A SWEET SMELLING SAVOUR
I
Some rave about the subtle scents of Araby and Ind,
Of camphor and of ambergris, of sandal-wood and musk,
The poet chants the praises of the violet and the rose,
And stately lilies standing by the dew-drenched lawn at dusk.
II
My lady loves the lavender with, slender ...
The lover loves whatever perfume ...
The cow-slips simple fragrance ...
The pine-wood's spicy ...
III
But, far beyond all ...
The smell of ...
"It fair to druv me crazy huntin' fer that missin' peece," said "Joe" with a hurt sort of "'twas-ever-thus" expression in his eyes; "an' I felt it espeshul, sir, becus I writes po'try and songs a bit mysel'. 'E was jest workin' up tu a climacks, an' I'm wonderin' all th' time what it wuz that smelt better'n 'ambygris' an' musk an' roses an' lilies an' all the rest. D'yu spose, sir, it cud a bin that stuff they put in brilyantin?" and he ran stubby fingers through his hair in an apparent endeavour to waft me a whiff of the odour which had been there the Sunday before the last coaling.
A frivolous impulse prompted me to bid him ask the "X. Y. Z.'s" pigs, but the look in his eyes sobered me, and I said I felt sure it must have been "Attar of Roses," as that was said to be the most expensive of all perfumes.
"Joe" returned the fragment to his pocket, a brooding shadow sitting on his brow. "Ther' wuz only one thing ever fussed me more'n not locatin' th' end o' that pome, sir," he said sadly, beginning to fumble anew, "and that wuz this."
The greasy fragment which he unfolded and handed to me barely hung together at the blackened creases, but—well, no one who has ever watched wardroom firelight throw its rosy glow over the pinky pages of La Vie Parisienne will ever fail to recognise the flimsiest wisp of it blowing before a winter gale.
"That's th' wrong side, sir," said "Joe," as I took the sheet tenderly and began to puzzle my way through a chart which was averred to be some sort of barometer of the emotions. "Scuse me, sir, but this is th' way. No, not like that. You've got 'er upside down. Ther', that's 'er, or ruther wot's left o' 'er. Now wot d'yu think o' that fer tough luck?"
It had been just the usual La Vie picture, nothing more or nothing less. A frou-frou of lingerie, a flash or two of pink cuticle, and—the rest was torn away.
"Wot makes it 'arder tu bear," said "Joe" mournfully, "is th' fack that it ain't offen that th' orficers let th' pictur' pages drift this far forrard th' wardroom. I 'ad picked up th' 'parly-voo' pages offen enuf, but a pictur', nary a one. An' now w'en this one comes, it's ripped off jest when it 'gins tu get good. Spose sum orficer, tryin' tu save matches, used th' best o' 'er tu lite 'is pipe wi."
I think that I did quite the kindest thing possible under the circumstances when I patted "Joe" sympathetically on the shoulder and assured him that, so far as my not inconsiderable experience with La Vie pictures went, there was nothing to indicate that this one "got any better" on the missing fragment, and that I felt quite confident that "th' best o' 'er" had not gone to light an "orficer's pipe."
Apparently a good deal cheered, "Joe" returned lightsomely to "shop," and told me with much gusto of a great find he had had that morning in the shape of an "'arf pound o' solid beef" hidden away in the angle of a bone. His first impulse, he said, had been to report the careless cook to the Fleet Paymaster, but on second thought he had decided to say nothing and contribute the morsel as "extra ration" to his mess.
"That way," he said philosophically, "I'll stop th' waste jest the same, an' yet won't start a ructshun wi' one o' me colleegs that mite throw me collectin' macheenry out o' order. Nuthin' like cuttin' down fricshun in this 'ere econ'my game."
There is a "Boney Joe" on every ship of the British Navy to-day. Could we not do with a few more of him in civil life as the time draws near when the hope of victory rests more and more on personal economy and universal saving?
[CHRISTMAS IN A "HAPPY" SHIP]
There was a hint of Christmas in the long stacks of parcels mail on the station platform and the motley array of packages in the hands of the waiting sailors, but for the rest there was nothing to differentiate the "Fleetward"-bound train from the same train as one might have seen it on any other day of the year. There is only a certain small irreducible minimum of men which can be spared from a fighting ship which at any time is liable to be sent into action, and the season sacred to the Prince of Peace is no exception.
To the average land-lubber nothing could appear nearer to the height of misfortune than the lot of the sailor who has to leave a nice, warm, comfortable hearthside in the south of England and return to his unceasing vigil in the storm-tossed northern seas at the one time of year set apart above all others for the family and the home, and I did my best to introduce a note of sympathy into my voice when I tried to condole with the ruddy-faced man-o'-war's man who had kindly volunteered to help me find my compartment.
"'Ard to be goin' back abord on Crismus Day, you think, sir?" he asked with a grin. "P'haps it is jest a bit 'ard to leave the missus jest now, but—ther' ain't no qu'ues in Scarpa Flow, and I've got a jolly good lot o' mates waitin' fer me in the ol' ——. She's a happy ship if ther' ever wuz un, an' Crismus at sea ain't 'arf so bad as you mite think, sir."
That there were several hundred similar-minded philosophers travelling by that train became evident at a point where they met and mingled for a space with some of the "lucky" ones who were gathering there to go home on a leave which had providentially coincided with the holiday season. Scan as closely as I would the men in the long blue lines, there was nothing to distinguish the "returning from" to the "going on" save the fact that the former were bulging with Christmas parcels.
Nor was there about any of the officers I met in the course of my northward journey any suggestion of an air of martyrdom on account of the fact that it was their lot to spend Christmas afloat instead of ashore. One of them was going to join a Destroyer Flotilla leader, and was too busy congratulating himself on the fact that he was to be second to a commander who had the reputation of having a "nose for trouble," and the faculty of always being "among those present" when anything of interest occurred in the North Sea to have time to lament the fact that he was missing—this time by only a couple of days—his eighth consecutive Christmas with his family. Another had equally high hopes of the life of adventure which awaited him in the light cruiser he had been appointed to, and a third entertained me for an hour with yarns of wardroom pranks on a battleship to which he was returning after a special course in gunnery at a south-coast port. It was the latter who used the identical expression in describing his ship as had been employed by the sailor I have quoted above.
"She's a happy ship, is the old ——," he said with an affectionate smile, "and it's glad I am to be getting back to her again."
The only man I met on the whole journey who seemed in the least sorry for himself was a King's Messenger—he was carrying a turkey under one arm and a dispatch box under the other—who complained that his schedule would not take him back to London until Christmas afternoon.
In the battleship to which I reported about the only evidence of Yule-tide observable on my arrival was the huge accumulation of "homebound" letters which the wardroom officers were engaged in censoring. The day before Christmas was distinctly "routine," with just a suggestion of festivity beginning to become manifest towards evening. The loungers by the wardroom fire smoked, chatted, and read the paper for an hour after dinner was over, but showed no disposition to melt away to bed as in the usual order of things. About ten o'clock a violin, banjo, and a one-stringed fiddle with a brass horn attached made their appearance, and upon these never entirely harmonising instruments their owners began inconsequentially to strum and scrape. As fragments of familiar airs became faintly recognisable, the loungers began to lay aside papers and cigars and to join in the choruses in that half-furtive manner so characteristic of the Briton in his first fore-running essays at "close harmony." Until he is assured of the vocal support of his neighbour, there is no sound in the world—from the roar of the lion to the roar of the cannon—which the average Englishman dreads so much as that of his own voice raised in song.
Volume increased with confidence, and it was not many minutes before the choruses were booming at full blast. For a while it was the more popular numbers from the late London revues which had the call, but these soon gave way to ragtime, and that in turn to those old familiar songs which have warmed the hearts and bound closer the ties of comradeship of the good fellows of the Anglo-Saxon world since ships first began to set sail from the shores of England to people the ends of the earth. From "Clementine" and "Who Killed Cock Robin?" to "Swanee River," and "My Old Kentucky Home," there was not a song that I had not heard—and even boomed raucously away in the choruses of myself—a hundred times in all parts of America. Every one of them is in the old "College Song Book," not a one of them, but which every man of the millions America is training for the Great Fight could have joined in without faking a word or a note.
A slight shifting of the gilt braid on the blue sleeves, a reshuffling of the papers and magazines on the table, and the wardroom of the —— might have passed for that of any American battleship. The interposing of four poster and pennant peppered walls, the placing of the lounging figures in proper mufti, and you would have had a room in an American college "frat house" or club. The men, the songs, the vibrant spirit of good fellowship would have done for either of the settings.
Poignantly suggestive of the things of bygone college days was the change which came over the spirit of the scene when an exuberant young sub-lieutenant began doing stunts by trying to climb round a service chair without touching the deck. His inevitable fall upset the tilted chair of a visiting "snotty," who was playing his mandolin, and an instant later the two were rolling in a close embrace. Suddenly some one shouted "scrum!" and with an impetuous rush the singers ranged themselves into two rival "Rugger" teams, each trying to push the other against the wall.
Twitching at the stir of long dormant impulses, I restrained myself with an effort from mixing in the joyous mêlée, and maintained my dignity as a newly arrived visitor by backing into a corner and erecting a sofa barricade against the swirling human tide.
"Shades of Stanford and old Encina Hall" (I found myself gasping), "it's a 'rough-house,' a real college 'rough-house.'"
While it lasted that "scrum" had all the fierce abandon of a Freshman-Sophomore "cane rush," but even at its very climax (when it had upset the electric heater and was threatening to engulf the coal stove) there was a differentiation. One sensed rather than saw the thread of control restraining it, and knew that every pushing, laughing player of the game was subconsciously alert for a signal that would send him, tense and ready, to the performance of those complexly simple duties training for which he had given the best part of his life.
"Rugger" gave place to "chair polo," and that highly diverting sport in turn to comparatively "formal" bouts of wrestling and feats of strength and agility. It was while a row of shirt-sleeved figures were at the height of a "bat" competition (which consisted of seeing which one could hang the longest by his toes from a steel beam of the ceiling) that the Fleet Surgeon edged gingerly in behind my barrier and remarked that it was "funny to think how that up-ended line of young fighting cocks might be tumbling from their roost to go to action stations at the next tick of the clock. And they'd fight just like they play," he went on, fingering a sprained wrist that was proffered for diagnosis. "We've not a single case of any kind in the hospital to-day, and the men are just as healthy in mind as they are in body. It's half the battle, let me tell you, to live in a happy ship."
Christmas morning broke cold and clear, with a roystering wind from the north furrowing the Flow with translucent ridges of white-capped jade and chrysoprase. All but the imperative routine duties of the ship were suspended, and the men spent many hours decorating the mess deck for their midday feast. When all was ready the band, its various members masquerading as everything from Red Cross nurses and ballet girls to German naval prisoners and American cowboys, came to lead the Captain and wardroom officers on their ceremonial Christmas visiting round. From mess to mess we marched, the capering band leading the way and a policeman with a "sausage" club shepherding the stragglers at the rear. Every table was loaded not only with its Christmas dinner, but also with all the gifts received by those who sat there, as well as with any trinkets or souvenirs they had picked up in the course of their foreign cruises. Especially and intentionally conspicuous were numerous home photographs, stuck up in or propped against the cakes and boxes of sweets. Most of the tables had "Merry Christmas" and various other seasonal mottoes printed with letters ingeniously built from cigarettes.
A running fire of greeting met us at every turn, and at each table cigarettes, sweets, or chunks of succulent plum pudding were pressed upon us. Acceptance for the most part was on the ancient "touch and remit" system. I noticed that the officers spoke to most of the men directly under them by name, and that the exchange of greetings was invariably of unfeigned cordiality on both sides. The tour completed, the band escorted us aft, where, with a hearty three cheers and a "tiger" for the Captain and Commander severally, and the wardroom officers jointly, it left us and rollicked back to serenade the feasters forward.
Christmas chapel was a simple Church of England service without a sermon, followed by Holy Communion for those who desired to celebrate it. Luncheon, in order that the wardroom servants could be free for feasting with their mates, was on the buffet plan, each officer serving himself from a side table.
Two or three of the men with whom I had spoken in the course of the morning round, had used that now familiar expression about the good fortune of being in a "happy" ship, but the climax was capped that evening at dinner (at which the wardroom entertained the Warrant Officers) when the Captain employed it in explaining the easy bonne camaraderie characterising that interesting occasion. I had told him how many times I had heard the words in question since my arrival, and asked him point blank if I was to assume by implication that the other ships of the Fleet were only dismal prisons of steel in comparison.
"Perhaps the men would try to make you believe something to that effect," he laughed, "but so also would those of the '——,' and the '——,' and the '——' regarding each other, the rest of the squadron and the whole of the Grand Fleet. As a matter of fact, if you had been on any one of them during the last twenty-four hours, you would probably have seen and heard and experienced just about what you have seen and heard and experienced here. You will not go far wrong if you say we are all 'Happy Ships' up here. The 'Happy Ship' is a tradition of the British Navy, and it's the one type of craft which does not become out of date with the march of science and the passage of the years."
