Subarctic

“ Toc—toc—toc; the slow tapping of a German machine-gun sounds from the direction he had fondly imagined Battalion Head-quarters to be; the swish of bullets come nearer as the Hun sweeps the ground; a flare goes up, showing—holes. Another compulsory descent; a phut! as a bullet passes over his head, and the swishing passes on. Shortly that swishing will come back, and in the meantime are there not—holes? But as for the front trench, whither he is bound, the contest is unequal. No man can fight—holes. ”

“ With his force thus diminished he was cruizing of Cuddalore, for the purpose of covering and protecting the army before that place, when M. de Suffrein arrived on the coast from Trincomalee. On the 20th June, about 4h P.M., the French fleet, consisting of fifteen sail of the line, three frigates, and a fire-vessel, made an attack, favored by the wind, upon the British, who upon this occasion had eighteen line-of-battle ships, and nine other vessels. ”

“ Captain Lucas’s battalion of Sepoys, at the time when our men moved up to a rising ground, was stationed to the right of the European grenadiers; but that corps seeing the Europeans in motion, and perhaps understanding that motion for a retreat, broke in the utmost confusion. The Europeans, however, bravely maintained their reputation for intrepid valour, and remained in this extremity of distress steady and undaunted, though surrounded by the French troops, and Hyder’s cavalry, to the number of 40,000. ”

“ The number of shells flung at the enemy is only limited by the lives of the guns that fire them. I should like to tell with what swiftness, under the stress of battle, the wounded are hurried back to the coast and even to England itself. I may not state the thousands carried on leave every day across the channel and back again—in spite of submarines. ”

“ Our fleet appeared to have had the worst of this severe conflict; two of our line-of-battle ships were nearly dismasted, and one was aground: the French suffered materially in men and rigging, but not in their lower masts. Eight days elapsed in repairing their damages; at the expiration of which time, the enemy was ready, and getting under weigh, stood out, and then tacked, and stood in, offering our fleet battle; but Admiral Hughes, from his recent losses and crippled state, was too wise to accept any overture of the kind ”

“ Since the last declaration of the enemy Government, which from intelligence information was anticipated, the submarine campaign against merchant shipping of all Nations has resolved itself into the real issue of the war and, stated briefly, the Allied Governments have not been able to, and are not now, effectively meeting the situation presented.
4. As stated in my first despatch, the communications and supplies to all forces on all fronts, including Russian, are threatened, and the "Command of the Sea" is actually at stake. ”

“ Free yourself from restraint, lay aside obligations moral and legal, and for the destruction of commerce you have in the submarine a weapon without equal, an immoral inspiration. Unaware that the world, had outgrown morals, that chivalry was wholly out of date, Britain taken aback had, it may be confessed, no ready or immediate answer, and it seemed indeed as if the new instrument possessed qualities unanswerable, borrowed from the region of fable. Only in fables does one put on at will the mantle of invisibility or don invulnerable armour. ”

“ Experienced British naval officers, aware of the extent of the German submarine building programme, and above all aware of the shadowy nature of our existing means of defence against such a form of warfare, had every reason to hold the view that the danger was great and that the Allies were faced with a situation, fraught with the very gravest possibilities. ”

“ Our captain consulted his officers, and the result was, to tack and stand toward them; in fact, we had no other alternative, for we were upon a lee-shore, and the extreme point of the rocks was bearing upon our weather bow.
Our crew were called aft, and informed of the situation of the ship; but it is a well-known truth, that whatever the danger may be, English seamen are always ready, yes, and proud, to run any risk, or face any kind of danger, for good officers; to say nothing of their innate courage, of which they have given proofs to the world. ”

“ While he lay on the ground, they put him in heavy irons, and took him away, nor do I recollect ever seeing him afterwards. All this time we were secured by the Sepoys, who had orders to prime and load, and to fix their bayonets; and all this against fifty-two defenceless boys. Judge of our situation, my good reader, at this crisis! We were seized, and each of us was bound with two new ropes, confining our hands behind us; and, to make us secure, a strong man enclosed our arms, and with his knee almost dislocated our shoulders: many of us had the marks in our arms for some years after. ”

“ But at the same time I will remind M. le Baron that my buccaneers number eight hundred; your troops five hundred; and M. de Cussy will inform you of the interesting fact that any one buccaneer is equal in action to at least three soldiers of the line. I am perfectly frank with you, monsieur, to save time and hard words. Either Captain Wolverstone is instantly set at liberty, or we must take measures to set him at liberty ourselves. The consequences may be appalling. But it is as you please, M. le Baron. You are the supreme authority. It is for you to say. ”

“ Churchill, [Pg 264] "to stand unmoved and watch the ceaseless living stream—miles of stern-looking men, marching in fours so quickly that they often had to run to keep up, of artillery, ammunition columns, supply columns, baggage, slaughter-cattle, thirty great pontoons, white-hooded, red-crossed ambulance waggons, all the accessories of an army hurrying forward under cover of night—and before them a guiding star, the red gleam of war." ”

“ Hospital ships weighed anchor and passed into distance, and destroyers patrolled unceasingly to guard against submarine attack.
Up the narrow, twisting sultry bottoms of ravines swarmed confused trails of sweating men and animals, mules laden with ammunition and water, with their Punjab muleteers, Sikhs with their mountain pieces, and fresh troops, British and Purkha, New Zealand, Australian, passing up to the line. ”

