III.
October was almost the last good month of submarine hunting to be had. Four enemy submarines were sighted, but their commanders were keeping a good look-out while in the Spider Web, and only one was bombed, by Hodgson and Wilson.
The 23rd of October was rather a dirty day, with a falling barometer, and that unpleasant taste to the north-west wind which usually means trouble of some sort for somebody.
The Harwich Light Forces were off the Dutch coast looking for the elusive Hun, and sundry patrols had therefore been shoved out from Felixstowe. Two of these boats, Tiny in charge of one and Perham and Gooch in the other, boomed off at ten o'clock to look in the Spider Web.
On starting out Tiny's wireless operator let the aerial wire run off the reel unchecked, so that when it fetched up with a round turn at the end, the weight snapped off the copper wire just inside the boat. This made it impossible for him to send or receive wireless signals.
About twelve o'clock, at a position about ten miles south of the North Hinder, Tiny missed Perham's boat. Turning back on his course he searched for the missing boat, but failing to see it, concluded that the pilots had pushed off for harbour with engine trouble. But not being certain, he released a pigeon with a message, giving details, and continued the search.
After the boats went out the wind kept steadily rising. Wireless signals sent out warning the two boats were not answered. Messages were sent up and down the coast asking for news. Then a pigeon dropped down on the ledge outside its loft, walked through the swinging wires which rang a bell, and so into a little cage. The pigeoner, warned by the bell, went into the loft, removed the crumpled slip of flimsy paper from the carrier, and sent it down to the station.
Two boats were shoved out on the slipway and their engines warmed. Then Tiny came into the harbour and reported that he had been unable to find the missing boat.
In spite of the rapidly rising wind, which had now got to thirty knots, the quickly decreasing daylight, and the barometer that was falling with ominous persistence, Gordon and Faux, and Hodgson and Wilson, volunteered to go out and look for Perham. They pushed off in two boats from the slipway. The harbour was a froth of whitecaps, and the boats took off in a smother of spray.
Half an hour later a great-hearted pigeon came battling in against the quartering breeze carrying a message from Perham. Smoothing out the crumpled paper on the desk in the flying office we read the signal.
"Port engine crank-shaft fractured. Good landing. Approximate position ten miles south of North Hinder."
I rang up the naval authorities at Harwich, informed them of the state of affairs, and asked for assistance. I was told that the Harwich flotilla had run into a mine-field off the Dutch coast. The flagship of Rear-Admiral Tyrwhitt had struck a mine with her stern and the explosion had detonated a depth charge carried on her counter. She was returning to port at about two knots, with the sea that was running outside, and all available destroyers were required to guard the disabled light cruiser. However, help would be sent.
At dusk the two flying-boats returned. The pilots had made the North Hinder, had gone ten miles south and had searched a large area, but had failed to locate Perham.
And then a signal came in that the two destroyers sent to the position had been unable to find the flying-boat.
With the shutting down of night the wind increased in violence. In the open, when you stood up to it, it was like a solid wall.
The disabled cruiser outside was in a precarious condition, and many of her attendant destroyers had to leave her and return to Harwich, making heavy weather of it.
The wind got up to forty knots, fifty knots, and finally to sixty knots in gusts. The wooden mess groaned and protested beneath the heavy hand of the storm.
To a chorus of chattering windows, fierce spurts of smoke from the stove due to violent back drafts down the chimney, a chart was spread out on the Staff-room table and the probable course of the drifting flying-boat was laid out. All this, with the reservation in our own minds, if the boat would live through the gale. But it was at least something to do, and three boats stood ready to push off next morning, if required.
A chart is a representation of a portion of the surface of the earth intended to be useful to a seaman, and it therefore deals in detail with the portions of the earth covered with water. It gives the positions of lights and buoys, details of the sea bottom, and heights, magnetic variations, and soundings.
We drew a line on the chart from the positions, ten miles south of the North Hinder, where Perham had come down, towards the Dutch coast. This represented the direction the boat would drift owing to the wind.
The flying-boat, with two sea-anchors out, checking the drift, and also with weigh knocked off owing to the tossing of the waves, would probably not drift faster than three knots. Therefore the wind line was dotted off at three mile intervals.
Beside the movement due to the wind the flying-boat would move with the tide, so the set due to the tide was dotted on the chart at right angles to each three-mile mark.
When these dots were joined a wavy line was the result, a line first setting away from the main line of drift, then coming back to it, crossing it, and then setting away in the other direction. When the line got near the Dutch coast it could not be calculated owing to the curious currents, rips and eddies, set up by the low-lying nature of the land.
It was seen at once that the three boats would not be required next day. For Perham would drift past the Schouen Bank light-buoy about two o'clock in the morning and would be off the Dutch coast at Schouen by daybreak.