[IN A BALLOON SHIP]
I had crossed in the old Xerxes in those ancient days when, as the latest launched greyhound of the Cunarder fleet, she held for a few precarious months the constantly shifting blue-ribbon for the swiftest transatlantic passage; but in that angular "cubistic" lump of lead-grey looming over the bow of my spray-smothered launch to blot out the undulant skyline of the nearest Orkney, there was not one familiar feature. Her forward funnel had been "kippered" down the middle to somewhere about on the level of the lower deck, and carried up in two smaller stacks which rose abreast to port and starboard. This had been done (as I learned later) to make room for a platform leading forward from the waist over which seaplanes could be wheeled to the launching-stage, which ran out over the bow from beneath the bridge. The break in the forecastle had been closed in connexion with a sweeping alteration which had converted the whole forward end of the main deck into a roomy seaplane "repository" and repair shop.
The changes aft were no less startling. The old poop seemed to have been razed to extend the last two hundred feet of the main deck, and over the ten or fifteen-feet-high railing, which surrounded this, the top of a partly inflated observation balloon showed like the back of a half-submerged turtle. The whole effect was weird and "impossible" in the extreme, and I felt like exclaiming with the yokel who saw a giraffe for the first time: "Aw, there ain't no such animal."
I had been asked aboard the Xerxes for an afternoon of seaplane and balloon practice. I had already seen a good deal of the former at various points in the Mediterranean and Adriatic, but the towed observation balloon—the "kite," as they call it—was an entirely new thing. I "put in" at once for an ascent in a kite, for I was anxious not only to get some sort of a firsthand idea of how it was being employed against submarines—of which I had already heard not a little—and also to compare the work with that of handling the ordinary observation balloons, of which I had seen so much in France, Italy, and the Balkans. The captain—whom I found just getting the ship under weigh from the bridge—after some hesitation, promised to "see what he could do," if there was not too much wind, when he was ready for "balloon work."
To one who has had experience only of hangars on land, perhaps the most impressive thing about an "aeroship" is the amount of gear and equipment which can be stowed and handled in restricted spaces. Wings and rudders which fold and refold upon each other until they form compact bundles that can be trundled about by a man or two, collapsible fuselages and pontoons, wheels which detach at a touch of a lever, "knock-down" transmissions—these things were everywhere the rule. One "baby" scout I saw almost completely assembled on the launching-stage, and the "tail," which a couple of men wired to the main body in a little more than a minute, I would have sworn I could have knocked off with a single well-placed kick. Yet, five minutes later, I saw that same machine "loop," "side-flop," "double-bank," and (quite at the will of its young pilot, who is rated the most expert seaplane man in the British Naval Air Service) recover at the end of a five-hundred-feet rolling fall, all without apparently starting a strut or rivet. "Collapsibility" and portability are evidently secured without sacrificing any essential strength.
The science of working the seaplane from the deck of a ship is still in process of development. Even up to quite recently it was the practice to put a machine overboard on a sling, and allow it to start from the water. The use of detachable wheels—which fall off into the sea after they have served their purpose in giving the preliminary run—has made launching from the deck practicable and comparatively safe, but the problem of landing even a wheeled machine on deck has not yet been satisfactorily solved. On account of lack of room, most of the experiments in this direction have ended disastrously, even tragically.
When a seaplane is about to be launched, after the usual preliminary "tuning" up on the launching-stage, the ship is swung dead into the teeth of the wind and put at full speed. This matter of wind direction is very important, for its variation by a fraction of a point from "head-on" may easily make a crooked run and a fluky launching. As the latter would almost inevitably mean that both plane and pilot must be churned under the swiftly advancing fore-foot of the ship, no precautions calculated to avoid it are omitted. Besides a wind-pennant at one end of the bridge, assurance is made doubly sure by the turning on of a jet of steam in the mathematical centre of the extreme tip of the launching-stage. When the back-blown steam streams straight along the middle plank of the stage, the wind is "right."
The captain, from the bridge, lifts a small white flag as a signal to the wing-commander that all is ready. The latter nods to the pilot, who starts his engine at full speed, while two mechanicians, braced against cleats on the deck, hold back the tugging seaplane. If the "tone" of the engine is right, the wing-commander (standing in front of the plane, and a little to one side) brings down his red-and-yellow flag, with a sharp jerk, falls on his face to avoid a collision, and the machine, freed from the grip of the men holding it, jumps away. The next two seconds tell the tale, for if a seaplane "gets off the deck" properly, the rest of its flight is not likely to be "eventful."
At practice, a seaplane sails over and drops its detachable wheels near a waiting drifter, which picks them up and returns them to the ship. The machine swoops low, and "kicks" loose the "spares" at a hundred feet or less above the surface of the water, and a pilot who let his wheels go from a considerably greater altitude drew a growl from the bridge, as a long fall is likely to injure them. Its flight over, a seaplane returns to the ship by alighting on the water several hundred yards astern, and floundering up alongside as best it can. With a high wind and a choppy sea, it is rough work. The machine is so "balanced" that its tractor propeller should revolve in the air and clear the water by several inches, even in a rough sea. It will occasionally strike into "green water," however, which is always likely to shatter the ends of the blades, if nothing else. The sheathing of the blades with metal affords considerable protection, though a certain risk is always present. The operation of picking a seaplane up and hoisting it inboard is a nice piece of seamanship at best, but in bad weather is a practicable impossibility. With a wind much above thirty miles an hour, indeed, only a very real need is likely to induce a "mother ship" to loose her birds from the home nest. With a sea too rough to make it possible for a seaplane to live in it, it is sometimes possible to carry on imperative reconnaisance by sending up an ordinary aeroplane (some of which are always carried); though the latter must, of course, make its landing on terra firma when its work is over.
The wind had been freshening considerably all afternoon, but with no more than thirty miles an hour showing on the indicator, there was no reason for not letting me have my "balloon ride."
As the time approached for its ascent, the balloon was allowed to rise far enough from the deck to permit its car to be pushed underneath the centre of it, in order that the latter might not be dragged in the "getaway." I could now see that the monster had rather the form of the "bag" of an airship than the "silkworm-with-stomach-cramps" shape of the regulation modern observation balloon. Its nose was less blunt than that of the "sausage," and the ropes were attached so that it would be pulled with that nose boring straight into the wind, instead of tilted upwards like that of its army prototype. The three "stabilisers" at its stern were located, and appeared to function, similarly with those of the "sausage."
The basket was mid-waist deep, and just big enough to hold comfortably two men sitting on the strips of canvas which served as seats. Supplementing our jackets, two small life-preservers of the ordinary type were lashed to the inside of the basket. When I asked about parachutes, I was told that, while it was customary to carry them, on this occasion—as they were worse than useless to a man who had not practised with them—it was best not to bother myself with one. "Stick to the basket if anything happens," some one said; "it will float for a month, even if full of water." Some one else admonished not to blow up my jacket until we had stopped rising, lest it (from the expanding air, I suppose) should in turn blow me up. Then we were off. The last thing I noticed on the deck was the ship's cat, which I had observed a few moments previously rubbing his arched back ecstatically against a sagging "stabiliser," making a wild leap to catch one of the trailing guide-ropes.
"He always does that," I heard my companion saying behind me. "Some day perhaps he will catch it, and then—if it happens at a time when there isn't an opportunity to wind in and let him down easy—I'm afraid there won't be a one of his nine lives left in the little furry pancake it will make of him when he hits the water. It's surprising how the water will flatten out a—anything striking it at the end of a thousand feet fall. Only the week before last——"
To deflect the conversation to more cheering channels, I began to exclaim about the view. And what a view it was! The old Xerxes was lying well down towards one end of the mighty bay, so that without turning the head one could sweep the eyes over the single greatest unit of far-reaching might in the whole world war, the Grand Fleet of the British Navy. And in no other way than in ascending in a balloon or a flying machine could one attain a vantage from which the whole of the fleet could be seen. Looking from the loftiest fore-top, from the highest hill of the islands, there was always a point in the distance beyond which there was simply an amorphous slaty blur of ships melting into the loom of the encircling land. But now those mysterious blurs were crystallising into definite lines of cleavage, and soon—save where some especially fantastic trick of camouflage made one ship look like two in collision, or played some other equally scurvy trick on the vision—I could pick out not only battleships, but cruisers, destroyers, submarines, ranged class by class and row on row. Even the method in the apparent madness with which the swarms of supply ships, colliers, oilers, trawlers, and drifters were scattered about was discernible.
Save for the visibility, which was diamond-clear in the slanting light of the low-hanging winter sun, it was just an ordinary, average Grand Fleet day. A squadron of battleships was at target practice, and—even better than their own gunnery officers—we could tally the foam-jets of the "wides" and "shorts" and the narrowing "straddles." A squadron of visiting battle-cruisers had just come to anchor and were swinging lazily round to the tide. Two of them bore names which had echoed to the ends of the world; the names of two of the others—from their distinctive lines and great size, I recognised them as twin giants I had seen still in the slips on the Clyde scarcely a year previously—the world has never heard. A lean, swift scout-cruiser, with an absence of effort almost uncanny, was cleaving its way out toward the entrance just as a line of destroyers came scurrying in after the rolling smoke-pall the following wind was driving on ahead of them. Out over the open seas to the east, across the hill-tops of the islands, dim bituminous dabs on the horizon heralded the return of a battleship squadron, the unceremonious departure of which two days previously had deprived me of the last two courses of my luncheon. In the air was another "kite"—floating indolently above a battleship at anchor—and a half-dozen circling aeroplanes and seaplanes. Countless drifters and launches shuttled in and out through the evenly lined warships.
We were now towing with the cable forming an angle of about sixty degrees with the surface of the water, and running up to us straight over the port quarter. The ship had thinned down to an astonishingly slender sliver, not unsuggestive of a speeding arrow whose feathered shaft was represented by the foaming wake.
"She's three or four points off the wind," commented my companion, "and yet—once we've steadied down—you see it doesn't make much difference in the weather we make of it. A head wind is desirable in getting up to keep from fouling the upper works amidships, but we hardly need to figure it down to the last degree as in launching a seaplane. When we're really trying to find something, of course, we have to work in any slant of wind that happens to be blowing. The worst condition is a wind from anywhere abaft the beam, blowing at a faster rate than the towing ship is moving through the water. In that case, the balloon simply drifts ahead to the end of its tether, swings around, and gives the ship a tow. If the wind is strong enough—say, forty miles an hour, with the ship doing twenty—to make her give a good steady pull on the cable, it is not so bad; but when it is touch-and-go between ship and wind the poor old 'kite' is all over the shop, and about as difficult to work in as to ride in—which is saying a good deal."
"What do you mean by work?" I asked.
"Looking out for things and reporting them to the ship over the telephone," was the reply. "Perhaps even trying to run them down and destroy them."
"Can't we play at a bit of work now?" I suggested. "Supposing we were at sea, and you saw what you thought to be the wake of the periscope of a U-boat a few miles away. What would you do?"
My companion laughed. "Well," he said, "if I had the old Xerxes down there on the other end of the string, I should simply report the bearing and approximate distance of the periscope over the telephone, and let her do the rest."
"And what would 'the rest' consist of?" I asked.
"Principally of turning tail and running at top speed for the nearest protected waters," was the reply, "and incidentally 'broad-casting' a wireless giving position of the U-boat and the direction it was moving in."
"But supposing it was a destroyer we had 'on the string'?" I persisted; "and that you had no other present interest in the world beyond the finding of one of these little V-shaped ripples. The modus operandi would vary a bit in that case, wouldn't it?"
"Radically," he admitted. "I would give the destroyer what I figured was the shortest possible course to bring her into the vicinity of the U-boat. As long as the wake of the periscope was visible, I would correct that course from time to time by ordering so many degrees to port or to starboard, as the case might be. As soon as the periscope disappeared—which it would do, of course, just as soon as the eye at the bottom of it saw the 'kite'—I would merely make a guess at the submarine's most likely course, and steer the destroyer to converge with that. Our success or failure would then hinge upon whether or not I could get my eye on the submarine where it lurked or was making off under water. In that event—provided only there was enough light left to work with—it would be long odds against that U-boat ever seeing Wilhelmshaven again. Just as you guide a horse by turning it to left or right at the tug of a rein, so, by giving the destroyer a course, now to one side, now to the other, until it was headed straight over its prey, I would guide the craft at the other end of the telephone-wire to a point from which a depth-charge could be dropped with telling effect. If the conditions were favourable, I might even be able to form a rough estimate of the distance of the U-boat beneath the surface, to help in setting the hydrostat of the charge to explode at the proper depth. If the first shot fails to do the business, we have only to double back and let off another. Nothing but the coming of night or of a storm is likely to save that U-boat once we've spotted it."
"Is it difficult to pick up a submarine under water?" I asked.
"That depends largely upon the light and the amount of sea running," was the reply. "Conditions are by no means so favourable as in the Mediterranean, but, at the same time, they are much better than in some other parts of the North Sea and the Atlantic. The condition of the surface of the water also has a lot to do with it. You can see a lot deeper when the sea is glassy smooth than when it is even slightly rippled. Waves tossed up enough to break into white-caps make it still harder to see far below the surface, while enough wind (as to-day) to throw a film of foam all over the water cuts off the view completely. On a smooth day, for instance, a drifter which lies on the bottom over there—deeper down than a U-boat is likely to go of its own free will—is fairly clearly defined from this height. To-day you couldn't find a sunk battleship there."
I remarked on the fact that, in spite of the heavy wind, our basket was riding more steadily than that of any stationary observation balloon I had ever been up in at the front. "It 'yaws' a bit," I observed, "but I have never been up in a balloon with less of that 'jig-a-jig' movement which makes it so hard to fix an object with your glasses."
"The latest 'stabilisers' have just about eliminated the troublesome 'jig-a-jig,'" replied my companion.
