IV.
The telephone bell rang.
Our new Intelligence Officer, a man of infinite energy, answered the call.
He had arrived the previous day, and as he had never been on a flying-boat station before, he examined everything with microscopic care. He installed a new system of operation orders, put in a new method for keeping records and signals, and arranged for the building of a new and spacious intelligence hut. He had gone to bed about midnight after confiding in me that after France he was going to have an easy time.
But on this morning he had been up at two o'clock and had been working furiously all day, without a chance of luncheon or tea. He now followed me into the mess and said—
"There are four Hun destroyers off the North Hinder position; the S.N.O. wants three boats sent out."
Giving one hungry glance at the table, he hastened away to the intelligence hut to prepare the operation orders.
As the three flying-boats were rolled out on the slipway and their crews climbed on board, four lean destroyers glided down the harbour in line ahead and passed out between the guardships, bound on the same errand.
The three boats were shoved down the slipway, the pilots took to the air at eight o'clock and rapidly disappeared from our sight seaward in the gathering dusk. The boom of the engines tailed out and ceased. All was silence.
With the little group of pilots on the slipway I returned to the mess to finish my interrupted dinner.
But the I.O., who had not even had a plate of soup but was very conscientious, was now encamped in the Flying Office, where he seemed to be sending a tremendous number of signals. He also had a long yarn with the Fire Commander in charge of the harbour searchlights and batteries, warning him to look out for the returning flying-boats.
Shortly after nine o'clock he received a telephone message from a coastguard stationed some ten miles up the coast, that one boat was returning. He joined me on the slipway and we stood together in the velvety darkness listening. But all we could hear was the tide gurgling around the piers beneath us. Presently we heard a faint zoom-zoom far in the distance, and then the unmistakable full-throated roar of the twin engines.
The pilot passed over us at six hundred feet, shedding red signal lights, but all that we could see of him were the four pointed flames standing back from the exhaust-pipes. There was to be a full moon, but it did not rise until later. The song of the engines ceased as the pilot shut them off and glided down. And then he was on the water and being towed into the slipway by a motor-boat.
Her crew came ashore and reported that they had been out to the position required and had seen nothing. The I.O. retired to the silence cabinet and got busy. He was carefully writing down and numbering each signal he sent or received in order to enter them in a big book he had started to keep.
A thick mist began to creep in from the sea. It swallowed up Harwich, the guardships, the destroyers at anchor, the trawlers lying on our landing water, the buoys, and the slipways.
At ten o'clock we heard the second boat returning. The Fire Commander switched on his searchlights to show up the water to the pilot, but the beams were diffused in the mist and the harbour was filled with a yellow luminous haze.
Through this haze we saw the flying-boat travelling at a tremendous pace. And we heard a loud smack. The pilot had hit the invisible water at speed. Up and up through the shining mist we saw thrown the black silhouette of the boat. It seemed to pause for an instant. We held our breath. Then the bow fell, and she nose-dived into the water with a sickening crash of breaking wood. She weighed six tons.
Immediately all the ships in the harbour added their searchlights to the glare. We saw the boat standing in an amazing fashion on her nose, her tail vertically upright, and resting on the leading edges of the wings.
Two motor-boats detached themselves from the slipway and raced to the wreck. Their crews found that the bow of the boat had broken off complete at the wings. The crew had been spilled out of her like peas out of a pod. The wireless operator and engineer were picked up uninjured, and then Faux, who had a slight scratch on his forehead. Finally they found Bill Bailey, the second pilot, paddling around in the water, his chart-board under one arm, unhurt, but very much distressed because he had dropped the weighted code-book, for the loss of which he would have to fill in innumerable forms.
Going out in a motor-boat I attached a rope to the tail of the wreck, pulled her over backwards, towed her in, and beached her at the Old Station. The harbour was again in darkness, all the searchlights had been switched off.
The boat that stood on its nose.
As this excitement died down a wireless signal was picked up from the third boat. It was incomplete, and said something about "gun flashes" and "Belgian coast." It was of course picked up by other wireless stations. It lit up the whole east and south coast. Signals poured in from the Harwich flotilla, the Dover patrol, Group Headquarters, the Admiralty, and the Air Ministry. Everybody in England seemed spoiling to get in on the fight. The I.O. stood at the telephone taking down signals, until the silence cabinet looked as though it had contained a snowstorm.
I panicked over to the wireless hut. Here, in the sound-proof cabinet, behind the double glass door, sat two operators, receivers clipped on their ears, listening intently. One of them closed a switch, a motor behind me buzzed, there was a series of sharp cracks, and the room was lit up by a steely electric glare. It was the spark jumping across the rotary gap, one of the operators had crashed a wireless signal out into the night. The buzz of the motor ceased. I looked through the glass doors—the two operators, with intent faces, were again listening.
Spring-heeled Jack opened the door, said a word to the operators, and then went to the telephone. He was put through to the harassed I.O., and said—
"I am sending out the call sign of the boat every five minutes, but so far she has not answered, and I cannot make anything more out of her first signal than I gave you. It was very faint, and there was a good deal of interference."
I went back to the flying office.
At eleven o'clock the I.O. received a hostile aircraft warning. All lights on the station were extinguished, and the hands turned out to stand by their dug-outs, which had been constructed after the Gothas had raided the station twice in daylight. The I.O. seemed glued to the telephone taking in signals. The first one ran—
"Hostile aircraft attacking light-ship in Thames estuary."
