If little was said, it was with no good grace we took such a station. There were those who saw that seafaring could not thus arbitrarily be divided. Other nations were stirring and striving to a naval strength and power, drawing aid and personnel from their mercantile services. Sea-strength and paramountcy might not wholly come to be measured in terms of thickness of the armour-plating—in calibre of the great guns. Auxiliary services would be required. The Navy could no more work without us than the Army without a Service Corps.
The Royal Naval Reserve came as a link to our intercourse. Certain of our shipmates left us for a period of naval training. They came back changed in many particulars. They had acquired a social polish, were perhaps less 'sailor-like' in their habits. As a rule they were discontented with the way of things in their old ships; the quiet rounds bored them after the crowded life in a warship. We were frequently reminded of how well and differently things were done in the Service. Perhaps, in return, we took the wrong line. We made no effort to sift their experiences, to find out how we might improve our ways. Often our comrade's own particular shrewdness was cited as a reason for the better ways of naval practice. We were rather irritated by the note of superiority assumed, perhaps somewhat jealous. Had commissions been granted on a competitive basis, we might have accepted such a tone, but we had our own way of assessing sea-values, and saw no reason why we should stand for these new airs. What was in it, what had wrought the change, we were never at pains to investigate. It was enough for us to note that, though his watch-keeping was certainly improved, our re-entered shipmate did not seem to be as efficient as a navigator or cargo supervisor as once we had thought him. All his talk of drills and guns and station-keeping considered, he seemed to have quite forgotten that groundnuts are thirteen hundredweights to the space ton and ought not to be stowed near fine goods!
On the other hand, he might reasonably be expected to see his old shipmates in a new light. Rude, perhaps. Of limited ideas. Tied to the old round of petty bickerings and small intrigues. He would note the want of trusty brotherhood. His sojourn among better-educated men may have roused his ideas to an appreciation of values that deep-sea life had obscured. The lack of the discipline to which he had become accustomed would appal and disquiet him. In time he would be worn to the rut again, but who can say the same rut? Unconsciously, we were influenced by his quieter manners. In self-study we saw faults that had been unnoticed before his return. Reviewing our hard sea-life, we recalled our exclusion from benefits of instruction that went a-begging on the beach. We stirred. There might yet be time to make up the leeway.
The influence of naval training was never very pronounced among the seamen and firemen of the Merchants' Service who were attached to the R.N.R. Their periods of training were too short for them to be permanently influenced by the discipline of the Navy (or our indiscipline on their return to us may have blighted a promising growth!) On short-term training they were rarely allotted to important work. The governing attitude was rather that they should be used as auxiliaries, mercantile handymen, in a ship. If there was a stowage of stores, cleaning up of bilges, chipping and scaling of iron rust—well, here was mercantile Jack, who was used to that kind of work; who better for the job? Generally, he returned to his old ways rather tired of Navy 'fashion' and discipline, and one saw but little influence of his temporary service on a cruiser. Usually, he was a good hand, to begin with: he sought a post on good ships: with his papers in order we were very glad to have him back.
In few other ways did we come in touch with the Navy. At times the misfortune of the sea brought us into a naval port for assistance in our distress. Certainly, assistance was readily forthcoming, a full measure, but in a somewhat cold and formal way that left a rankling impression that we were not—well, we were not perhaps desirable acquaintances. The naval manner was not unlike that of a courteous prescribing chemist over his counter. "Have you had the pain—long?" "Is there any—coughing?" We had always the feeling that they were bored by our custom, were anxious to get back to the mixing of new pills, to their experiments. We were not very sorry when our repairs were completed and we could sail for warmer climates.
With the outbreak of war the R.N.R. was instantly mobilized. Their outgoing left a sensible gap in our ranks, a more considerable rift than we had looked for. Example drew others on their trodden path, our mercantile seamen were keen for fighting service; the unheralded torpedo had not yet struck home on their own ships. Commissions to a new entry of officers were still limited and capricious—the Hochsee Flotte had not definitely retired behind the booms at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, to weave a web of murder and assassination. For a short term we sailed on our voyages, on a steady round, differing but little from our normal peace-time trade.