He turned to me with a grin. "You're in luck," he said. "Ship's heading up into the wind to let a seaplane go just as they're ready to wind us in. You'll learn, now, why they call one of these balloons a 'kite.' There they go! Hold fast!"
There was a sudden side-winding jerk, and then that perfectly good seascape—Grand Fleet, Orkneys, the north end of Scotland, and all—was hashed up into something full of zigzag lines like a Futuristic masterpiece or the latest thing in "scientific camouflaging." My friends on the deck told me, afterwards, that the basket did not "loop-the-loop," that it did not "jump through," "lie down," and "roll over" like a "clown" terrier in a circus; but how could they, who were a thousand feet away, know better than I, who was on the spot? When I put that poser to them, however, one of them replied that it was because they had their eyes open. The only sympathetic witness I found was one who admitted that, while the "kite" itself behaved with a good deal of dignity, the basket did perform some evolutions not unremotely suggestive of a canvas water-bucket swung on the end of a rope by a sailor in a hurry for his morning "souse."
[COALING THE GRAND FLEET]
A signal came one morning, ordering the Grand Fleet to prepare to proceed to sea, and, almost as though the sparks of the wireless that caught the winged word had themselves lighted the laid and waiting fires, wreaths and coils of smoke began crowning some scores of towering funnels which a few moments before had loomed only in gaunt silhouette against the round snow-clad hillsides which ring the Northern Base.
Presently a dust-begrimed collier shook herself free from the moorings which held her to one of the battleships, and, floundering nervously as though anxious to get out of the way as quickly as possible, nosed off into the sooty wakes of three of her untidy sisters who had been coaling the other ships of the division.
Shortly the Engineer-Commander, his immediate duties at an end for the moment, came up for a breath of fresh air, and fell into step with me on the quarter-deck.
"There you have (so far as the Navy is concerned) the Alpha and the Omega of the coal," he said, motioning with his mittened hand, first toward the retiring colliers, and then, with a sweeping gesture, to where the thickening smoke-columns were beginning to blend in a murky stratum of streaky black above the even lines of the anchored ships.
"All the energy (save only human force, and that stored in food and explosives) of the Fleet comes aboard from its colliers or oilers," he continued; "all that is left of it—after making steam to run the turbines and dynamos, and for working the condensers, cooking, and heating—goes up through the funnels or down through the clinker hoppers."
Then he told me of an incident which had occurred a day or two previously. "Some one came into the wardroom," he said, "and remarked casually that the wireless had just picked up a signal from a ship about to go ashore in the heavy storm then driving outside. 'What is she?' several officers asked with quick concern. 'Only a collier,' was the reply, and everybody, reassured, resumed the reading of their newly arrived papers. 'I was afraid it was a destroyer,' was the only comment any one made.
"That is just to show," said the Engineer-Commander, "how few in a warship (save those of us whose work is the conversion of it into energy) stop to think how vitally important coal really is to us. As a matter of fact, one can easily imagine circumstances in which the loss of a collier would be far more serious than that of a destroyer, cruiser, or even of a battleship."
It will doubtless surprise one not already informed in the matter to know that the average modern battleship lying at anchor and waiting to be ordered to sea may easily consume twenty-five tons of coal a day, which figure will be raised from 50 to 100 per cent. by one or two harbour spins at half or quarter-speed for target practice. The condensers make the greatest demand for coal in a battleship not under steam, with the running of dynamos for the numerous and constantly increasing electrical devices next in order. The galleys where the cooking and baking is done, are third on the list of consumers, with the cheery open grates—which are installed wherever practicable—accounting for the remainder.
The course of the coal from the hold of the collier to where, on the fire-bars, its potential energy is transformed into kinetic power to furnish power for a battleship is an interesting one, though I should not care to follow it quite so closely as did the ring of an officer I met not long ago. Emerging from the hold of a collier after a couple of hours spent there directing sack-filling, he missed a large signet-ring which he had been wearing when he descended into the dusty hole. Search was, of course, out of the question; but, by a lucky chance, he happened to mention his loss to one of the men who had been working in the hold. He, in turn, spoke of it in the mess-decks, which was the only reason that led the stoker, who, three days later at sea, found a shining lump of metal among the clinkers he was raking out to dump, to bring it to the officer in question. The gnarled, ash-pitted lump bore no resemblance to a ring; but a distorted, but still recognisable, section of the seal identified it beyond a doubt. It had been shovelled into a sack of coal, hoisted in the latter to the deck, dumped into a chute, finally to work out of the bottom of a bunker into the stokehold and be thrown under the boilers. A man can make the descent from the deck through an empty bunker to the stokehold without great discomfort, but would hardly survive being shut up in the former for long with the coal.
The speedy coaling of even an eight-knot tramp is almost always desirable; with a warship it may often mean the difference between success and failure. All of the principal navies of the world have given the matter much study and experiment, but down to this day no practicable contrivance has been evolved which will go far toward eliminating the variable human element in coaling. Something can be done with mechanical carriers where a ship can berth alongside high bunkers, but nothing of the kind appears to have been devised that is not too bulky to carry about in either a warship or a collier. The construction of a warship makes it impracticable to have large openings into which coal might be hoisted in bulk from a collier. The American Navy coals its battleships by hoisting that fuel to the decks with huge mechanical "grabs," but, according to such information as is available to me at this moment, this method (while effecting a saving in labour), does not approach for speed records the British have put up by man-handling the coal at every stage of its transit, except the hoisting.
Since a few minutes' time lost in the putting to sea of the million tons or so of warships which the British hold in leash against any sally in force of the German Fleet might easily be enough to spoil the chance of a decisive engagement, quick coaling has perhaps been given more attention in the Grand Fleet since the war than at any other time in the history of the British Navy. The time in which the various classes of ships can put to sea after receiving orders varies in different emergencies, and is hardly a proper topic of discussion in any detail. The coal in the bunkers of no ship is allowed to fall below a very high fixed minimum at any time, and even ships on special missions at sea always have enough in hand to allow them to reach and play a vigorous if tardy part in any conceivable kind of a general engagement that may ensue. The pursuance of this policy is responsible for the frequent and speedy coalings which are so much a feature of the regular "grind" at the Northern Base.
A ship may coal at any hour of the day or night—especially if she is just in from the sea and there appears to be a chance of her being called upon to put out again on short notice—but the usual time is the morning. Barrows and sacks are brought out, and such other preparations as practicable are made the night before. Breakfast is served at an early hour, every one—officers and men—coming down to it in their "coaling togs." The latter may be any old kind of a rig-out calculated to keep the coal-dust from penetrating to a minimum section of the hide of the wearer. A one-piece overall is a favourite garment with both men and officers, and a white summer cap-cover—worn like a cook's head-dress—serves a useful purpose in keeping the dust out of the hair. A layer of vaseline about the eyes makes it easier to remove the dust with soap and water after coaling, and a failure to take this precaution leaves one with the make-up of a moving-picture villain for two or three days. Practically all of the officers, with the exception of the paymasters and medical staff, have duties in connexion with coaling. Ordinarily, these are confined to directing various stages of the operation, but occasionally—perhaps to stimulate action when speedy work is desirable, or for the sheer exhilaration of exercise—one will take a spell with a shovel or barrow. On several ships of the Grand Fleet the Padre is one of the most useful "coalers."
The decks are black with waiting men as the collier comes alongside, and the instant the mooring-lines are made fast several hundred of them—each with a broad short-handled scoop—clamber over her rail and leap down into the open holds. Others toss down bundles of the sacks in which the coal is hoisted aboard. These sacks are a highly important and distinctive factor in British naval coaling, the ingenious way in which they are used being largely responsible for the remarkable speed-records which have been put up. They are made of extremely heavy jute, bound with light manilla rope, and of a size sufficient to hold two hundredweight of coal. At the mouth are two beckets or iron rings, through which the strop is rove. Each sack weighs in the neighbourhood of 16 lb., even when new; water-soaked and smeared with a paste of coal-dust, its weight may be increased by from 20 to 50 per cent. Before the war, the cost of a sack was about 11s. 6d., but the rise in jute must have made it much greater at the present time.
The sacks are filled by scoop in the holds of the collier, and dragged together in bunches of about a dozen each. The wire cable from the hoisting-boom is run through the rings at the mouth of each sack and made fast. As the winch winds in, it tightens and takes up the slack, thus drawing the mouths of the sacks together and preventing the spilling of coal in hoisting. The instant the sacks are hoisted to the deck of the warship a man casts loose one end of the wire cable, and on the swinging back of the whip it is pulled out of the rings, and the coal left ready for the barrowmen.
The barrow employed appears to differ in no essential detail from the truck used by railway porters in handling trunks. It is perhaps a little smaller than the average of the latter, and somewhat more "squattily" built. After the "technique" of picking up and dumping one's sack is mastered, it is by no means difficult to handle, the main point being to trundle it as nearly as possible on the "balance," so that a minimum of strength is wasted in keeping the barrow from "sitting up" and "sitting down." Once these details are understood, any fairly strong man or boy should be equal to the physical exertion of coaling for two or three hours at a stretch without rest. A short, sturdily built man is at something of an advantage over a tall one, as the latter has to stoop considerably to bring his "centre of effort" behind his load.
The wheeling of the sacks, from the point where they are left in a tottering pile on the deck to the opening of the chutes down which their contents are dumped to the bunkers, is the most important stage of the operation, for the way it is carried out makes all the difference between a fast and a slow coaling. Obviously, then, it is to the organisation of this "traffic" that the greatest attention is given.
Since a battleship is primarily made for fighting, the facility with which coal may be taken aboard is necessarily a secondary consideration. Between turrets, hatches, and various other obstructions on the decks, the route by which a coal-sack is wheeled to a chute is always a devious one. Part of it usually runs across open deck, where "double-track traffic" is possible; at other points the way may be so narrow that only a single barrow can be wheeled through at a time, and even that only when carefully steered. To avoid the latter "necks," the returning "empties" must, if possible, find an alternative route, or, if this is not practicable, going and returning barrows must be "flagged" through by turn, as on a congested stretch of city street when half of it is torn up for repairs. The same sort of thing occurs where the track of the loaded barrows crosses that of the returning empties. In both instances it is customary to give "loads" the right-of-way over "empties," the latter watching their chances to push through in the frequent "gaps" in the traffic of the former. It is in the "control" of the traffic at these points, and on the quick-wittedness of the men in keeping out of each other's way and avoiding a jam, that a great part of the secret of speedy coaling lies.
But perhaps we can learn more about it by taking our barrow and falling into line. The frost-silvered metal handles strike a chill to the fingers straight through your woolly mittens; but don't worry on that score—your own animal heat will more than even-up the balance by the time you have kept your place in line for ten minutes. The last of a pile of sacks has just been trundled away, and, to the scream of the winch, another "cluster" is rising slowly out of the hold to take its place. The scoopmen are falling into their stride by this time, and from now on you can expect them to be sending up a fresh "boquet" every forty or fifty seconds. That your barrow wheels may have a fair run, a man with a scoop pushes aside the lumps of coal which have fallen out of the last sacks, and another man shovels them up and throws them into a half-filled sack hanging to the rail. There is a warning cry of "Stand clear!" and the cluster of sacks plumps down upon the deck with a heavy thud.
Even while it is still in the air two men have seized corners of the swaying mass and pushed it along so that it lands in the centre of the rather restricted working space in this particular corner of the fo'c'sle deck. At the same time, one of them frees an end of the wire cable, and, as the boom retreats, the two help to make it run smoothly out through the beckets at the mouths of the sacks. At the release of the encircling grip of the cable some of the sacks begin to topple over, but before one of them has fallen to its side (which would, of course, result in the spilling of a good part of its contents), quick-footed barrowmen have pushed their trucks under them, and they are held sufficiently upright to retain their loads. A tug or two from one of the "loading" men sets a sack straight on a barrow, and the man behind the latter—watching from the corner of an eye to keep from fouling another load—backs quickly but carefully out, executes a dexterous right-about, and trundles off on a trot along the track to the nearest chute.
After three or four barrows have been pushed impatiently past you (the wheel of one of them over the toe of your sea-boot), you suddenly realise that the dump is no place for "Alphonse and Gaston" tactics, and decide to shove in on your own. Your timid advance, however, proves too slow to head off a more pushful mate in a "sou'wester," and he gets the "lip" of his barrow under the sack you had marked for your own. You edge back politely to make an exit for him and his load, and lo!—two other "vultures" pounce in upon the pair of remaining sacks and roll away with them. You jump back towards safety at the "Dump Bosses'" shout of "Stand clear!" step in the scoop of the man who is brushing up the "crumbs," stumble against the man who has charge of the sack on the rail, and in sitting down manage to thrust your barrow between the legs of one of the men who is humouring the fresh "boquet" of coal-sacks into place. So perfect is your camouflage of overall, sou'-wester, and sea-boots, that none of these hasty individuals whose activities you have inadvertently interfered with recognises you as an officer and gentleman in disguise, and each of them (without arresting a single motion) curses you fluently in the picturesque persiflage of the sea.
You salve your barrow as best you can, and stand by for the withdrawal of the "strop," which is your signal for action. In your eagerness you fail to give the "lip" of your barrow that "finessive" safety-razor sweep along the deck which experience subsequently teaches you is the proper way to get under your "White Man's Burden," and give the tottering sack you are nose-diving for a vigorous dig—just the same kind of a dig that the keen-edged "lip" of the barrow you have stepped in front of gives you on your Achillean tendon. The sack totters drunkenly and sludders down upon the deck; you reach the same—less directly, but with greater impact—by caroming off the barrow which has slashed your heel.