And then they came in fast. The I.O. was working by the light of an electric torch. These signals said that ships all over the estuary were reporting enemy aircraft, that some of the coast batteries were in action, that more batteries were in action, that the first warning was out in the Metropolitan police area, that night-flying machines were up from a dozen aerodromes, and finally, that the "take cover" warning was out in London.
I went out into the mist on the slipway. I heard the thudding of guns, and saw star-shells bursting high in the air in the direction of the mouth of the Thames. Nothing had been heard of the third boat, and I was very much worried. The I.O. back at the telephone was still fighting with a blizzard of signals.
About one o'clock things quieted down, and the all-clear signal came in. The I.O. told me he was going up to the mess for a much-needed cup of cocoa. But as he was about to put his hand on the knob of the flying office door the telephone bell rang, and his work began again. Another air-raid warning came in, battery after battery was reported in action, and London again took to the cellars. The fuss continued until nearly two o'clock, when another all-clear signal came in. The I.O. was looking a bit pinched about the face, and white under the gills.
I again went out on the slipway and listened for the missing boat, and was joined by the I.O. Presently, in the distance, we heard the faint note of a twin-engined machine. It developed into the roar of a pair of Rolls, which passed over us in the mist. We fired Very's lights from the end of the slipway, and the Fire Commander switched on two searchlights to light up the guardship at the boom. Suddenly the roar of the engines ceased, and all was silent. We heard nothing more.
Shoving off one motor-boat to search the harbour, I sent a second outside, and followed it in a third, with a good stock of Very's lights. After barging around in the mist for half an hour, shedding a copious display of red, white, and green fire-balls, I fell in with the missing boat, passed the pilots a line, and towed them in. The pilots, MacLauren and Dickey, reported to the I.O., and we went up to the mess for sandwiches and cocoa.
We left a weary I.O. at the telephone trying to straighten out the tangled skein of events.
MacLauren, as soon as he left the harbour, lost sight of the other two boats in the gathering dusk. Just outside the harbour, and before they had got out through the mine-fields, he overhauled our four destroyers which had got away before him. Looking down, he saw them all in a lather over doing thirty knots. He left them behind as though they were nailed to the water.
When he made the North Hinder position he flew around in great circles but came across no Hun destroyers. It was a fine night for flying, not a bump in the air, so he turned south-west. In half an hour he saw a light winking ahead on the water and picked up the Schouen Bank buoy.
Here he turned south down the Belgian coast and soon saw gun-flashes in the distance. It was the never-ceasing artillery duel on the Flanders front. But his optimistic wireless operator thought it was a naval action in full swing, and got off part of a wireless signal before he could be stopped. When a wash-out signal was being sent the transmitter broke down.
But during the discussion MacLauren had got over Zeebrugge, and the boat was surrounded by flaming onions. The whole misty atmosphere was filled with a green glare. Dickey dived into the front cockpit to drop the bombs, but before doing so looked back at the pilot.
MacLauren saw the smile wiped off Dickey's face, his jaw drop, and his frantic signal to turn out to sea.
Not knowing what horror had shattered the composure of the usually imperturbable Dickey, MacLauren banked the heavy boat round in a split-all turn and drove out over the water. As he did so he looked back over his shoulder to see the terror behind, but all he saw was the placid face of the full moon, just risen, and looking very red through the mist.
Dickey in the front cockpit, intent on dropping the bombs, had turned suddenly and got a partial glimpse of its red face through the engine bearer-struts. He thought it was some new and awful devilment of the Hun, and automatically made the signal to turn out to sea.
MacLauren now headed for home. The mist was thick and the farther he flew the thicker it got. While skimming close over the surface of the water he found a light-ship and circled around it. The wireless operator took his Aldis lamp and flashed to the crew, asking for the position. But he received no answer.
So MacLauren barged around in the Thames estuary, happening upon a good deal of shipping, and finally found himself over the coast. Here big guns began to go off. Star-shells and high explosives were bursting at about fourteen thousand feet. He was only up about six hundred, kiting along in the mist, the concussions from the discharge of the guns shaking the boat. He fled up along the coast over battery after battery. Then he turned out to sea.
Dickey wrote on a pad: "There must be the devil of a big air-raid on." And MacLauren nodded.
When things got more or less quiet MacLauren ventured in again, saw a place which looked like Harwich harbour, and landed. But it wasn't. However, he shut off the engines. Then he heard night-flying machines passing overhead, and knowing that if he met up with any of the eager young pilots bent on bloodshed they would shoot first and inquire afterwards, he lay snug on the water. The sandwiches and the thermos flask were got out and the chart was carefully examined.
As soon as the hick-boo was over MacLauren had the engines started and took off. Once in the air he saw that the batteries had started up again. But he now knew where he was and flew straight up the coast to Felixstowe, landing outside, as he did not want to knock over a ship or two in the mist.
It was now four o'clock.
As we were rising from the table to go to our cabins the door of the mess opened. There stood the I.O. drooping with fatigue, but with a neatly filed and indexed bundle of signals six inches thick in his hand. He went up to MacLauren and said—
"There were no Gothas. Do you realise, young man, that this night you have put everybody in London into their cellars twice?"
At early breakfast next morning the I.O. received an urgent order from the Powers That Be to report elsewhere immediately for important duties, and an hour later as he was departing he said to me—
"I am sorry to go. I had no idea that a flying-boat station was such a busy place."