If the boat lived.
An extra heavy gust shook the building, and a great fall of soot down the chimney almost beat out the fire.
There was a general feeling of thankfulness and relief when the Duty Steward entered and asked if any one wished to give an order before the bar closed.
When, with a grinding crash, the crank-shaft of his port engine fractured, Perham snapped off the switches and glided down to the water.
It was just twelve o'clock noon.
He saw Tiny in the air in front of him, roaring along with his well-found engines turning off a steady sixty knots. The clouds were rather low and the air at a thousand feet was hazy. Gooch fired Very's lights, but the crew of Tiny's boat did not see them, and boomed on.
The wind was blowing about twenty knots from England, and a bigger sea was running than the wind seemed to warrant—always a bad sign.
The crew got out two sea-anchors to check the drift and keep the bow of the flying-boat from yawing off the wind. They fitted the covering over the forward cockpit to keep out water thrown over the bows. The bombs were dropped safe in order to lighten the boat. The engine was carefully examined.
The wicker pigeon basket was passed forward and the message-book taken from the pocket at the side. Two messages were written and rolled up. The wireless operator opened one of the two lids, took out a pigeon, inserted a message in the holder, shoved home the cap, and threw the pigeon into the air, head to wind. The crew watched the bird rise, circle twice, and start off for home. When it was out of sight the second pigeon, with the duplicate message, was released.
As the daylight hours passed the weight of the wind increased. The waves got higher, and finally their crests began to break. Riding to her sea-anchors the boat sat high and free. But as darkness set in the waves began to throw the water over the bow into the pilot's cockpit.
The petrol in the tanks, splashing about, gave off a heavy vapour which filled the boat, and this, with the pitching, added sea-sickness to the discomforts of the crew; for petrol vapour will make the stoutest-hearted seaman wish he had never sold his little farm.
Later on, blowing backwards through the darkness, as the force of the gale increased and the waves got higher, the flying-boat began to roll from side to side. The wing-tip floats on the lower planes buried themselves in the sea—first on one side and then on the other. When they did this a great weight of water poured over the planes, wrenching, twisting, and tearing with all the leverage afforded by the length of the wing.
Perham thought of making an attempt to cut off the fabric on the lower planes in order to prevent the water from getting a grip.
Instead of this the crew took turns at standing, two at a time, on the lower wings, one outboard from each engine, and as a float went under the man on the opposite wing would scramble out on the plane as fast as possible, his weight tending to right the flying-boat. It was a hazardous expedient.
About two o'clock in the morning the crew saw the Schouen Bank light-buoy.
Here in the very shoal water, and with the clear sweep of ninety miles behind them, the waves were perilously steep, and the trough being retarded by the bottom the crests were breaking forward in a thunder of foam.
The sea-anchors carried away.
The boat, rolling and pitching, yawed first one way and then the other. Each time she got off the wind white water was driven across her from bow to stern. The crew were blinded and drenched. The wracking strained the boat, and she began to leak. The wood on the bottom of the flying-boat was not over a quarter of an inch thick. One man had to work the bilge-pump continuously, and the three other men in the crew bailed.
Finally they were over the shoal. The seas here, though big, were not so bad, as their force was somewhat expended in the shallow water.
With the coming of the dawn the worn-out crew saw that they were off the coast of Holland. There were long white sandhills and green hummocks, and a lighthouse with a circular stone tower and a black gallery, and Perham knew that they had made a landfall at the Hook of Schouen. They were now being carried parallel with the coast by a strong current, so they made an attempt to start up the one good engine so as to taxi in to shore. After great difficulty they succeeded. Then they saw a Dutch gunboat, rolling heavily in the sea, approaching them. They shut down the engine.
The code-book, with its weighted covers, was thrown overboard.
The chart, weighted with machine-gun cartridges, was sent after it.
The wireless installation was pulled out and tossed over the side, and the machine-guns and ammunition followed.
Perham retained one machine-gun.
The gunboat hove to to windward and gave the flying-boat a lee. It dropped a boat, which pulled down to them. The engineer and wireless man scrambled on board, followed by Gooch. They shouted to Perham to follow.
Perham was busy with the machine-gun breaking a hole in the bottom of his flying-boat. So far no neutral or enemy Power had had a boat to examine at leisure. When finished, he joined the rest of the crew.
But once aboard the cutter, not satisfied with the way his boat was sinking, he seized a boat-hook and broke a hole in the tail, for the tail contained a water-tight compartment.
The gunboat's crew made an attempt to salve the flying-boat, but were unsuccessful, as she sank. An attempt to grapple for her five days later also failed—only the engines being recovered.
The cable announcing the safety of Perham and his crew was received at Felixstowe before seven o'clock, on the same morning.