Mordaunt Hall

“ You could not imagine anything lonelier than a seaplane on the bosom of the North Sea when you are without food or drink. The rocking of the light craft would have made a good sailor keel over with seasickness. The happy moment, however, did come. We were spotted by a mine-sweeper, and she raced to the rescue. Our mangled machine was hoisted on the kite crane of the little vessel. ”

“ Mile after mile, shores and rocks are under the eye of alert navy men and volunteers, the latter being civilians who have spent their lives by the sea. They know their business, and even though they are volunteers, the discipline is rigid. But they are not the type of men to shirk their duty, for they would take it as missing a God-given opportunity if their eyes were closed at the time they could help their country most. After travelling around part of the coast-line, a stranger leaves with the opinion that there is little chance for a man even to swim ashore under cover of night. ”

“ The situation was tense, even if the vessel to be fired at was not an enemy craft.
"Fire!" snapped the captain.
It was no order for men to spring "over the top," no battle-cry that was heard by the enemy, but the word under the water that is the order for the deadly destroyer to be released and speed on its way to the unsuspecting craft. Practice torpedo or not, when under the waves of the North Sea the word works up a dramatic situation hard to equal. The other officers and men are interested, and they told me that never does the word "Fire" fail to stir the soul of everybody aboard. ”

“ The man who craves excitement is apt to get his fill for a while after a trip in a British submarine under the North Sea. He may dream of the experience for many nights afterwards, and the lip of the conning-tower well seems to get higher and higher until the water rushes over like an incipient Niagara—then he awakens.
The wind was blowing about 30 knots when I boarded the mother ship of the submarines in the English East Coast port. ”

“ These stories, light though they be, give a conception of what it is to search the seas in a submarine, and the bravery of the youngest branch of the Navy—the Royal Naval Air Service—is palpable even from the modest accounts given by these seaplane pilots. They have confidence in their supremacy over the enemy, and are all smiles even in the face of imminent danger. It shows that often British coolness and pluck have saved a machine as well as the lives of men.
Of special interest is the talk with the captain of a mine-sweeper while he is on the bridge of his vessel. ”

“ So far as we could, with the roar of the wind and the propeller, we held a consultation—nothing verbose—in mid-air to determine what would be the best move. We decided to alter our course so as to be sure of getting in sight of land. Half an hour later we saw the first sign of life since we had been out—an old tramp steamship. Ten minutes after we sighted land. When you are flying at sea the land, especially when it is low-lying, takes you by surprise; it suddenly looms up when you least expect it. ”

“ One of the most beautiful sights that meets the eye of a seaplane pilot is when he comes on the scouting parties of British warships. They are never at a standstill, and to keep moving and in the same place they all make a wonderful circle at full speed, with one vessel in the centre. That ship is to receive the message or whatever is brought by the seaplane, which in the event of calm weather lands on the water and sometimes sends off one of her officers to talk to those aboard the vessel protected by the ring of speeding grey warcraft. ”

“ The thunder of the guns was pleasing, and as each shell sped on its errand, the unforgettable scene became more beautiful, with the glow from the star-shells and the sight of men, silhouetted in the temporary light against the white-blanketed earth, going about their duty, as some of them had done for more than two and a half years. ”

“ There are many traditions to which the Royal Navy still clings, and there are messes afloat and ashore where it is manifest that time has not withered impressive and picturesque features of the days of the wooden warships. For instance, no layman can help being struck by the British naval officers' toast to the King. And the other toasts are offered with such splendid solemnity and grace that it makes one wish that something of the sort could be done at even the minor affairs where civilians are gathered. ”

“ They are lives that don't concern us, but we don't feel like letting a poor chap drown if we can help it. On the other hand, our enemy stops at nothing, and, moreover, takes advantage of our humanity. I think that it should be known that we dash out to the rescue never [28] knowing when the ship may go up against one of Fritz's eggs, which may be anywhere in the sea. Why do we go? Just to pick up a benighted lot from an ill-fated tramp, and there's nothing in it. ”

“ With the Navy it is a mess, and not a dinner where there are many strangers, and every officer has been doing this since he was a boy.
John Bull's naval officers are men who admit [48] the faults of their country. They have travelled, and have seen a good many other countries and peoples. From Osborne and Britannia days sincerity seems to have been inculcated into them. The discipline is inflexible, but kindly. The captain of a "Dreadnought" will take pains to ask a young midshipman to dine with him, and there exists a wonderful thoughtfulness on the part of the officers for the men. ”

“ Circling Great Britain are thousands of expert coast-watchers, whose duty not only is to watch for ships, wrecks, and smugglers, as in the days before the war, but also to be on guard for enemy submarines and suspicious craft. It is the oft-spoken opinion of many an inland inhabitant that certain sections of the coast would afford a base for U-boats. ”

“ If the surgeon in charge of the train decides that he has a case which [56] should be hastened to a hospital he wires ahead, so that when he reaches that point the surgeon or the agent there is on hand with an ambulance to rush the patient to a local hospital.
Where it is possible, red tape has been eliminated. The cots in which the patients are carried are sent with the patient from a hospital or ship, and the patient is only taken out when he arrives at the hospital of his destination. For the cot bearing the patient, the train surgeon receives in exchange a clean cot. ”

“ They are always on the move, picking up wounded or sick officers and bluejackets at Scotch and English ports, bearing them to stations where there are great hospitals, to relieve the coast institutions likely to receive wounded in the event of a North Sea Fleet engagement. These grey-painted trains, with the Red Cross and the "R.N." on each coach, are the outcome of a great deal of study, and they are now run with remarkable efficiency. No millionaire could receive better care when wounded or ill than do John Bull's naval officers and seamen. ”