A spilled sack—in clogging the nicely adjusted coaling machine—always has the germ of a jam lurking in it, and only the two or three stout fellows who buck their laden barrows straight through the mess you have made—by clearing the last of the sacks away a hair's breadth before the next "boquet" descends upon them—avert disaster now. Luckily, they are able to swear and work at the same time, and, by plying their hands no less vigorously than their tongues, save the situation.
The man who throws the "crumbs" into the sack on the rail is less busy than the other dump hands, and he it is who finds leisure to insinuate that you ought to go to some place where they have no coaling to do. You have no time to consider whether he means—the place you would mean if you were in his place; for your honour is at stake now, and, scowling with grim, coldly calculative determination, you stand for the third trial. Neither too coy nor yet too impulsive this time, but by the exercise of such common sense as is still at your command, you press quietly but firmly toward the cluster of sacks and—by lifting your barrow bodily and jerking it sidewise for a few inches—manage to align it fairly evenly in front of a bulging bag of coal dust. It appears to require about as much effort on the part of one of the "load" hands to wriggle it aboard as it does on your part to tip back your barrow to something like a balance. But the fact remains that you do have it stowed, and are ready to get under weigh.
It is the "coldly calculative, set-jaw" spirit which carries you through the next stage with fair success. It is no easy task to do your "right-about" on the slithery deck, but now that you are a "load" instead of an "empty" a tendency to help you on your way is at once in evidence. A couple of "empties" are edged back an inch or two to give you clearance, and a "load" accelerates to avoid giving you a "sideswipe." Where the deck slopes up under the elevated midship guns the petty officer who stands there to wave the traffic down the proper passage gives your sack a friendly kick to keep your barrow from losing weigh and checking the pushers crowding close on your heels.
You debouch to open deck on the port side and are about to push on in the wake of the man just ahead, when the corner of your eye catches the motion of the left-hand of the "traffic officer," and—with the going easy on the down slope—you execute a neat eight-point alteration of course and bring up smartly in front of an open "man-hole" just in time to replace a man who has dumped his sack and ducked out of your way. Unluckily, you have had no chance to study the "technique" of this operation, and it is not surprising that you run too close and dump your sack so that it falls with its mouth a foot beyond the hole and disgorges a part of its contents on the deck. As a consequence, the two men working here have to drag the sack back before emptying it, where (if you had dumped it properly) they would only have had to lift it by its corners and allow the coal to run out down the chute. Of course, they tell you what they think of you, and while you are answering that you are sorry for your mistake and will know how to avoid it next time, a sharp dig from an only half-checked barrow "lip" on your already wounded "Achilles tendon" helps to drive home the rule that—while there is no ban on talking, swearing and singing to your heart's content—the action of the tongue should not be allowed to paralyse the action of the feet.
The man ahead of you has disappeared at a trot, and in your eagerness to overtake him you lift the handles of your barrow too high, with the consequence that the first lump of coal that gets under the wheels brings it up standing, and you "telescope" against it. The lesson this drives home to you, together with the one that sinks in following the jam you create by your slowness in plunging through the procession of "loads" which must be passed in getting back to the dump, just about rounds out the basic essentials of your barrow-pushing education. You have learned how to keep out of the way; the rest is largely a matter of handling your barrow in a fashion to make the work easier, not only for yourself, but for the others whose operations "dovetail" with yours.
The work in the holds of the collier and the bunkers of the battleship, while perhaps a shade less strenuous physically than barrow-pushing, is a deal more dusty and unpleasant. Four holds are worked in the average collier, and in each of these are about thirty men. These work in six groups, each of which fills and stacks one "cluster" of sacks. The men alternate in holding sacks and shovelling. Special instructions are given that the sacks shall be completely filled, and that no pieces of coal too large to go down the chutes to the bunkers should be put in them. A maul is kept handy in each hold for smashing such lumps. A minimum of a dozen sacks are hoisted at one time, and occasionally this number is increased by two or three.
The coal dust is the unpleasant feature of working in the holds of the colliers, but even there it is nothing to the bunkers, where one actually feels it grinding between his teeth from the moment he enters. The coal falls in a steady stream from the chutes, the dust flying from it like the spray from a waterfall. There is no electric wiring, and the lights are open flares, good ventilation making the danger of an explosion from coal "damp" negligible. The men who work here shovelling the coal away from the chutes and passing it on toward the lower bunkers—would make the average chimney-sweep look like a white-winged angel. There is no way to avoid inhaling the settling dust with every breath, and I could well believe a red-eyed imp o' darkness (whom I found blinking like a bat in the sunshine after the collier had cast off) when he told me that he would be tasting the "bloomin' stuff for the next week."
The more one sees of coaling the more he marvels at the extent to which the human element enters into its success. A crew that is not both quick of foot and quick of wit will never have more than a mediocre coaling record. If a man has not both, when he is not getting in the way of his mates, he will be losing a few seconds here, and a few seconds there, until these run into minutes in the course of two or three hours. Multiplied by five or six hundred—the number of the men at work—it may well make the difference in a coaling rate of many score of tons per hour.
A keen interest and pride in the work is also a sine qua non of fast coaling. No ship in which there is not the best of feeling between the men and officers will ever maintain a high coaling average. Under the stimulus of imminent action, or when preparing to weigh anchor for some favourite port, things will move quickly, but the rate will not be maintained when the regular grind resumes. Indeed, slow coaling is, perhaps, the commonest form of "silent protest" on the part of a dissatisfied crew, and a ship which maintains a steadily depressed "curve of coaling" is generally credited with being due for a general shake-up of personnel.
[THE STOKERS]
Except for the actual lift she receives from a wave, a battleship rolling in a beam sea moves a good deal like an inverted pendulum, so that one feels a minimum of motion when he is down against the skin of a lower hold and the maximum in the foretop. The transition had been a sudden one for me that morning, for the Gunnery Lieutenant, who had been initiating me into the secrets of "Director Firing" in the foretop, brought me back to the main deck and turned me over to the Senior Engineer, who had volunteered to show me what "rough weather" stoking was like.
The big ship was wallowing with that ever-disconcerting "hang" at the end of a roll, such a pause as one never experiences in an ocean liner which (with no heavy guns and only light upper works) needs no great amount of time to make up its mind as to whether or not it is worth while going to the trouble of getting back on an even keel. As we put one reeling steel ladder after another above us in our descent, the roll decreased as the tumult of crashing waves was stilled to muffled jolts, and, with a flight or two still to go, we were steady enough on our feet to have both hands free to lift the heavy air-tight "flap" of the boiler-room.
As I ducked under the "flap" the chill, damp, clammily clinging air of the decks above was assailed by a sharp blast which, however hot and dry, was still (at least in comparison with the heavy atmosphere of the higher 'tween decks spaces) fresh and invigorating. Although far from an earthly paradise in a ship on an equatorial run, the stokehold of a battleship that is battened down against heavy winter weather is in some respects the most comfortable spot aboard her.
Certainly the half-dozen brawny fellows who sat or lounged against the steel bulkhead of the half of the boiler-room into which we had descended did not look to be having anything like so bad a time of it as an equal number of oilskinned seamen I had seen but a few minutes before bracing themselves against the seas sweeping the icy forecastle deck as they tried to repair a smashed ventilator. Grimy they were, to be sure, but otherwise there was little about them to suggest the sweating, stripped-to-the-waist, in-to-the-last-gasp stoker of romance and popular fancy.
To one who has pictured the stoker as a gaunt-eyed demon steadily shovelling coal under a boiler for four hours, the first glimpse of a stokehold of a warship that is in no great hurry to get somewhere will come as a good deal of a surprise. The place is neither especially dirty nor especially hot. Neither the letting the coal slide down by its own weight from the encompassing bunkers nor the cracking up of the occasional lumps which are too large for even combustion raises as much dust as the dumping of a single sack upon one of the upper decks.
The footing on the grilled steel plates of the deck is firm and sure, and, as I have said, there is less motion in the stokehold than in any other part of the ship. It might conceivably happen in destroyers, but the stories of men half-roasted from being thrown against the furnace doors in storms do not originate on battleships.
But let us see how these comfortable, easy-moving chaps manage to handle the fuel sufficient to send twenty-five or thirty thousand tons of steel hurtling through the seas with so little apparent haste or effort. The running back of a sliding steel door brings a stream of coal running out of one of the bunkers, coal which, dumped from sacks into the entrance of a chute on one of the upper decks, has worked its way downward by gravity as that beneath it has been fed to the furnaces. This stream is caught in a "skip" of steel, shaped like the half of a cylinder and capable of holding something like a couple of hundredweight. Sliding fairly easily over the grilled deck—pushed by one man and pulled by another—the "skip" loads are dumped evenly along in front of the twelve doors which open—four to each—to the three furnaces under the boilers occupying this half of the stokehold. Now we come to the actual stoking.
A bell suddenly clangs, echoing sharply from the steel walls, and instantly two of the lounging figures quicken to the alert. One scoops up a shovelful of coal and the other steps forward and rests a hand on the lever running to one of the furnace doors. A second or two later, as a number shows on a dial at the side, the latter pushes the lever sharply, and the door is pressed upwards, revealing a glowing bed of fire running back out of sight under the boiler. The shovel is already swinging forward as the door rises, and, missing that steel plate by a fraction of an inch, its contents are discharged—with a quick "wristy" motion which scatters the coal evenly over the fire—into the furnace.
As the shovel is drawn back the lever is released, permitting the door to fall shut of its own weight. With all possible speed another scoop is filled with coal and the operation repeated once or twice more according to the speed which it is desired to maintain. Then the two men relax and stand at ease until another clanging of the bell heralds the number of the next furnace to be fired. Then the door is lifted and the coal thrown in as before, the operation going on until each of the twelve has received its two, three, or four shovels, when—always subject to the indicator on the wall—it begins over again.
If a lump of coal is larger than a man's fist it is cracked up before being thrown into the furnace. As the stoker swings his filled shovel toward the opening door his trained eye is looking for two things—a pronounced hollow in the bed of coals, or a spot in which the duller glow tells him the combustion is considerably advanced. If neither is visible he gives his shovel a very sharp side flirt and spreads its contents just as widely and evenly as he possibly can. If he observes a hollow he endeavours to even it up with fresh coal. A burnt-out spot also receives fresh fuel, and if there is evidence of the formation of a crust of "clinker," this may be marked for a subsequent cracking up with the "slice," a long steel bar which serves the purpose of a poker. Every effort is bent toward maintaining a smooth, evenly burning bed of coals under all of the boiler.
Automatic regulation of stoking is no new thing in warships, and was even in use on the latest of the Atlantic liners running before the war. The machine most commonly in use by the British is the "Kilroy," and its object is to raise a given amount of steam with a minimum of coal and physical effort.
Thoroughly to understand its workings one should go first to the engine-room, from where it is regulated. The order for a certain speed is sent from the bridge to the engine-room, and the engineer sets his "Kilroy" so that the stoking shall proceed at a rate calculated to produce the necessary steam. The dial of the machine is numbered from "3" to "12," and the number he turns the indicator to—say "7"—rings up the numbers of the furnace doors in the boiler-room at a rate which will ensure that each shall be stoked every seven minutes.
The number of shovelfuls of coal to be thrown in at each stoking is determined by consulting first the telegraph from the bridge (which registers in both the engine-room and stokehold) and a table which each stoker knows by heart. The dial of the telegraph is marked as follows: "Keep Steam," "Stop," "Slow," "Half Speed," "Full Speed," "More Steam." The table referred to gives the number of shovels to be thrown on at each stoking to fulfil the direction on the telegraph. Thus "Slow" calls for from two to three shovels of coal, "Full" four to six, and "More Steam" from six to eight.
This plan gives perhaps the most perfect control of stoking possible without mechanical handling of the coal, and that is hardly practicable on shipboard. Practically all modern coal-burning ships carry a small supply of oil fuel, which is, however, generally used very sparingly and kept for raising steam pressure quickly in great emergency.
It was while I was being initiated into the technique of stoking by shovelling coal under the boilers at the rate indicated to keep the steam at "Half" that a change of course brought the swinging seas dead abeam and set the ship rolling even more drunkenly than before. After failing to hit the "dark spots" and "hollows" two or three times as I staggered to the roll, and once even missing the furnace door itself, one of the stokers, taking compassion, relieved me of the scoop and put the trouble right with half a dozen quickly tossed shovelfuls.
I was frankly glad to work over to where I could take a "half Nelson" round a bar by the starboard bunker, for the way the open mouth of the furnace was suddenly jumping up at me in the lurches was something more than disconcerting, especially after one of my fellow stokers had told me that his scarred forearm was the result of having once been pitched forward against a red-hot door of the furnace under a destroyer's boiler.
It was easy to see that stoking the furnaces of a ship with a 25 to 30 degree roll is no job for a novice. Keeping one's balance without holding on to something was difficult enough all of the time, and there were intervals when it was a sheer impossibility. Yet the inexorable gong rang out its warnings just the same, and when the number of the door to be stoked slipped into place on the dial, the particular stretch of glowing coals commanded by that aperture had to be fed willy-nilly.
With the coal "skip" doing a dervish dance from one end to the other of the narrow space, and with even lumps of the coal itself indulging in punitive expeditions on their own account, the waiting stoker needed all the quick-wittedness and shifty-footedness of a bull-fighter combined with the nicety of balance of a tight-rope walker to carry on at all. Yet carry on he did, and with only less clocklike a regularity than the imperturbable "Kilroy" itself.
