CHAPTER XVI
THE DERELICT
There are few things more heart-breaking than sea patrol, which forms the principal duty of anti-submarine fleets. Hours, days and even months may pass with nothing to relieve the monotony of grey sea and sky, with occasional glimpses of wave-tossed ships.
There are, of course, intervening periods in harbour, when fierce gales howl overhead, and guard duty on rain-swept quaysides, or sentry-go in blinding snowstorms, comes almost as a relief from the sameness of winter days on northern seas.
It is, however, the unexpected which generally occurs in war, and during those terrible winters from 1914-1918 it was the ever-present hope of action that kept the spirits of many a sailorman from sinking below the Plimsoll line of health.
Sometimes the happenings were grave and at other times gay, but always they were welcomed eagerly, as providing excitement or change, with something to talk about in the unknown number of dreary weeks ahead.
An episode of this kind occurred one snowy January night in 1917 on the quayside of a northern seaport. The commanding officer of one of the patrol boats in the harbour was going ashore to stay for the night with some friends. Knowing that his ship was due to proceed to sea early the following morning, he took the precaution to place a small alarm clock in the big pocket of his bridge-coat. Groping his way in the darkness and blinding snow across the gangway leading from the ship to the quay, he succeeded in reaching the dock wall. Almost instantly he was challenged by a military sentry on duty and was about to reply when a loud buzzing noise came from his pocket. He had not thought of ascertaining at what time the alarm clock had been set for and the consequences were distinctly unpleasant.
The sentry, hearing the curious buzzing sound coming from the darkness directly he had given the challenge, and thinking it came from some form of bomb, lunged smartly with his bayonet at the spot from which the sound emanated.
Fortunately the officer was near the edge of the dock wall and did not receive the full effect of the thrust. The bayonet tore his coat and pushed him violently over the edge into the icy water of the harbour. His lusty shouts caused searchlights to be turned on and he was rescued promptly, but the episode, small and unimportant as it was, caused considerable merriment—except to the principal actor—for many days afterwards.
All this may sound much like heresy to those who think that naval war means constant fighting, with all the pomp and circumstance of old-time battles. There are, it is true, never-to-be-forgotten moments when the blood surges and pulses beat rapidly, when the months of weary waiting are atoned for in as many minutes of swift action. Such were Jutland, Zeebrugge, Heligoland, the Falklands and many an unrecorded fight on England's sea frontier in the years just past. Such times pass rapidly, however; they are the milestones of war, leaving the weary leagues between, in which there is so much that is sordid and even ghastly, as will be seen from the following.