“ Incidentally, there is a marine officers' mess at a certain port which naval officers are always ready to talk about. In that place they are proud of a wonderful mahogany table which has been polished for many years until it is now like a black mirror. The band of this mess is one of the best in England; and it is the privilege of the bandmaster to play at concerts and in theatres, the proceeds being divided among charities, the bandmaster and his men. ”

“ Local heads of the coast-watchers or guards have the prerogative of commandeering horses or automobiles when necessary. If there is a ship ashore or on the rocks, signal-rockets are sent up to collect the coast-guards; and it would seem that a couple of these would wake most of the persons in that corner of England.
The real business of the coast-guards, and that to which they devote themselves in peace or war, is firing rockets over a ship in distress and trying to land the crew. ”

“ Noteworthy is it that Great Britain in the course of this war has not been the cause of the loss of a single neutral life. Mines have been placed at random by Germany's pirate craft.
The grit of the English seaman comes to light [vii] in the author's journey in a naval ambulance train, as does also the fact that the service takes the utmost care of its wounded and sick. In the account of the Royal Naval Division it is touching to note that the men who are fighting in France and who distinguished themselves so valiantly in the Ancre and other battles, still cling to sea terms or talk. ”

“ No sooner had the engine-room received the order to submerge than the captain followed his helmsman down the conning-tower hatch, and he lost not a second in getting to the periscope—the eye of his vessel. Soon my attention was arrested by the sight of two men sitting side by side turning two large wheels. One kept his eye on a bubble and turned his wheel to control the hydroplanes to keep the craft level, and the other man's eyes also watched a bubble in a level. His share of the work was to keep the vessel at the depth ordered by the commander. ”

“ At midnight the chief surgeon walked through the train to see that all was well, and he was attracted by a man coughing. He directed that something be given to this patient.
"Don't want to have one man keep half a dozen awake needlessly," said the surgeon.
Then there was an officer who could not go to sleep. He was a medical case, suffering from rheumatism. But what kept him awake was the thought that he might lose his ship. There was a sailor who had fallen on his vessel, knocked four of his teeth out, and cut his head. ”

“ You do not see any young men who are not in khaki or navy blue, and the old men are wonders, with their binoculars and telescopes. Mr. Cutting had been within sound of the sea ever since he was born. First, he had seen service on a lighthouse on the rocks, as they say, and from the rocks he graduated to a land job, and thence back to the rocks, and again on to the land. We read stories of the lighthouse-keeper; but little is written on the modern man of this species. ”

“ Nevertheless, John Bull's diving boats are ever on the alert; and the man with whom I went under the North Sea had performed deeds of daring which never involved the sinking of a neutral vessel or of endangering the life of a non-belligerent.
It was the time for luncheon. Luncheon! You get an idea that the life aboard a submarine is not all sunshine and white uniforms when you see the berth for the commander and his chief officer. They are just a couple of shelves, and [80] are not used very often at that. ”

“ And these persons take especial interest in the trains, many of them making it a point to be at the railroad station whenever a Royal Naval Ambulance train pulls in. What with sick men and accidents, the trains now and again may have a full quota of patients without there having been a fleet engagement. In war time no man who is not physically fit is kept aboard ship, for he may not take up another man's place without being able to perform his work. ”

“ British naval officers are lovers of sports, and, having believed the Germans good sports before August, 1914, they cannot condone attacks on non-belligerents or the shooting of nurses. His Majesty's naval officers do great things without talking about them, and at dinner one of the star heroes of the war may be in the next chair to you, but you certainly will not hear it from him.
Opposite me sat a man who had faced death with Scott on the Polar expedition. It was after I had left the mess that I learned this from one of his friends. But at a mess you may hear stories of men who are absent. ”

“ A sailor semaphored with his arms, and the commander of the mine-sweeper sent a message back, and the submarine passed slowly on her way.
"If some of those people at home and abroad at their firesides realised what the men at sea have to suffer to keep this coast free they might have a different way of talking," declared the commander, now taking to his much-burned old pipe. "Those chaps that have just come in have [30] had a week without any sleep—or next to none—and their food has all been canned stuff. There are many persons who think the North Sea's a pond—same as they do over in America." ”

“ Their little stone huts are on the highest point in their particular area, and their homes usually are only a couple of hundred yards distant. Their chiefs are coast-guards of the old days called back to their former service in the Royal Navy. These men rule the volunteers with a rod of iron. No matter what section of the coast one may pick, the coast-watcher is ready with his glasses or telescope. Suspicious acts of any individuals receive speedy attention, and each batch of the guards vies with the next for keen performance of duty. ”

“ A book containing accounts of the work continually and unceasingly being carried on by the gallant officers and men of the Royal Navy should prove of considerable interest to all, and, at the present time, especially to the American reader. I am glad that a New York journalist has had the opportunity of witnessing a part of the titanic task of our courageous sea-fighters, and of personally gaining an idea of the hardships endured by the plucky men who are watching our coast. ”

“ In the first messages of the British success it was set forth that in a battle where every man fought nobly for the honour of his regiment and his [38] country, one individual act of leadership stood out with peculiar distinctness.
A witness of the battle told of the troops on Freyberg's left being held up, and that between him and them ran, roughly parallel with the line of advance, a spur which cut off the effect of the enemy's machine guns. After fourteen hours of fighting, bit by bit, the sea-dog soldiers had plunged through a mile of trenches and ground sorely marked by shells. ”