A heavy slam-banging from the opposite end of the boiler-room indicated that things were not going quite so smoothly there, and edging cautiously along I was presently able to get some hint of the cause from the words of a volubly cursing stoker who limped out to tell me that the "blinkin' skip 'as took charge." Rubbing a bruised shin and glowering balefully from a blackened eye which appeared to have bumped against a boiler, he explained, in language more forceful than elegant, that some unpractical theorist had encouraged them to experiment with wheels on the side of the skip with the idea of making it easier to push about over the coal-cluttered deck. This had turned out a very satisfactory "safe-in-harbour" expedient, but the increased mobility which had been so useful in fair weather had proved its undoing in foul.
In the picturesque language of the sea, it had "taken charge," and so effectually that one swift, straight rush to starboard, followed by a "googly" progress back to port, put every man who, either by chance or intent, barred its way more or less hors de combat. When I peeped gingerly round a corner the sight I saw was vividly suggestive of those good old days of mass play American football when a burly half-back was bucking the line of his demoralised opponents.
The heavy three-quarters-full skip had slammed down against the port bunkers when the ship rolled to that side, and in the second or two she hung there before swinging back again half a dozen men had thrown themselves upon it in an effort to "clip its wings" by removing the wheels. Either the time was too short, or else they had got in each other's way.
At any rate, the wheels were still in position to go round when the battleship, sliding down the reverse of the big wave that had thrown her over, tilted her decks back the other way. Straight down the one-in-three incline from the port to the starboard bunkers lolloped the Juggernaut, dashing the protesting anatomies of the stokers to left and right as it went. Spitting blood and oaths indiscriminately, one man clung to it all the way, however, and he it was who, taking advantage of the tilt, finally rendered it harmless by pushing it over on its side, where it was left wriggling impotently like an overturned turtle.
Meanwhile the "Kilroy" had been ringing up its numbers in vain, and it took several minutes of fast shovelling by all hands to bring the fires up to where they would have been had the interruption not occurred.
It was about this time that the bridge called on the engine-room for an increase of speed, and it was that, with a change of course, that sent the mounting seas crashing over the starboard bow, which brought my visit to the stokeholds to a sudden and unceremonious end. There came a shivering crash, followed by a momentary halt like that which throws one against his neighbour in a jerkily-braked tramcar.
The great ship staggered groggily for a second or two as a weight of solid water equal to her own was launched against her. Then the relentless urge of her spinning screws drove her forward, with the dish of her rigid hull skimming a few thousand tons off the top of the uprearing wave that had assailed her. The most of the mighty cataclysm surged to lee and back into the sea again, but wherever there was an opening—by gun-port, by ventilator, by unbattened hatch—it poured below in thunderous torrents. Deck by deck, where we had descended so laboriously by tilting ladders, we heard it bounding lower and lower, and then (just how and by where I never exactly understood) the flood was all about us.
"If we ship two or three more like that it'll be getting to the fires," shouted the warrant officer who had taken me over from the Senior Engineer; "we'll only be in the way here; we'd best get up while we can. I've stood all the watches I care to in flooded stokeholds in the years I was a stoker myself."
Over steel plates that were rocking with the wash of the water that had penetrated beneath them, he led me to a little electric lift into which the two of us were just able to crowd and slide the door. "Never thought much of this thing," he said as the car began to ascend after two or three propitiatory prods at the button; "there's too much chance of getting stalled halfway and spending the night like a tinned herring. But even that would be better than getting caught by another waterfall on one of the ladders. Besides, she seems to be going all right anyway."
Half a minute later the little lift came to a creaking standstill, and we squeezed out to a ladder which led up to the main deck. The wash swirled to our knees in an angle of the mess-deck, but the warrant officers' mess, to which I was conducted by my guide, was warm and dry. Toasting bread for our tea in the genial glow of the electric heater, he told me yarns of the days when he himself had (to use his own picturesque expression) "stood at the small end of a shovel" before the furnace doors.
He had once been scalded with escaping steam in the hold of an old cruiser off the coast of South America, once imprisoned in the stokehold of a destroyer for forty-eight hours in a gale in the sub-Arctic, and once he had been "mentioned" for putting out a fire started by a German shell in some nondescript craft in which he found himself at the time the British Navy was trying to protect the retreat along the Flemish coast. The latter sounded like a "story," and I threw a "lead" or two to draw it out. This was about all I got.
"The old Flighty got in too close," he said, turning the slice on his toasting fork, "and the Huns opened up on us with bigger stuff than we reckoned they had there. There was a big crash, just like when a big lump of sea hits you, only worse, and all the stokers and me (I was a petty officer then) was knocked flat. We were under forced draught, and the fires needing all the coal we could pitch on to them. No one was much hurt, and I got them to shovelling again as soon as I could. Then I took a squint up the ventilator down which most of the shock seemed to come.
"There was a bit of a fire getting under way up there, and so I pitched up two or three buckets of water and put it out. Didn't notice till afterwards that a small fragment of shell had come down and hit me in the forehead—right here" (touching a jagged cut just under the hair).
"Captain seemed rather pleased about it, as the men on fire station in that part of the ship had been knocked out, and he appeared to think I had kept the blaze from getting a big headway.
"'Nother funny thing"—and he went on to tell of a stoker of a trawler who, after having his face slightly scalded by steam, had lain down and gone to sleep with his head pillowed among some of the steward's recent purchases, and of how the cook, foraging in the twilight and starting to pick up what he thought was a boiled lobster, had nearly pulled off one of the unlucky chap's burned ears!
I sought the fo'c'sle deck for a breath of fresh air after that, and pushed my head out of the after superstructure just as a hulking cinder came winging aft before the snoring north-east gale. It was quite possible (I said to myself as I ducked inside and pulled down my eyelid in an endeavour to deposit the unwelcome fragment on my cheek) that this very cinder was one which I myself had dumped down one of the bunker chutes during our last coaling.
At any rate, I knew that, save for that last leg skywards by way of the furnaces, I had followed the path of the coal from the collier to the funnel-top, and even a bit further. I had, therefore, no legitimate cause for resentment over the fact that it had taken to following me.
[III. AMERICA ARRIVES]
[THE UNITED STATES NAVY]
In writing some months ago on the coming of the American Army to France, I quoted the naïve words used by a French Staff Officer to describe the impression the new arrivals had made upon him. After speaking of the keenness of the American officers to learn from those who had had the experience, he concluded: "We like them very much. In fact, they have been quite a surprise. They have not displayed the least tendency to show us how to run the war. Indeed, they are not the least American!"
I do not know that I have heard a British naval officer use precisely the same words in voicing his relief that his American "opposite number," whom he is now beginning to meet with increasing frequency and intimacy, has not fulfilled expectations in insisting on showing the British Navy how to win the war; but that precise sentiment I heard implied many times, though, I am happy to record, less and less frequently as the favourable impression formed by those who have had opportunity of meeting the first officers from across the Atlantic, has had time to "percolate." Save on the score of technical training and uniform, there is very little to differentiate the American naval officer from his brother in the Army who has furnished so agreeable a surprise to his Allies in France, and there need be no fear (whatever may have been expected from those who have not had the opportunity of meeting him before) that the former will not "keep station" at sea in the same quiet unostentatious way that the latter has "fallen into step" on land.
So far, since American naval activities in the war zone have been largely limited to the operations of their fleet of destroyers off the Irish coast, the two navies have had far less opportunity to get acquainted than have the British and American armies. The liaison established at Queenstown, however, may be taken as a microcosm of the co-operation that will be established on a larger scale should the exigencies of the situation demand it. As thoroughly characteristic of the spirit in which the Americans are taking up their work in these waters, I may quote the words of an officer of one of their destroyers with whom I talked recently.
"Green as we came to the job," he said, "in comparison to their three years of hard experience of the British, our taking over here was almost like a lot of boy scouts replacing a regiment of seasoned veterans in the trenches. We were all for the job, however, and somehow we began to get results right from the get-away. Let me tell you, though, that if we had had to find out all the wrinkles of the game ourselves—if they had not given us the benefit of all they had been paying in ships and men for three years to learn—it would have been a far slower business for us, and a far more costly one as well. I take off my hat to the British destroyers and trawlers, and to the men who man them. I have not had a chance yet to see anything of the rest of their Navy, but if the officers and men are of the same stamp as those we have worked with here, when our capital ships come over it will be just like joining up with another American fleet."
These sentiments seem to me thoroughly typical of the spirit with which the American Navy is taking up its task in European waters, and such also was the opinion of a distinguished British Naval officer to whom I quoted them not long ago.
"I have known American Naval Officers a good many years," he said, "principally on the China and West India stations, so that, personally, I had none of the doubts about our ability to co-operate with them that may have been harboured by some of my friends who had been less fortunate than myself on that score. The fact that the average untravelled Briton has had to judge the American wholly by such specimens as seemed to him the most characteristic among those coming to this side of the water—that is, by the Cook's tourist and the money-slinging millionaire, neither of whom is in the least representative—has been responsible for our getting, as a nation, a distorted picture of you, as a nation. It was that which gave the more conservative element in both our Army and Navy some doubts as to how we might settle down to pull in double harness.
"One of the best things about the American Naval Officer—and one that stands him in good stead at the present time—is his open-mindedness. He may have come over here firmly believing that some gun, some explosive, some system of loading or fire-control, or any of a number of other things he has perfected to the best of his experience, is better than anything else of the kind that Britain or any other nation has got. But that does not blind him in the least to the good points of the latter, and no false sentiment, pride, or conservatism will prevent the incontinent scrapping of his own long-laboured-over invention to make way for what his open mind and sterling common sense tell him is better. It is this which makes it comparatively easy for the American to do a thing which is above almost all others difficult for the Briton—to profit and take advantage of another's experience.
"An American destroyer—and the same will be true of any other ships of whatever class that may be sent over—takes its place as a unit of one of our fleets or squadrons just as easily and naturally as if a new British ship, manned by British sailors, had been commissioned, and that will go on just as long as it is necessary or advisable to increase your naval strength in European waters. Indeed, the effective smoothness of the system under which the American ships work with ours makes one feel that—quite without realising it—we have taken the first step in the formation of what has so long been talked of as a Utopian dream—an 'International Police Force.' It is hardly the time to talk of such a consummation at this stage of things; but if it ever does eventuate, you make take it that an Anglo-Saxon naval force will be its foundation."
Because it has been impossible to tell the public really anything about American naval co-operation with the British, the historic significance of that event has been almost overlooked. As a matter of fact, however, it marks the first occasion in which the ships of one Allied nation have been practically incorporated (so far as the direction of operations are concerned) in the navy of another. Allied fleets have carried out operations together—as the French and the British at the Dardanelles, or the British and the Italians in the Adriatic—but never has the co-operation been so intimate—and, it may be added, so successful—as in the present instance.
That the British and American naval officer would "hit it off" well personally from the outset no one with any acquaintance with both of them could ever have had any doubt. As a matter of fact, indeed, there is less difference between them than between the average American and Englishman, and even that is a good deal less than most people imagine. In the first place, they come from very nearly the same classes socially (I am speaking now of the regular "R.N." and "U.S.N."), in their respective countries, and there is very little indeed to differentiate the English lad of thirteen or fourteen and the American lad of a year or two older, the one beginning his naval training at Osborne and the other at Annapolis. Differing in details though they are, the training of these two naval schools is far less divergent than that of English and American public schools and universities. That is to say, the naval schools of the two countries are aiming at precisely the same thing—the turning out of an officer who knows his business—whereas public schools and universities are working in a number of different directions.
The system of appointing the American naval cadet ensures that each year's class is selected as nearly as may be from all parts of the country. Each member of the Congress is required to make one appointment to both the naval and military academies, and, in addition to these, there are ten or more appointments at large made from Washington. In this way each State is represented in the Naval Academy according to its population. Thus New York, with, say, forty members in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate, would have forty-two nominees, while Nevada, with three members in the House and two in the Senate, would have five. A Member of Congress has his choice of making the appointment open to a competitive examination or giving it direct to any boy fulfilling the requisite requirements. Even in the latter case, however, the prospective nominee must pass very stiff examinations calculated to establish his mental, moral, and physical fitness, and it is practically impossible for him to be pushed in simply because he has friends in high places. It is, I believe, becoming more and more the custom to resort to competitive examination, so that the boy named by each member is usually the brightest of a score or more striving for that honour from his Congressional district, which contains, roughly, a population of from two to three hundred thousand.
As nearly as the comparison can be made, the four-years' course at the Annapolis Naval Academy covers about the same ground that the British cadet covers in his two years at Osborne, the same period (since the war somewhat reduced) at Dartmouth, and his first year as a midshipman. Since the average age of entrance to Osborne is about thirteen and a half, and to Annapolis about sixteen, it is difficult to compare the entrance requirements or the courses. As the British cadet has about two and a half years the start of the American in the matter of age, it follows that the latter—to reach an equality of training, if not of rank, at twenty—must cover in four years the same ground which the former does in six and a half. This, I should say, he comes pretty near to accomplishing.
The fact that the American Navy was less than half of the size of the British, while the population from which officers could be drawn was more than twice that of the British Isles, made it possible for Annapolis to insist on a mental and physical standard in its entrants calculated to make them equal to the very stiff years of work ahead of them. The system of naming as "alternative" the boy who passed "No. 2" in the competitive entrance examination also made it possible to weed out and replace in the first year any cadet who began to lag behind his class.