“ According to my idea about such matters, the standard set by you and your crew is worth infinitely more than the destruction of a submarine. Long after we both are dust and ashes, the story of this last fight will be a valuable inspiration to British (and American) naval officers and men—a demonstration of the extraordinary degree to which the patriotism, loyalty, personal devotion, and bravery of a crew may be inspired. ”

“ The Twenty-ninth advances, firing, and behind it, sword in hand, we rally the broken regiments. The routed men present a curious spectacle: some fierce and indignant at the conduct of their comrades; some ashamed of themselves, their faces distorted by a sort of idiotic grin; some staring at their officers with a look of helpless bewilderment, as if they did not understand what had happened, and the officers hauling them together with bursts of lively language, and an incidental slap with the flat of their blades. ”

“ As the dusk of evening came on, the enemy's fire, artillery as well as musketry, rapidly slackened, and soon ceased altogether. On the left of the army the fight came to a complete standstill. The enemy, although successful, had no doubt suffered not much less than we had, and got into that state of disorder resulting from the mixing up of different divisions, brigades, and regiments, which is almost always caused by the action of great masses on the battlefield. ”

“ It must be remembered that neither of our warriors had a rifle, and that bombs and ammonal charges are not weapons with which to tackle a man you can touch. They are apt to be impartial to friend and foe alike. ... Resource was necessary, and it is at moments such as these that the national instinct for games is so invaluable. There was a psychological moment as the crouching man came up into the trench with his rifle and bayonet, when his chin was in the perfect position: moreover, the sapper was a full back of merit. ”

“ The Germans, who had prepared for forty years, laughed at the new enemy and felt guaranteed by five impossibilities: that America should raise a real army, or equip it, or know how to train it, or be able to get it past the submarine barrier, or feed the few that might sneak through. ”

“ The bugles pealed forth their stirring notes, and the dashing squadrons of Custer and Merritt came down like a clattering tempest on the right and left, doubling up the rebel flanks, and cleaving a terrible path through the broken ranks. Back to, and through our camp, which they had swept like a whirlwind in the morning, the panic-stricken rebels went, pellmell, leaving all the artillery they had captured, and much of their own, and strewing the way with muskets, clothing, knapsacks, and everything that could impede their flight. ”

“ First Sea Lord. If the system of working the patrol flotillas explained in the enclosed memorandum, has actually been enforced, it is in complete violation not only of the obvious principles of war, but of all the orders and directions issued on this subject during the last three years. The word ‘distribution’ applied to armed force implies the most vicious ideas. To proceed by dividing the front to be watched by the number of destroyers available for watching and working out the number of miles to the destroyers is the negation of good sense and military principle. ”

“ It kept a small navy just sufficient for an occasional showing of the flag in foreign waters and for doing its part of the police of the seas. Whenever an extraordinary emergency arose, such as a war with a foreign Power or an insurrection of formidable proportions at home, it organized armed forces on a larger scale by calling out volunteers who were enlisted in the service of the Republic, not as a regular standing army is, for doing whatever task might turn up, but for a well-defined, specific purpose, to be disbanded again as soon as that specific purpose was accomplished. ”

“ I cannot honour that service by lending countenance to a waste of life and resources in raids upon unimportant settlements, with plunder for their only object. The responsibility for such decisions must rest with you, and with you alone. I desire M. de Cussy to report me to the Ministers of France. For the rest, monsieur, it merely remains for you to give me your orders. I await them aboard my ship—and anything else, of a personal nature, that you may feel I have provoked by the terms I have felt compelled to use in this council. M. le Baron, I have the honour to wish you good-day. ”

“ I know of no moment in the period of which I am writing up to the declaration of war in which it was physically possible for the British Fleet to have been surprised or 158caught dispersed and divided by any serious German force of surface vessels. An attempt in full peace to make a submarine attack upon a British squadron in harbour or exercising, or to lay mines in an area in which they might be expected to exercise, could not wholly be provided against; but in all human probability its success would only have been partial. ”

“ This simply means that the enemy is winning the war. There is no mystery about that. The submarines are rapidly cutting the Allies' lines of communication. When they are cut, or sufficiently interfered with, we must accept the enemy's terms."
Six days before our destroyers put in at Queenstown I sent this message to Mr. Page:
Allies do not now command the sea. Transport of troops and supplies strained to the utmost and the maintenance of the armies in the field is threatened.
Such, then, was the situation when our little destroyer flotilla first went to sea to do battle with the submarine. ”

“ Whatever their motives, therefore, may have been——reason, conscience, and candour, must acquit them of the consequences. It should be recollected, too, that Monsieur Suffrein’s character was a very probable security, in the mind of men of sense and honour, against any act of horrid inhumanity: his conduct as an Officer had made a new æra in the Naval History of France: his talents and courage might be compared, without disadvantage, to those of the best of our British Admirals; and he had exhibited marks of uncommon generosity to those whom the chance of war had thrown into his hands. ”

“ In the trying months that have followed, the readiness and fitness of our men and ships have been tested and established, amid perils more insidious and baffling than those ever before confronted by a nation at war. The navy has sunk submarines, captured officers and men on U-boats, and driven many into hiding. ”

“ About a dozen soldiers moved at the call of instinct—moved a little—looked about them, and shuffled back to their places again. The rest budged not an inch. A long and horrid silence followed. The Colonel's face turned grey.
"Soldiers," he said, "I have given you an order; remember the honour of the regiment. Form,—fours." This time not a man moved. "As you were," he shouted desperately, though it was an unnecessary command. "The battalion will advance in quarter-column. Quick march!" ”