A short term. The enemy did not leave us long secure in our faith in civilized sea-usage. Our trust in International Law received a rude and shattering shock from deadly floating mine and racing torpedo. Paralysed and impotent to venture a fleet action, the German Navy was to be matched not only against the commercial fleets of Britain and her Allies, but against every merchant ship, belligerent or neutral. There was to be no gigantic clash of sea-arms; action was to be taken on the lines of Thuggery. The German chose his opponents as he chose his weapons. Assassins' weapons! The knife in the dark—no warning, no quarter, sink or swim! The 'sea-civilians' were to be driven from the sea by exercise of the most appalling frightfulness and savagery that the seas had ever known.
Under such a threat our sea-services were brought together on a rapid sheer, a close boarding, in which there was a measure of confusion. It could not have been otherwise. The only provision for co-operation, the R.N.R. organization, was directed to augment the forces of the Navy: there was no anticipation of a circumstance that would sound a recall. Our machinery was built and constructed to revolve in one direction; it could not instantly be reversed. Into an ordered service, ruled by the most minute shades of seniority, the finest influences of precedence and tradition, there came a need to fit the mixed alloy of the Merchants' Service. Ready, eager, and willing, as both Services were, to devote their energies to a joint endeavour, it took time and no small patience to resolve the maze and puzzle of the jig-saw. Naval officers detailed for our liaison were of varied moulds. Not many of the Active List could be spared; our new administrators were mostly recalled from fishing and farming to take up special duties for which they had few qualifications other than the gold lace on their sleeves. Some were tactful and clever in appreciation of other values than a mere readiness to salute, and those drew our affection and a ready measure of confidence. Others set up plumed Gessler bonnets, to which we were in no mood to bow. Only our devotion to the emergency exacted a jerk of our heads. To them we were doubtless difficult and trying. Our free ways did not fit into their schemes of proper routine. Accustomed to the lines of their own formal service, to issuing orders only to their juniors, they had no guide to a commercial practice whereby there can be a concerted service without the usages of the guard-room. They made things difficult for us without easing their own arduous task. They objected to our manners, our appearance, to the clothes we wore. Our diffidence was deemed truculence: our reluctance to accept a high doctrine of subservience was measured as insubordination.
The flames of war made short work of our moods and jealousies, prejudices, and dislikes. A new Service grew up, the Temporary R.N.R., in which we were admitted to a share in our own governance and no small part in combatant operations at sea. The sea-going section found outlet for their energy and free scope for a traditional privateering in their individual ventures against the enemy. Patrolling and hunting gave high promise for their capacity to work on lines of individual control. Minesweeping offered a fair field for the peculiar gifts of seamanship that mercantile practice engenders. Commissioned to lone and perilous service, they kept the seas in fair weather or foul. Although stationed largely in the narrow seas, there were set no limits to the latitude and longitude of their employment. The ice of the Arctic knew them—riding out the bitter northern gales in their small seaworthy drifters, thrashing and pitching in the seaway, to hold a post in the chain of our sea-communications. In the Adriatic warmer tides lapped on their scarred hulls, but brought no relaxing variance to their keen look-out. For want of a match of their own size, they had the undying temerity to call three cheers and engage cruiser ordnance with their pipe-stems! A service indeed! If but temporary in title, there is permanence in their record!
Coincident with our actions on the sea—not alone those of our fighting cubs, but also those of our trading seamen—a better feeling came to cement our alliance. First in generous enthusiasm for our struggle against heavy odds, as they came to understand our difficulties, naval officers themselves set about to create a happier atmosphere. We were admitted to a voice in the league of our defence. Administration was adjusted to meet many of our grievances. Our capacity for controlling much of the machinery of our new movements was no longer denied. The shreds of old conservatism, the patches of contention and envy were scattered by a strong free breeze of reasoned service and joint effort.