Not only was the "book" and class-room work at Annapolis a good deal stiffer than in the corresponding years at Osborne and Dartmouth, but the year was a longer one in point of work. At Osborne the cadet spent three terms of three months each, with the other three months of the year divided into his Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays. At Annapolis there was something like nine months of work at the academy proper, with the summer months spent in cruising on a training ship.
At the end of four years—or at about the age of twenty—the American cadet, on passing the examinations, received the rank of ensign—corresponding to the British sub-lieutenant—and began his sea career as an officer. The British midshipman usually managed to qualify for his first stripe at a somewhat earlier age than his American cousin, and this start tended to increase rather than decrease as he climbed the ladder of promotion. Speaking very roughly the British lieutenant appears to average two or three years younger than his American "opposite," the lieutenant-commander three or four, the commander three to five, and the captain five to seven.
Of the training of the cadets in the British and American naval institutions, only the briefest comparison is possible here. On the physical side there is very little difference, both giving the greatest encouragement to outdoor exercise and bodily development. Each pays equal attention to aquatics—rowing, swimming, and sailing—and American football gives the Annapolis cadet the same vigorous, manly training as "rugger" does those of Osborne and Dartmouth. Baseball and cricket are more or less in the same class.
On the technical side there was also a good deal of similarity in the training, though it seems probable that the "specialisation," which is the principal differentiation between the British and American Naval Officer (who is given an "all-round" preparation), is being given more and more attention in the British schools as the necessity of turning out officers rapidly has increased during the war. The fact that it is the British rather than the American officer who is trained as a "specialist" presents a curious anomaly, for, generally speaking, the United States is, of all the nations in the world, the one where specialisation is carried to the greatest length. Yet the fact remains that it has always been the American practice not only to train the naval cadet so that he is competent ultimately to perform the duties of any officer on any ship of the Navy, but actually to require him to serve several years in each of such various capacities as engineer, navigator, gunnery, or torpedo officer.
This system gives the officer who has been "through the mill" an incomparable experience by the time he attains his captaincy, but the number of good men (who might have made most excellent specialists) who "fell by the wayside" because they were not able to stand the pace for qualifying for so great a range of duties makes one doubt if it is practicable for any nation situated otherwise than was the United States up to its entry into the present war—that is, with a huge population and a modest navy. With the development of the modern man-of-war, the increasing mastery of technical detail which such duties of those of torpedo or gunnery officer entail would seem to make it inevitable that such officers should not be required to divert their attention or energies to anything else. This fact we may confidently expect to see reflected both in the training of the cadet at Annapolis and in American naval practice before very long—perhaps even during the war.
The fact that—as was only natural—the United States Navy, when it was formed during the Revolutionary War, was modelled on the only other Navy of which the colonials had experience—the British—is responsible for many similarities in the forms and practices of the respective services to-day. The gold sleeve or shoulder stripes indicating the rank of officers are practically identical, save only that the Americans replace the British executive "curl" with a star. The American Marine even retains the silver half-globe which is so characteristic a feature of the badge of the Royal Marine of the British Navy. In manning guns, and even whole turrets, with Royal Marines, it would appear that the British Navy has progressed rather further than has the American from the time when this "anachronistic amphibian," as some one has called him, was carried principally to swarm over the rail with a cutlass when the old ships of the line closed in a death grapple. In general multifarity of duties, however, there is little to choose between this always useful "soldier-and-sailor-too" of either service.
The comparatively short term of service in the American Navy was responsible for the fact that the Yankee man-o'-war's-man was a good deal less of a "jolly Jack Tar" in appearance than his British cousin, a difference which has been accentuated since America entered the war by the necessity of an even further "dilution" of landsmen. The practice of allowing the American sailor to wear a sweater and toboggan cap, except on "dress" occasions, has also tended to make him smack less of the sea than the flowing-collared sailor-man who will be performing similar duties on a British ship. Since the fighting of the modern warship is about 90 per cent. "mechanical" and 10 per cent. "nautical," however, the lack of the "Yo-heave-ho" touch in the Yankee sailor-man is by no means in his disfavour. On the contrary, indeed, the very fact that he has only just come to sea may indicate that he has spent all the more time in mastering the intricacies of machinery and electricity and the other things which enter so much into the efficiency of the present-day fighting-ship.
To quote my American naval friend again, both navies have many things that are different—in ships, guns, engines, executive system, victualling—and each may feel a natural pride in its own things. There is undoubtedly much in each navy the other can profit by, but the United States Navy is bearing in mind that everything new the British Navy has to offer it has been tried and proved by long and hard experience, while all the new things it is able to offer the British Navy have only been put to peace-time tests. But now that American ships are having practical experience, that is being altered rapidly.
["GETTING TOGETHER"]
[I. How the Officers of the British and American Ships that are working together in European Waters are making each other's Acquaintance]
Perhaps the most gratifying tribute I have heard paid to the American Battle Squadron which has been for many months incorporated in and working with the Grand Fleet was an unconscious one.
"How are the Americans getting on?" I asked an officer of the Commander-in-Chief's staff a few days ago.
"The Americans?" he repeated. "Oh, you mean the 'Xth B. S.' They have merged so completely into the Grand Fleet that we long ago ceased to think of them as anything but a part of ourselves. Indeed, that's just what they have become—a part of ourselves. They're doing their part. I couldn't say more for them."
The world was a good deal impressed when, just after the German offensive started last March, President Wilson, acting on General Pershing's suggestion, agreed to the brigading of the American troops in France with the British and French armies until such time as they were in sufficient strength to form an army of their own. It was a wise action from the military point of view alone, but doubly so in giving our allies so unmistakable example of the spirit in which America was entering the common fight.
It is characteristic of the essential difference between land and sea operations that the announcement of a similar sacrifice of national pride in the furtherance of Allied unity—this time on the part of the American Navy, and antedating the other by several months—should have to be withheld from the public until the significance of it was largely overshadowed by the more dramatic conditions under which the decision to brigade the American troops with the Allied armies was taken. Yet it is a fact that, until the arrival of the American battleships, white with brine of the Atlantic across which they had ploughed their way, last winter, never before in history had the warships of one nation endeavoured to co-operate with those of another save as a separate fleet. Never, indeed, up to that time, had such a consummation been deemed practicable.
But the American Navy Department and—especially—the distinguished Admiral appointed to the command of the first squadron to be sent to European waters, realising that nothing but national pride, and certain service practices which they felt sure Yankee adaptability would be equal to modifying, were the only obstacles to an arrangement which could not but add incalculably to the weight they were throwing into the balance, decided—quite on their own initiative and without any pressure whatever from the British—that all American battleships should be incorporated into the Grand Fleet instead of operating as a distinct American force. From that time on, to all intents and purposes, it was as though so many new British units—fresh from the yards of the Tyne or the Clyde—had been added to the Grand Fleet. The American ships still flew the Stars and Stripes, and there were no changes in pay, uniform, discipline, nor in such technical practices as effected the efficiency of the ship as a fighting unit. But in every particular involving relations with the Grand Fleet as a whole, British practice was and is the rule. Everything that any British ship or squadron does devolves likewise upon every American ship and squadron, this extending from such things as providing work-parties for road-making or other jobs on the beach, to sallying forth on one of the great concerted sweeps through the North Sea in which the bulk of the floating might of the whole world is on the move.
One American battleship which, crossing the Atlantic alone and arriving at Base only a few hours before the Grand Fleet was ordered to sea on what at the moment looked like the hottest kind of a Hun scent, made a great hit with the sport-loving British by replenishing her bunkers in a wildly-rushed coaling, and raising steam in time to get under weigh, and swing into line with her sisters who had been grooming themselves for just such an event for many weeks. The next morning I was standing on the bridge of a British super-dreadnought with an historic name, when the Admiral read out a signal from the Fleet Flagship, which made it appear likely that an action with the German High Sea Fleet was but a matter of a few hours. Walking out to the end of the bridge, he turned his glasses back to where, steaming hard in line ahead, the American ships were coming up in perfect station on our starboard quarter. Running his glasses back along the line, he rested his glance for a moment on the last ship.
"There's the good old Texas," he said, with an affectionate smile, "not an inch out of station, and steaming with the best of 'em. You'd never think to see her that she was bucking the swells of the Atlantic at this time yesterday morning. My word, what a stroke of luck for her if she does happen to stumble, in her first twenty-four hours with the Grand Fleet, into what the rest of us have been waiting four years for!"
It turned out to be the same old disappointment after all, this time as so many others, but the plucky bid the Texas made for a chance of participating in "Der Tag" pleased the British mightily, and won her at the outset a high place in their esteem.
That the newcomers would have much to learn from the three- and four-year veterans of the Grand Fleet was only to be expected, and right eagerly they set themselves out to master the things that can only be taught by experience. But the exchange of ideas was not entirely one-sided. One day I heard the Gunnery Lieutenant of my ship speaking with great enthusiasm of the American telephone system, and of the astonishing speed with which the "Yanks" loaded their turret guns. The Commander came back from U.S.S. New York loud in the praise of the quality of the American paints, which he claimed gave a surface much more easily kept clean than the similar grades provided in the British ships. The swift, smart American launches always evoked favourable comment, and even the strange-looking "bird-cage" masts won occasional converts. Perhaps the most interesting thing of all is the large and increasing number of British officers that one hears speaking sympathetically, and even approvingly, of the total abstinence in force in the American ships. The fact that the officers of the latter are practically unanimous in declaring that they would never favour going back to the old regime has made a good deal of an impression on the British, and more and more frequently I hear the older Royal Naval officers saying that they wished they had the same anti-liquor rules in force in their own ships.
In these and a score of other similar things one has evidence every day that, while the British Fleet is a constant inspiration to the Americans, the coming of the latter has not been without its "tonic" effects on the former.
Social entertainment between ship and ship is one of the features of British naval life that has been most conspicuous by its absence since the war began, and perhaps the highest compliment that could be paid the Americans was that the Grand Fleet did not consider it necessary to make any exception to the general practice in their case. Senior and Junior officers of ships that chanced to be moored conveniently near each other lunched and dined back and forth, but no more or no less than if the newcomers had been English rather than American. There was no drinking of high-sounding toasts, and the nearest thing to formality in this respect I recall was the proposing the health of "The President," following that of "The King," with the port. For the rest, when one of our Latin allies could not possibly resist clinking glasses to "America," "The Entente," "Victory," and no end of similar toasts, the Briton contented himself with an unobtrusive "Cheerio" or "Chin-chin."
But what these little unpremeditated "inter-wardroom" affairs lacked in formality they made up in geniality. One of the most memorable "evenings" I ever spent was that following a dinner in a certain famous light cruiser of the Australian Navy, at which four officers of U.S.S. Wyoming (which chanced to be moored in the next line) were present. There was a concert by the ship's company that evening, and after a delectable hour and a half of Anglo-Australian chaff and harmony had been brought to a close by the playing of "God Save the King" and the "Star Spangled Banner," the officers returned to the wardroom for a quiet hour with their pipes. The thing started, I believe, when somebody wound up the gramophone with a "Chu-Chin-Chow" record on it, and everybody joined in on the chorus. Then it transpired that the American guests showed unmistakable evidence of "team-work" in their harmony, and presently the others fell out and left the quartette singing alone. Two or three strange new "jazzy rags," which had not yet won their way to popular favour on this side of the Atlantic, gave way to "Mississippi" and "Tennessee" and the classic melody of "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Finishing up with a flourish in a snappily executed bit of "buck-and-wing-ing," the guests then insisted that they had occupied the centre of the stage long enough, and demanded that the next round of the show should be British.
The hosts, affirming that they could not think of producing an anti-climax by following on after so finished a musical performance as that just concluded, said they would nevertheless endeavour to provide their share of entertainment by playing a game of "chair polo." This spirited competition quickly resolved itself into a general rough-and-tumble, out of which the fatherly Major of Marines, who was the senior officer of the guests, only managed to keep one of the young American Lieutenants by reminding him that it was not becoming that an officer and gentleman should break furniture outside of his own ship.
When all the British officers had fought themselves into a state of collapse, a hulking young midshipman who was roosting precariously on two legs of the lounging chair under which the Commander was imprisoned, gave vent to his exultation by taking in a lungful of air and expending it in the blood-curdling Maori war-cry, which he had learned in his New Zealand home before he joined the Navy. That gave the visitors a chance to get in the running again, and, putting their heads close together and beating out the rhythm with their fists, they fairly started the rivets on the wardroom ceiling with the thunderous bark of the Navy yell. The Maori war-whoop was like the chirping of a cricket in comparison. Wide-eyed with wonder and admiration, the British officers relaxed the death grips in which they had been holding each other, and gathered near to see at close range how the big noise was made. The Gunnery Lieutenant slipped away for a moment, presently to reappear wearing his "ear-defenders." "Always use 'em when the big stuff is firing," he explained; "when do we start the next run?"
Nothing would do but that the officers of H.M.S. "——" should be taught the Yankee Navy yell. A class was formed then and there, and lessons were in full swing an hour later when the Officer of the Watch poked his head timidly inside the door to announce that the boat for the American officers had been standing-by for twenty minutes, but that he had been waiting for a pause in the singing to report it. He was a serious-looking little Sub, that Officer of the Watch, and I never could make quite sure whether he thought it was really singing (perhaps a new kind of Yankee ragtime) he was interrupting or not.
