CHAPTER I A CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
The date was the 21st of March, 1916.
It was the usual Wilhelmshaven prize weather, blowing great guns, squalls chasing one another across the sea, grim, blue-gray clouds scudding unceasingly across the sky, while the rain battered on the window-panes and threatened at every fiercer gust to burst them in.
I was just in from a spell of outpost duty, and was looking forward to a very comfortable day indoors, when some one hammered at the knocker.
It was an orderly, bringing an urgent message from my chief. I looked a second time at the address; but there was no mistake about it. My chief wished to see me at 5 p.m. As a rule, these formal invitations from the great boded no good to the recipient. 'All the officers have had them, sir,' said the orderly, who perhaps guessed my thoughts. Thank Heaven, then, there was, at any rate, no need to worry as to what crime I had committed. But I could not help wondering what was in the wind....
The long tramp in the streaming rain was well repaid.
Our flotilla had had orders to supply a volunteer crew—one officer, five warrant and petty officers, and sixteen men—for special service, an expedition about the goal and purpose of which nothing could for the present, for military reasons, be allowed to become known. The utmost despatch had been enjoined.
Every one of the officers, of course, was eager to go. At the end of the interview my chief gave me a searching glance, and said, 'I have proposed you for the command of this expedition. What have you to say to that?' It need hardly be mentioned that I did not say No! It had long been my keenest wish to see some service a little out of the ordinary, and now my chance had come. I thought myself at that moment the luckiest man on earth.
Even yet, however, I could not be told any particulars. But the facts that the expedition was absolutely secret, that all the crew were to be unmarried men, below a certain age, and that those without dependents were to have the preference—all this pointed to an undertaking of a very special nature indeed.
At five o'clock next morning, before taking out my half-flotilla on patrol for the last time, I assembled the men and talked to them. Purposely, though I myself as yet knew nothing definite, I laid the utmost stress upon the dangers of the expedition, that they might not make up their minds too hastily.
Not until I thought they had some idea of what they were in for, did I give the order: 'Volunteers, three paces forward—march!'
It was a pleasure to see with what alacrity the men stepped forward, to mark how the eager wish to take part in something big was to be read in every eye. Those who held back were all married men, and even among them there were some who took it hard to have to stay behind.
Even so, the choice was difficult enough. Each group of six boats was to furnish so many men; and the whole crew of the 'mystery ship' was not, for certain reasons, to exceed twenty-two.
After much sifting, the choice was at length made. Those chosen were brave, trustworthy, and—a not unimportant point—powerfully built; each one of them a match for two ordinary men.
After four days of uneventful outpost duty, we were back once more. Even before returning I had received by signal the joyful news that my appointment to the command of the Libau—that was to be the name of the mystery ship—had been confirmed.
I lost no time, you may be sure, about proceeding in, locking through, making fast in the inner harbour, and reporting on board the leading-ship of the flotilla. The best of the volunteers from the other sections were chosen, and the ship's company finally made up. The C.O. of the flotilla, Commander Forstmann, bade us farewell in a short and pithy speech; and then we set to at our packing, for by midday the next day we were to be in the train, bound for a destination as yet unknown. That was the sum of our knowledge, for everything was, so far, in Navy phrase, 'extremely hush.' Neither our friends nor our comrades were to know anything of what we had in hand, for a careless word might be picked up by a spy, and might jeopardise the success of our undertaking, to say nothing of costing us our lives.
Next day the train took us to our unknown destination—in fact, to Hamburg. At the dockyard, where we were expected, our first surprise awaited us, in the shape of our future abode. Not, as we had imagined, some patrol boat fitted with all the newest devices, but what, to our outpost-boat ideas, looked, as she lay before us in the evening light, a truly imposing vessel. The chorus of exclamations which broke from my gallant fellows showed that they were as agreeably disappointed as I was myself.
She was not, of course, really 'an Atlantic liner,' as one of my men called her, but on account of her lofty upper-works, and of her being completely empty, she stood high out of the water, which considerably increased her apparent size.
The Libau—why she received this name will be explained later—was an almost new English steamer. Under the name Castro she had formerly belonged to the Wilson Line of Hull, and in the early days of the war she had been brought in as a prize by one of our destroyers.
On board, everything was still in the same condition as when the English crew abandoned her—a welter of oddments of various kinds, hastily pulled-out drawers, papers, and so forth. The engines and boilers, which had been overhauled by the dockyard people, and the living accommodation for officers and men, which had likewise been re-conditioned, made by contrast a quite satisfactory impression. On the bridge, on the other hand, and in the chart-house—with us the holy-of-holies of every ship—everything was rather neglected-looking. In an English tramp steamer that did not, of course, surprise us.
After the necessary interviews, we formally took over the ship; and a watch was set, to make sure that no unauthorised person found his way on board.
We were to start next morning on the first stage of our voyage, and from now on there was to be no leave, so we had plenty of time to shake down into our new quarters, and with the small quantity of belongings that we had with us that was soon accomplished—except in the case of two of our number. The exceptions were the cook and steward, excellent fellows both, all-round men, who were as useful on deck as in their own domains. These latter, in the Libau, were from their point of view of a truly magnificent spaciousness, for in the little outpost-boats they had been accustomed to perform the mysteries of their office in the most cramped of two-by-fours. In stormy weather, up to their knees in water, holding their gear with both hands, and themselves by their eyelashes, they had perforce adapted themselves to a painfully acrobatic existence. Now they could spread themselves to their heart's content; and so they rattled and rummaged, and arranged and rearranged their possessions, until far into the night.
As for me, as I lay in my bunk that night I could not help recalling how, a bare two years before, while still fourth-officer of a Lloyd liner, I used often to picture to myself how splendid it would be to be given the command of an ocean-going steamer, while one was still young enough to enjoy it. At that time the goal of my desires seemed infinitely distant. Now I stood on the threshold of their fulfilment.
That night I slept excellently—for the last time for many months.