
The men sit in the casemates under their strung up hammocks. Electric light, steel walls, steel ceilings. No one lies down to sleep. Four and half years of war! The military collapse is here! Doesn’t matter: It means peace.
But in the bowels of the ship, in bunkers and boiler rooms forces are at work. Coal is being brought up, fires stoked, the boilers, curling smoke, turbines fill with trembling atmospheres.
Why have the minesweepers left harbour?
Why is the fleet lying at anchor in Schillig Roads?
Why is steam being raised?
There’s something in the air!
The sailors and stokers roam from one casemate to the next, run over the decks, lurk around the bridge, under cover of darkness crowd as far as the quarterdeck.
Things are getting very lively in the mess. By now the gentlemen feel so hot that they’ve pulled open the skylight. A gramophone is playing, there’s singing.
Champagne corks, glasses, babble of voices!
The gramophone stops playing, abruptly. A kick has hurled it to the floor. Those of the officers who can still stand have jumped to their feet. The stewards fill the glasses once again.
The sailors at the skylight looked down onto the officers. They forget all caution, and their eyes are transfixed. They soak up every one of the words spoken below.
There stands Lieutenant-Commander Rudloff, glass in hand: ‘We’ll fire our last two thousand shells at the English and then go down gloriously! Better an end with honour, than a life in shame!’
‘Better ten years of war than such a peace!’ – ‘Lawyers, people in trade, newspaper scribblers, they want to rule our country now!’ – ‘We don’t give a shit about the government! The fleet, the fleet commander has complete freedom of action!’
Pale faces, voices hoarse with excitement.
‘The “Thüringen” must die! Comrades, gentlemen! It is a matter of our honour, this glass…’
‘To the last battle of the German Fleet!’
‘To the last voyage!’
‘To the last two thousand shells!’
The sailors draw back from the skylight. They run through the casemates, through the seamen’s decks, stokers’ decks, shouting out what they’ve heard. Everywhere groups cluster. Those already sleeping are pulled from their hammocks.
The same on the ‘Helgoland’, ‘Ostfriesland’, ‘Oldenburg’.
On the other ships, too, the signs have been observed, minesweepers putting to sea, steam in all boilers, the shouting in the officers’ messes. Same old wartime tune:Victory or death! Crews of thousands of men all share the same feeling: Do something! Enough is enough! Or they lie waiting in the half-light of the casemates as if struck down.
The new fleet flagship SMS ‘Baden’, the biggest and most modern of the battleships, 15 inch guns, 56, 000 shaft horse power! The ‘Baden’ is lying at anchor by the quay in the inner harbour. The crews are sleeping. Suddenly a cry goes up. ‘Every man for himself! The officers are going to blow up the ammunitions rooms!’ It spreads through the casemates, hysterical, alarming: ‘Officers… ammunition… Every man…’The one thousand five hundred seamen pour through the armoured hatches, crowd over the deck, clamber ashore.
A catastrophic mood on all the ships!
SMS ‘Thüringen’, ten in the evening.
Bosuns’ pipes shrill. Commands are sung out.
‘Cutter detachment weigh anchor!’
‘Mount naval sentries!’
The cutter detachment climbs up to the forecastle, makes its way to the capstan. Handles are turned. The capstan wheezes as the steam pours in. Link by link the heavy anchor is heaved through the hawsehole onto the ship. The bridge, occupied by officers, is invisible in the darkness, only the fat balls of smoke rising from the funnels.
A mob of sailors storms up onto the forecastle. They haven’t waited, half-dressed, some barefoot: ‘Boys, lads!’ – ‘This is crazy’ – ‘Hands off the capstan!’ – ‘We’re not sailing any more!’ – ‘They can sail by themselves! Let them go down without us!’
A petty officer, a lieutenant, officers! Revolver muzzles raised threateningly! The men of the cutter detachment obey compulsion and the discipline drilled into them over the years. The chain rumbles and squeals, grows shorter. The anchor is hanging free, bangs heavily against the armoured side of the ship.
The funnels spew sparks.
The silhouette of a ship sails past.
Another one! The fleet is on the move.
The night is ripped apart. A cry – a single man cries out. The echo, anger and despair bursts from hundreds of throats! The top deck of the ‘Thüringen’ is thick with sailors. At that moment the other anchor drops; a couple of the men have let it fall. The chain rumbles through the hawsehole and immobilises the ship once again. Now the stokers are here as well. The stokers extinguish the furnaces.
The trails of smoke have been torn off, white steam pours from the funnels.
The masses are in motion.
They crowd through the casemates, into the forward battery, lash down the anchor chain, shut off the petty officers’ quarters which lie below the seamen’s deck and wedge the hatch covers shut. They cut the vangs and cutter checks, no boat can be lowered now. Officers who come down from the bridge are showered with everything possible, with washbasins, boots, lumps of lime scale from the boilers. Arms! Fists! The portrait of the ‘Victor of Skagerrak’* is broken in pieces. Lamps are smashed, rifles, bullets distributed. Munition for the medium guns demanded.
The casemates thunder:
‘Peace must come!’
‘We must have freedom!’
‘The aristocrats! The racketeers! The Imperial Navy: Down with them! Down with them!’
A searchlight! Morse signals!
His Majesty’s Ship ‘Helgoland’ replies:
‘Comrades, keep it up! We’re doing the same!’
‘Thüringen’ remains anchored in Schillig Roads.
‘Helgoland’ remains in Schillig Roads.
The fleet, the cruisers and battleship squadrons, raises anchor. In the white cones of the searchlights the commanders have succeeded in dispersing the crowds of sailors on the decks and in securing the capstans. For the last time the naval officers appeal to a sense of duty, speculate on the gullibility of their crews: ‘No, we’re not sailing out to fight the British! We’re o
nly going out to sweep mines! There are still ninety U-boats at sea. They don’t know the channel through the minefields. We have to bring them in!’
The fleet proceeds in a long line ahead.
Slowly! The stokers are keeping the steam low.
Twelve to fourteen nautical miles are sufficient to sweep mines and to bring in the U-boats. On leaving the Jade Estuary a wind rises. The foggy sky breaks, damply gleaming stars. The ships move in the heavy rhythm of the ocean. A change of course! The weather shifts to the other side. One can feel it right down to the casemates!
Course northwest!
Towards England!
Orders that don’t come from the bridge. ‘Out of your hammocks! Up to the forward battery! All men to the forward battery!’
There one of the men stands on the chain locker:
‘The course is northwest! An attack! There are maps of the east coast of England on the navigation officer’s table. On the flying bridge the signals are clear for full steam! They’ve lied to us, as they always do! Four and half years of war! Now the end is here! Their careers are finished, their glorious unemployed existence! They’re afraid of the future and would rather take their own lives!
‘This attack is suicide. We’re supposed to be part of it. We’re supposed to sacrifice ourselves for it!’
The ship rolls over the ocean swell.
Half a thousand men are by the chain locker in the forward battery. The punishment for mutiny is death! One group has settled down by one of the medium guns, they try to overcome their agitation by singing: ‘I want to see home again…’
A speaker, a second, a third.
Now the Chief Mate is here.
‘But only one man at a time can talk to me, or two at most. – I’m from south Germany, eighteen years with the Navy. – I don’t want to die – Something has been thrown at me. That’s not right – Comrades! Comrades!’