Ducking under hammocks in which restive would-be sleepers were stirring, we filed up the ladder and came out into the frosty air of the quarterdeck to speed the parting guests. Good-nights were spoken softly in deference to the Captain, whose sleeping cabin was just beneath our feet, and the four cloaked officers tip-toed gently down the gangway and aboard their waiting launch. Then the Commander passed a quietly spoken order down the line along the rail. "Ready now; altogether. One—two—three!"
With the sudden roar of a full gun salvo, the Navy yell boomed out on the still air and went rolling forth across the still waters to set strange echoes chattering in the distant hills. A sudden surge of quickly suppressed laughter floated back to us from the receding launch, but the visiting officers were on their good behaviour once they were "out in the open" again, and the challenge was not taken up.
The Commander was chuckling as he bade me good night in the half-darkness of the wardroom flat. "There can't have been such another yell as that heard by these quiet waters since they were first ploughed by the galleys of the old Norse Vikings," he said with a laugh. "I'd really like to know just how many of the fifty or sixty thousand men of the Grand Fleet awakened by it knew to what Navy that 'Nav-eee!' they heard referred to. Not that it makes much matter, though, now that we're all one."
[II. What the British Bluejacket thinks of the American]
The British naval officer, sapient of many ports and peoples, had a pretty clear idea that in the American Naval Officer he was going to find an ally who, in spite of a number of superficial differences from himself, would still be a deal easier to act in intimate co-operation with than any of those with whom he had been fighting up to the time of the entry of the United States into the war. With the British sailor it was different. Only a few of him had ever met any American bluejackets, and these meetings—for the most part confined to the bars and bunds of Shanghai, Hongkong, Singapore, and the other ports of the Far East—had not always been of a nature calculated to be promotive of international amity. The American Jackie was chiefly remembered by the British for the softness of a speech that belied the hardness of a fist, and an astonishing and unaccountable penchant for scattering Mexican dollars from rickshaws for coolies to scramble for.
It was a good deal as a brine-pickled old British man-o'-wars-man of many years' service said to me a few days ago. "We never had no chance to know the Yanks afore the present, sir. We was allus eyin' each other distrustful like when we was in the same ports, and we was never gettin' much closer than the length o' a bar apart. Result was that we only seed the few things in them that was diff'rent from what we was, and they likewise wi' us. And o' course we never spotted the things in which we was just alike. All that I rec'lect o' the Yanks we used to run into on the China Station was that they was dressed diff'rent from us, talked diff'rent, and even swore diff'rent. The way they cussed struck me most of all. It was so earnest like. That was the thing I remembered 'em best for—as the blokes wot cussed like they was sayin' their prayers."
And so it was that the British and American bluejackets remembered each other for their differences rather than for the traits they had in common. Naturally, the picture was a distorted one on both sides. But when, with the coming of the American ships to European waters, the first chance to get together and become really acquainted was offered, each soon began to see the other in the proper perspective, and from the very first they have become better and better friends with every day that went by.
A good many British sailors have told me during the last few months of the increasing ties of friendship and kinship that were knitting between them and the "Yanks," but perhaps some extracts from an article which has just appeared in the little monthly magazine published by the Lower Deck of one of the battleships of the Grand Fleet will give the best idea of the way things have gone in this respect. It was signed "Bluejacket," and I have learned that the writer is a Seaman Gunner who, like the great majority of his mates, never met any of his cousins from across the Atlantic until the American Battleship Squadron joined the Grand Fleet last winter.
"We had all heard a good deal of the Yankee Fleet," it begins, "and a few of us had seen Yankee ships before in our voyages abroad; but to the most of us their manners and customs were a sealed book; and so many curious glances were cast toward their battleships, after their arrival to take their place beside us, just to catch a glimpse of an American sailor. We all had our various ideas of what they were really like, and I am giving away no secret when I say that we did not expect them to come up to our standard, or to be very much our own kind. This was inevitable owing to the feeling fostered by some sections of the British press during the preceding years of the war in which America had been neutral. Consequently we were more than a little surprised on meeting them ashore for the first time to find them such very good fellows. Perhaps the thing that surprised us most about them was to find that there was less difference between the English that they talked than there was between that of the Cockney and the Scotchman, or the Cornishman and the Yorkshireman, or the Welshman and the Lancashireman. That is to say, it was easier for the run of us to understand them than it was for us to understand each other. But the thing that we liked best about them was the quiet way they had of speaking. This, I must admit again, was also a great surprise to us, for the Yankee of our funny papers and music-halls was invariably very loud-mouthed and boastful. They had some rather fearful and wonderful slang, it is true, but the most of it was so expressive that we had not the least difficulty, first, in following it, and then beginning to adopt it for our own use. For instance, it was as easy to see that 'Some class, those shooting irons on the Lizzie,' referred to the 15-inch guns of the Queen Elizabeth, as it was to see that 'pretty nifty with his hot footing, hey bo?' referred to the way Charley Chaplin was kicking out with his feet in the movie (there, I have dropped into a 'Yankeeism' myself! Nothing could be more catching) at the Y.M.C.A. hut. We have probably been borrowing more of their language than they have of ours so far, for many of the Yankeeisms seem to go right to the spot so much better than ordinary English.
"Our first meetings on shore got on so well that we decided to get up some kind of a game with them. It was out of the question for us to try to play their baseball or football, just as it was for them to tackle our cricket. But we had heard that one of their ships had been having a try at our Association football, and on the strength of this we sent them a challenge for a game of 'Soccer.' The fact that they jumped at the chance to take us on at a game at which they had practically no experience at is the best evidence of the kind of sporting spirit we have found the Yanks showing about everything.
"When the time for the game came there is no denying that we began to get rather nervous; not because we were not sure we were going to give them a licking (for ours is the champion Soccer team of the Grand Fleet), but because we weren't quite sure what we were going up against. (There goes another Yankeeism, just because it puts the thing better than any words in our own language.) We had read of what a shambles the field at an American football game was, and of how the men fought in armour, like the knights of the crusades, and of how each team was attended by its own stretcher-bearers and casualty clearing station. Frankly, we were afraid that they might take the occasion to 'Yankefy' Soccer along these lines. As a precautionary measure, we made a point of getting shore leave for just as many men as possible, so as to be sure of being in sufficient force to back up our boys if it came to a fight for life. Indeed, we were much relieved to find on landing that the British bluejackets outnumbered the American by three to one, and that there were no evidences of hospital arrangements.
"Of course we beat them, for our team had years' experience of the game where theirs had days, but the game was keenly contested all the way, and the score of six to one in our favour was by no means as one-sided as we could have piled up against many of the British ships of the Grand Fleet. There was no sentiment about it, either. We licked them as bad as we could. Their training in the Yankee game had made them quick to master the main points of the British, and the result was that they had made a progress in the latter which must have been just about a record considering only one or two of them had ever seen Soccer before. We heard them cursing each other a bit now and then in an effort to stiffen up their defence, but so far as we were concerned they displayed nothing but the cleanest kind of sportsmanship. By their showing on this occasion we were prepared to hear, as we did shortly, that this same Yankee team had won games of Soccer from two or three of the British battleships and battle cruisers. Nothing but their greater interest in baseball, which they were able to take up in the spring, has prevented the Yanks from turning out a football team that would have been a real contender for the Grand Fleet championship, and even as it is they have given us an example of their adaptability, quick-wittedness, and sportsmanship that has won the admiration and respect of everybody.
"But it was not till the long days of summer came and shore leave was granted more liberally that we had a chance to really form friendships with our new allies. Perhaps it was baseball that helped us more than anything else in getting acquainted. The Commander-in-Chief having provided suitable grounds, a baseball league was formed of the teams of the several American battleships, and from the very start these games provided a very strong counter-attraction to our own football matches. There might be a half-dozen football games in progress, but the moment the wild yelling from down in front of the pavilion told that a baseball game was under weigh all the spectators melted away at once, and sometimes even the players themselves chucked their hands in and went over to see the antics of the Yanks. It was these antics—rooting, I think they call it, though I don't quite know why—that attracted us at first, but we were not long in finding out what they were driving at, and really following the progress of the game. Certainly none of us had ever seen the ball handled with such dexterity, both in the way it was caught and the way it was thrown, and the best cricket seemed dull and tame in comparison. We especially admired the quickness of the players on their feet, both in fielding and running round the bases. Few British bluejackets could show such speed, and we have decided the Yankees are faster because they are all shorter service men than we are, and so have had less time to get slow and beefy through ship life. We hope to make our beef and bulk tell against them in boxing and rowing. They tell us that it takes ten years to make a good baseball player, and we can well believe it. As none of us are yet ready to acknowledge the possibility of the war lasting that long, it is hardly likely that we shall try to turn out any teams with the idea of nosing the Yanks out of the baseball championship of the Grand Fleet, but all the same we are fully determined to tackle the game for the game's sake, and to play it among ourselves as we get a chance. The British matelot never did have the patience to play cricket, but baseball has so much that cricket lacks that it is by no means impossible that he may take to it in time, just as our Canadian cousins have. In the mean time our old song which goes 'We'll ramp and we'll roar like true British sailors' will have to be sung, 'We'll ramp and we'll roar like Yankee baseballers,' for there is no question that they can out-ramp and out-roar us with several cables'-lengths to spare.
"The baseball games have given us a welcome chance to show our friendship for the American bluejackets. It is the custom to provide each member of a British shore-leave party with tickets good for two pints of beer at the Recreation Club. The Yank ships, being teetotallers, did not do this, and so the poor chaps would have had to get on without any beer if we had not come to their rescue. Soon it became quite the regular thing for a British sailor to provide his Yankee chum with half his beer-tickets, and, as many of the days were sweltering hot, you may believe they were appreciated. As the present beer we get does not contain enough alcohol to intoxicate a fly, American mothers need have no fear that there is anything in this action calculated to lead their sailor boys astray.
"I need hardly say that the Yanks have reciprocated every time they had a chance. I was having tea at the Naval Club a few days, and, having neglected to bring any sugar ashore from the ship, I was about to do the best I could without it, when an American sailor reached over from the next table and handed me his ration, saying that he had come provided with an extra one for just that purpose. And it was fine white sugar, too. I have seen the same thing happen a number of times. The Yanks seem to be allowed an extra lot of sugar and sweets to make up for not having grog. They tell me that they don't miss the latter very badly, and I can't say that they seem any the worse for not having it. Perhaps that is the one thing that we have worried most about since the Yankees came—as to whether or not their example would cause the British ships to 'go dry' too. Who can say? Stranger things have happened, but the change will hardly come during the war anyhow.
"The few weeks' sport at this Base gave the men a chance to meet in such a way that they could form real friendships, and I know of a number of instances where British sailors have asked Yankees to visit them in their homes if ever there is a chance that the leaves work out favourable to that arrangement. We found that we had a great many things in common with them; so much so that, writing some weeks after these meetings, it seems awkward to speak of them as Yanks at all, they have become so much part and parcel of ourselves.
"I cannot close this without mentioning an amusing incident which occurred to a messmate of mine. This chap was told off for patrol duty at the railway station, and, as was usual, had a Yankee sailor as a partner, the latter being provided with a small truncheon, according to their custom. The British lad, who was a good deal of a youngster, got interested in the stick and asked many questions, to all of which the American replied with the greatest good humour. Among other things, he said that the truncheon was 'loaded,' and that it was used for quieting obstreperous sailors. After this my friend kept his distance, and on returning to his mess explained to an attentive crowd all the happenings of the afternoon, ending up by saying that he took no chances with that 'loaded gun' stick, as he was afraid it might go off by mistake. It appears that he actually thought that a 'loaded' stick meant one that 'went off' when a man was hit with it. You may be sure that we lost no time in passing the joke on to the Yanks, who appear to be enjoying it quite as much as we have. Indeed, perhaps the surest sign of the good solid base our friendship is built on is the fact that it has long ago reached the 'joking' stage—the one at which we both feel quite free to throw aside 'company manners' and 'rag' each other without fear of being misunderstood or hurting any one's feelings. And that, let me tell you, means that we've at last got out a sheet-anchor that ought to keep the barque of our common friendship head-to-wind through any storm that is ever likely to threaten to swamp it."
I do not think there is much that I need add to this naïve but comprehensive statement of the way in which the Yankee bluejacket has impressed his fellows of the British Navy. The life of the Grand Fleet is a strenuous one, and at times many weeks may go by in which there is no opportunity for the men to foregather ashore. How well these rare opportunities have been used by the British and American sailors to become acquainted is evidenced by the frequency with which the officers doing the ship's censoring come across letters from one to the other, and the cordiality of the feeling which is springing up may be judged by the fact that the commonest form of address is "Dear Chum." The friendships which are growing between the thousands of Americans and Britons who are holding the seas to-day will be of incalculable influence in strengthening the bonds of international amity between the two nations upon whom most of the responsibility will rest in determining the future of civilization.
[III. What the American Bluejacket thinks of Britain and the British]
The scroll of human experience has been unrolling at rather a dizzy rate for both the American soldier and sailor during the last year; but it has seemed to me to be the latter—probably because he has somewhat more time to "sit and think" than the former—that has gone the farthest in the orderly pigeon-holing of his impressions. All the spirit of the soldier's being has been concentrated on his preparation for "licking the Boche." In mind and body he is fitting himself for his grim task, and his outlook on life and things generally is not uncoloured by the red mist that is deepening before his eyes as the time of his big moment approaches. With the sailor it is different. Although, first and last, the part that he is playing and will play in winning through is every bit as important as that of the soldier, his hate of the Hun is rather more impersonal, and he is less inclined to have his moments of "seeing red" than is the Yankee soldier. It is this fact that has made the American sailor a rather more detached and unbiased observer of the things the war drama has unrolled before him than is the soldier.
