Charles W. Domville-Fife

“ The mystery ship was not a specially constructed war vessel, such as a destroyer or cruiser, but merely a merchantman converted into a powerfully armed patrol ship, camouflaged to give the appearance of genuine innocence, but with masked batteries, hulls stuffed with wood to render them almost unsinkable, hidden torpedo tubes, picked gunners, a roving commission and a daring commander and crew. Their work was performed on the broad highways of the sea, and they hunted singly or in pairs, often fighting against overwhelming odds with certain death as the price of failure. ”

“ Things undetectable under normal conditions can be seen or heard distinctly when life depends on the intelligence so gained.
Long minutes of silence slipped by and nothing occurred; then came the distant and familiar creaking noise, almost inaudible at first. The gun's crew braced themselves for the stern work ahead. On the rapidity and accuracy of their fire not only their own lives, but also those of their comrades, would probably depend. The gun-layer bent his back and glanced along the grey tube to the tiny blue glow of the electric night sight. The shell was placed in the open breech. ”

“ 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 [197] hidden in the white snow-mists and grey seas around. ”

“ It is not difficult to perceive that when travelling awash, a wave might at any moment roll along the tiny unprotected deck of the submarine, break over the mouth of the conning-tower, and descend like a waterspout into the interior. ”

“ The ascent at 4 a.m. from the cabin to the cold, wet deck can be likened only to the first plunge of a cold bathing season. Casualties became more frequent as the enemy intensified his submarine and mining campaign. The news and sight of sudden death no longer blanched the faces of men who knew that it might be their turn at any moment of every day and night. The stir of suppressed excitement when danger threatened no longer manifested itself in every movement, but rather in the cool, deliberate action of self-confidence. ”

“ The submarine mine is primarily the defence of the weaker naval power, and therefore a fleet acting on the defensive, either temporarily or permanently, requires more mine-layers than mine-sweepers, but the reverse is naturally the case with a fleet acting on the offensive. Although this may be taken as a general rule, it does not imply that a strong naval power like Great Britain, whose policy is attack and not defence, needs no mines or mine-layers. On the contrary, the laying of counter mines is one of the ways of destroying an enemy’s mine-field ”

“ 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 [283] 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. ”

“ Of the British naval forces based on this little French seaport few were ashore, as, without special permission, both officers and men had to remain on their ships after sunset, and those not playing cards or reading in the cabins were lounging and smoking on deck. Blot out of the view the ruined houses, the shell-holes in the streets, the guns, the dug-outs and the sentries, and few scenes more unlike the popular conception of a big war base, with the enemy only a few miles distant, can be imagined. ”

“ The submarine and the aeroplane are at present the only weapons against which there is no true means of defence, and yet one is being used as an antidote for the other without, however, any very striking success so far. The seaplane may be able to distinguish the dark patch in the sea caused by the hull of the submarine in clear water, but she cannot destroy it, neither can she signal the exact locality to an accompanying destroyer flotilla, owing to the speed with which seaplane and submarine pass over and under each other ”

“ The gathering of so many men from all quarters of the world, with a wealth of experience and adventure behind them, was in itself a source of mutual interest—and incidentally an education in modern British Imperialism. Scarcely any part of the world went for long unrepresented in either the wardroom or gunroom of the old cruiser Hermione in those days of war, and many were the yarns told of Alaska days, hunting in Africa, experiences in remote corners of North America, pearling in the Pacific and life on the Indian frontier, to say nothing of wild nights on the seven seas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When waves came the slap-slap-slap of the water as the sharp bows cleft through the crest and the little vessel was for a brief moment poised dizzily on the bosom of the swell caused tremors to pass through the thin grey hull, and, to complete the review of sensation, there may be added the human thrill of battle and the indescribable feeling of controlled power beneath one's feet. ”

“ The minutes of twilight grew rapidly less, and with the coming of darkness a new danger threatened. The ship was approaching a rock-strewn coast with no friendly lights to guide her, and every now and then lofty masses of black stone rose up, dimly, from their beds of foam. It was an anxious half-hour, and ears were strained for the warning thunder from surf-beaten rocks which sounded at intervals even above the roar of the gale. ”

“ Hitherto I have dealt with the scientific training of the personnel, the armament and the general organisation of the anti-submarine fleets, leaving it to the imagination of readers to invest the bare recital of facts with the due amount of romance. If, however, a true understanding of this most modern form of naval war is to be obtained, the human aspect must loom large in future pages.
War, whether it be on the sea, under the sea, on the land or in the air, is a science in which the human element is of at least equal importance with that of the purely mechanical. ”

“ No calling tempers the human steel in so short a period as that of the sea. At all times and in every part of the world the sailorman wages a never-ending fight with Nature in her wildest and most dreaded modes. When to this is added a conflict of nations and their ships, with all the ingenious death-traps of modern naval science, it merely increases the odds against him and serves to steady his hand and brain in order to overcome them. ”

“ Eyes ached from gazing into the bitter wind, and for over four hours the race against approaching night continued. If darkness closed down before that eighty miles of sea was covered all on board realised that the chances of finding any survivors would be greatly diminished. Even the strongest vitality could not long resist exposure to the intense cold, and there might be women and children in the sea ahead.
Many of the officers and crew of the sloop had experienced the agonies of cold, wounds and salt water when cast adrift on wintry seas, and the memory acted like a whip. ”

“ Towards the close of the year 1916 four of these little vessels coming from the base at Dunkirk intercepted five German destroyers returning from a Channel raid. The scooters raced towards the enemy in a smother of foam. Every quick-firing gun on the German ships spouted shells at the mysterious white streaks approaching them with the speed of lightning. So close did these plucky little ships go to their giant adversaries that the blast of the German guns was felt aboard, but no shells struck them. ”

“ As the engines of each great ship came temporarily to rest a vessel of the Red Cross flotilla ranged alongside and the more sombre work of war began. A shell through the sick-bay of H.M.S. Lion had caused Sir David Beatty to have many of the wounded on that ship placed in his own cabins. The only casualty on the New Zealand was caused by a gust of bursting steel over the signal bridge. A big shell had passed longitudinally through the line of officers' cabins in the battered little Southampton, and many were the curious escapes from death. ”

“ The sound-deadening qualities of falling snow would have cut short the range of any cry, for the human voice at its strongest, and with the atmospheric conditions favourable, can seldom be heard more than 1000 yards distant. So hour after hour of numbing cold went by with nothing to show except the occasional pathway of light on the grey slopes of sea and the low moaning wind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”