“Yes,” said the Commander of the Utopia (The Pongo’s ship). “Very clever and very ingenious. But did you ever hear how the Navy, not the merchant service this time, caught a submarine off the —— Lightship. That was finesse, if you please, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve.”
Our young marine hugged himself. He had set the Navy talking, and when the Navy talks there come forth things which make glad the ears.
“You know the —— Lightship,” went on the Commander, a sea potentate of thirty-five, with a passion for music-hall songs which he sang most divinely. “She is anchored on a shoal which lies off the entrance to one of the busiest of our English harbours. Though her big lantern is not lighted in war time the ship remains as a day mark, and two men are always on board of her. She is anchored on the top of a sandbank where at low water there are not more than twelve feet, though close by the channels deepen to thirty feet. A little while ago the men in the Lightship were interested to observe a German submarine approach at high water—of course submerged—and to take up a position about a hundred yards distant where the low-water soundings were twenty-two feet. There she remained on the bottom from tide to tide, watching through her periscope all the shipping which passed in and out of the harbour. Her draught in cruising trim was about fourteen feet, so that at high water she was completely submerged except for the periscope and at low water the top of her conning tower showed above the surface. At high tide she slipped away with the results of her observations. The incident was reported at once to the naval authorities and the lightship men were instructed to report again at once if the submarine’s performance was repeated. A couple of days later, under the same conditions, Fritz in his submarine came back and the whole programme of watchfully waiting was gone through again. He evidently knew the soundings to a hair and lay where no destroyer could quickly get at him through the difficult winding channels amid the sandbanks except when the tide was nearly at the full. Even at dead low water he could, if surprised, rise and float and rapidly make off to where there was depth enough to dive. He couldn’t be rushed, and there were three or four avenues of escape. Fritz had discovered a safe post of observation and seemed determined to make the most of it. But, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve, even the poor effete old Navy has brains and occasionally uses them. The night after the second visit an Admiralty tug came along, hauled up the lightship’s anchors, and shifted her exactly one hundred yards east-north-east. You will note that the German submarine’s chosen spot was exactly one hundred yards west-south-west of the lightship’s old position. The change was so slight that it might be expected to escape notice. And so it did. Three days passed, and then at high tide the U boat came cheerfully along upon its mission and lay off the lightship exactly as before. The only difference was that now she was upon the top of the shoal with barely twelve feet under her at low water instead of twenty-two feet. The observers in the lightship winked at one another, for they had talked with the officer of the Admiralty tug and were wise to the game. The tide fell, the submarine lay peacefully on the bottom, and Fritz, intent to watch the movements of ships in and out of the harbour, did not notice that the water was steadily falling away from his sides and leaving his whole conning tower and deck exposed. Far away a destroyer was watching, and at the correct moment, when the water around the U boat was too shallow to float her even in the lightest trim, she slipped up as near as she could approach, trained a 4-inch gun upon Fritz and sent in an armed boat’s crew to wish him good-day. Poor old Fritz knew nothing of his visitors until they were hammering violently upon his fore hatch and calling upon him to come out and surrender. He was a very sick man and did not understand at all how he had been caught until the whole manœuvre had been kindly explained to him by the Lieutenant-Commander of the destroyer, from whom I also received the story. ‘You see, Fritz, old son,’ observed the Lieutenant-Commander, ‘Admiralty charts are jolly things and you know all about them, but you should sometimes check them with the lead. Things change, Fritz; light-ships can be moved. Come and have a drink, old friend, you look as if you needed something stiff.’ Fritz gulped down a tall whisky and soda, gasped, and gurgled out, ‘That was damned clever and I was a damned fool. For God’s sake don’t tell them in Germany how I was caught.’ ‘Not for worlds, old man,’ replied the Lieutenant-Commander. ‘We will say that you were nabbed while trying to ditch a hospital ship. There is glory for you.’ ”
“A very nice story,” observed the Royal Naval Reserve man drily.
“I believed your yarn,” said the Commander reproachfully, “and mine is every bit as true as yours. But no matter. Call up the band and let us get to real business.”
Two minutes later the anteroom had emptied, and these astonishing naval children were out on the half-deck dancing wildly but magnificently. Commanders and Lieutenants were mixed up with Subs., clerks and snotties from the gun room. Rank disappeared and nothing counted but the execution of the most complicated Russian measures. It was a strange scene which perhaps helps to reveal that combination of professional efficiency and childish irresponsibility which makes the Naval Service unlike any other community of men and boys in the world.
CHAPTER VI
THE MEDITERRANEAN: A FAILURE AND ITS