"How do things look to you after a year of real war?" I asked a tall youth in blue jeans and a grey armless sweater whom I found tinkering with the sights of the forecastle gun of the destroyer in which I chanced to be out with for a few days at the time. The question was merely an ingratiating attempt to get acquainted on my part, and was ventured with no expectation of drawing a serious answer. I was not as familiar then as I have become since with the material they are making the young Yankee sailor of, however. He turned on me a keen eye, with wrinkles at the corners which I was quite right in surmising had come there through gazing at heat-waves dancing along broad horizons long before he had squinted down the sight of a naval gun. My diagnosis of "Texas cowboy" only missed the truth by the difference between that and an "Oklahoma oil driller, with a 'Varsity education and a ranch of his own."
He leaned back easily with an arm over the gun-breech (where a British bluejacket under similar circumstances would have stiffened at once to attention), and yet there was nothing familiar or disrespectful in his attitude. "It looks to me like two or three things," he said after a moment of wrinkling his tanned brow as he collected his thoughts. "It looks to me as though these waters hereabouts were not going to be exactly a happy hunting-ground for the U-boat now that we're beginning to savy the game good and proper. That's one thing. Another is, that it's beginning to look as if they're waking up to the fact in the States that to call a man 'politician' is one degree worse than to call him a ---- ——. It took them a year or two of war to learn that in England, and we didn't profit much by their example. Another thing—it looks like Americans—or at least those of us as have come across to this side—are going to have a fair chance to discover that the natives of these little islands are more or less the same kind of animals the Yanks are after all. We've never had that chance in the last hundred and forty years. Instead, we've been taught from our cradles to nurse a grudge that was really wiped out when we licked them—or such forces as they could send across then—and set up business on our own account in '76. And one more thing. It looks as if Americans were at last getting off their blinkers in the matter of the Irish; that they are beginning to understand that these—but, excuse me, sir" (he turned and started adjusting the sighting mechanism again), "I just saw the Captain come up on the bridge, and I don't like to swear too freely in his hearing. And a man can't talk about this end of Ireland—or leastways about the way it's acted in the war—without swearing."
These offhand observations come pretty near to epitomising the several salient ideas that have been crystallising in the mind of the American sailor in the course of his year or more of active service in the war. If he is in a destroyer or submarine operating against the U-boat he knows full well what has been done in turning the little neck of the Atlantic where he works into what may well be termed a "marine hell" for the pirates. If he is in one or the other of these branches of the service, too, the fact that he has based in a South of Ireland port has given him a liberal education in the affairs of that "disthreshful country" and stirred in him the deepest abomination of Sinn Fein, all it stands for, and all who stand for it. A growing impatience and distrust of all professional politicians is common to the officers and men of all the American ships on this side, and bodes as hopefully for the future as does a similar feeling that is becoming increasingly evident in both the British Army and Navy.
But most profound of all the emotions stirred in the breast of the American sailor by the war and the new knowledge the war has brought him is undoubtedly his awakening sympathy and admiration for the British and Great Britain. The picture the most of him brought over of the Briton was a sort of hazy composite built up of what his school histories told him about George the Third's soldiers, and of what he himself had seen of the Briton—as represented on the American stage and in the funny papers. If he was a man of two or three enlistments—and these, because of the great dilution of new men which has become imperative with the expansion of the Navy, are not encountered very often—the effect of the composite was heightened by a picture of the British bluejacket as the American had met him on the waterfront of this or that foreign port. It goes without saying that the incarnation of that kind of a composite didn't seem a very promising individual for the Yankee sailor to make friends with. This creature of fancy was a male, of course. What the female of the species was he had an even hazier idea, and that there was really nothing to speak of to differentiate her from the girl, sister, or mother he had left behind him he never dreamed. Considering that this is the way things looked to him at the outset—and the picture is not in the least exaggerated—one cannot but feel that the American sailor has made most gratifying progress in correcting his perspective in a comparatively limited time and with few opportunities.
The men of the American battleships of the Grand Fleet—always on guard at its isolated base, and able to grant scant and infrequent leave to any one serving in it—have had less chance to see the country and its people than have their mates of the destroyers and submarines, whose bases have been more convenient to England and with chances of leave turning up rather oftener. Their main, almost their only, point of contact, therefore, has been the British bluejacket. Everything considered, perhaps there could not have been a better one. No finer, and yet more fairly characteristic, cross-section of the British people could be revealed than that shown by the personnel of the Royal Navy, from stoker or seaman to Commander-in-Chief. There is no class by which the Briton himself should be prouder to be judged.
I have already written of the mixed feelings of curiosity and interest with which the British bluejackets awaited their first intimate meeting with the Yanks. It was no whit different on the part of the latter. With the Northern Base swept by its more or less unending succession of winter storms, there was not much chance for personal contact in the first few months after the Americans came over, and before better weather and lengthening spring days gave opportunity for inter-fleet visits and foregatherings ashore the men of both Navies had had a good many chances to see each other handling their ships. From that alone a deep mutual respect was born, and it was on that solid foundation that the present astonishingly friendly relations between the men of the two allied Navies is based. The British, with four years of war experience behind them, were doing things with their ships, quite in the ordinary course of the day's work, that the Americans had never reckoned on attempting save in emergency. The shooting and the general efficiency of the British ships under the arduous North Sea winter conditions deepened and broadened the respect and admiration of the Americans the more they saw of it, and the more they discovered the extent to which they would have to exert and outdo themselves to equal it. The feeling of the American bluejacket on this score was concisely but comprehensively expressed by an old Yankee man-of-war's-man—one of the few real veterans I have encountered on this side—with whom I had a yarn not long after the arrival of U.S.S. New York.
Coming in from a "big-gun-shoot," the American squadron had sighted a squadron of British battle cruisers carrying out a series of intricate manœuvres with destroyers at a speed which would have been reckoned as suicidal as late as a year or two ago, and which there is little doubt would not be attempted outside of the Grand Fleet even to-day. The sun-pickled phiz of the old sea-dog crinkled with a grin of sheer delight and wonder as the lean cruisers, each a mass of turrets, funnels, and tripod mast between tossing bow-wave and foaming wake, dashed in and out of the spreading smoke-screens with a unity of movement that might have been animated by the pull of a single string. Then, when to cap the climax the speeding warships opened up with their heavies and began to straddle a target that was teetering along on the edge of the skyline ten or twelve miles away, he gave his broad thigh a resounding slap and turned to me with:
"By cripes, things do move, believe me! I was on the Oregon when we chased old Cervera's ships up the Cuba coast in the Spanish war, and we were nigh to busting our boilers doing half the speed of them battle cruisers. And as for keeping station—it was just a case of devil take the hindmost. But these Johnnies here would go straight through a scrap just as they're playing that little game over there. By cracky, I takes off my hat to them. They're sure on the job, and you just bet that's good enough for us."
I think if I was asked to sum up very briefly just what the American bluejacket thinks of the ships of the Grand Fleet and the men who man them, I would simply quote those final words—"They're sure on the job, and you just bet that's good enough for us."
With this foundation of respect and admiration to stand on once established, there was little to worry about on the score of personal relations. Both of them were as bashful as children on the occasions of their first tentative inter-ship visits, but this quickly wore off when they found that they both spoke the same language, and it was not very far from that to the "pal-ling" stage. Then they began to box and play occasional games of "soccer" together, and, where either could not play the other's sport, to give attention to baseball or "rugger," as the case might be, with the idea of trying to find out for themselves what there really was in the other man's game. This is still going on, and British sailors with baseball bats and gloves, or Yankee tars with cricket bats and shin pads, are becoming commoner and commoner sights at the recreation grounds in the vicinity of the northern bases.
I have already told how the feeling of the British bluejacket for the Yankee "gob"—as the latter appears to like to be called—changed from one of aloof curiosity, through a mild sort of "liking," to active affection; and to describe how the Americans' feelings have run the same gamut would be merely to tell the story in reverse. But I cannot refrain from setting down the personal tribute of one "gob" in particular to British bluejackets in general, for, in its way, it is quite as typical as the words I have quoted respecting the old Yankee gunner's estimate of the Grand Fleet.
The "gob" in question had been born on or very near the Bowery, but seven years in the Navy had obliterated all traces but the accent. He was a stoker, and as the champion "light-heavy" of the American squadron was being put on in an occasional special bout in the course of the British squadron eliminations. In spite of the fact that the British box only three rounds, where the American Navy had been boxing six, and a number of other variations in rules, he had done extremely well, having lost but a single bout, and that by being slightly out-pointed. He was still nursing a black eye from this latter contest—in which his sportsmanlike conduct no less than his cleverness had won the admiration of every one present—when I asked him if he had been satisfied with the decision. "Poifickly," was the instant reply. "He had too much steam for me from the first gong; but I'll do better when I've woiked out a lil' longer to go the three 'stead o' the six round course. Wot do I tink o' the British as sports? Say, they's the best ever. They's more than just gent'men. They's reg'lar fellers, take it from me, and wot more can you ask than that?"
If the Yankee sailor has any superlative beyond "regular feller" to apply to a mate who has met with his approval, I have yet to learn what it is.
The men of the American destroyers and submarines, working more by themselves than the battleships with the Grand Fleet, have seen rather less of the British bluejacket, and—with better opportunities for London leave—more of the British civilians than their mates in the latter units. They have all found much to entertain and interest them in Liverpool, London, Glasgow and the other large cities they have visited. They have enjoyed the theatres and art galleries, and are very appreciative of the various canteens that have been provided for their comfort. But it has been none of these that has made the greatest appeal to them, but rather those at first rare but now increasingly frequent visits to an English or a Scottish home. I don't mean the boat-on-the-river-with-band and the tea-party-on-the-lawn-of-some-ancestral-castle kind of thing, which are all very well as far as they go; but rather the quiet, unostentatious hospitality of a British home of somewhere near the same class as the visitor comes from in the States. This kind of kindness has gone straight to the heart. The Yankee sailor lad is a good deal more of a "mother's boy" than he will ever admit to any one save possibly some other boy's mother, and I have heard two or three pretty swaggery young "gobs" speak with rather more than a suggestion of a catch in their voices of the kindness that has been shown them—of the things they have seen and heard and learned—in one of these visits to a British home.
One day a quartermaster—his folding bed was triced up next to mine in the forward torpedo-flat, and we had fallen into the habit of exchanging confidences in the long quiet hours of submergence—of the American submarine in which I was recently out on its regular North Atlantic patrol told me how much the visit he had been privileged to make to a little English home in Liverpool had meant to him. And presently, after a pause, as though the thought of one had awakened the thought of the other in his mind, he told me of something else he had seen on one of his leave trips.
"I happened to be in Cork for a few hours on my way through," he said. "We are not allowed to visit there, you know, for fear that we may be tempted to beat up a few Sinn Feiners; but if we are marooned there waiting for a connexion there is nothing against our strolling about the town. Well, just at one end of the main bridge across the River Lee, they have the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack floating side by side from the top of one of the iron poles of the electric car line. I don't know whose idea it was, except that the Sinn Feiners had nothing to do with it. Now the ordinary way to have handled them would have been to bend each flag to separate halyards, and to hoist and lower independently. But some man with a head on his shoulders (possibly he had been a sailor) evidently had the run of the show, and what had been done was this: Taking two crosspieces, he had bent the flags to the two lines joining their ends. Then a single halyard, rigged to run over a block to the upper crosspiece, hoisted and lowered the two flags, always side by side, at one operation. Well, now, looking at that, it chanced that I seemed to see something more than a very neat little contrivance for saving time in handling a couple of squares of coloured bunting. It seemed to me that it stood for a sort of symbol of the fact that the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack are being rigged to fly together for a good many years; and that they aren't going to be able to lower one without bringing down the other."
I do not know how many of the men of the American ships at the Irish bases have seen that particular little "bunting hoist," but I do know that the sentiment my young submarine friend read into it finds an echo in the breast of practically every one of them.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.
LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND.
Transcriber's notes:
The following is a list of changes made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
for'rard, wait till there was an interval in both
for'ard, wait till there was an interval in both
puttin' that blinkin' pyrit down to Davy Jones."'
puttin' that blinkin' pyrit down to Davy Jones."'"
than they had been right along up to them. We
than they had been right along up to then. We
Emden or Konigsberg. Just which it was we
Emden or Königsberg. Just which it was we
a shell-hole in the fo'c'sl'e deck, through which
a shell-hole in the fo'c'sle deck, through which
with the Konigsberg turning up at any moment,
with the Königsberg turning up at any moment,
had charge of in the Emden show Von Müller in
had charge of in the Emden shows Von Müller in
"It's fair," he admitted grudingly, "only fair.
"It's fair," he admitted grudgingly, "only fair.
contracted ashore and carried--and often spread--abroad.
contracted ashore and carried--and often spread--aboard.
became at once his own natural self The sailorly
became at once his own natural self. The sailorly
"I had been asked aboard the Xerxes for an
I had been asked aboard the Xerxes for an
destoyers, submarines, ranged class by class and
destroyers, submarines, ranged class by class and
bunks of the battleship, while perhaps a shade
bunkers of the battleship, while perhaps a shade