Merchantmen-at-arms : the British merchants' service in the war

by David W. Bone

Another of our staff is the officer in charge of our 'Otter' installation, an ingenious contrivance to protect us against the menace of moored mines. For deadly spheres floating on the surface we have a certain measure of defence in exercise of a keen look-out, but our eyes avail us not at all in detecting mines under water moored at the level of our draught. Our 'Otters' may be likened to blind sea-dolphins, trained to protect our flanks, to run silently aside, fend the explosive charges from our course, bite the moorings asunder, and throw the bobbing spheres to the surface.

The 'Otter' expert is invariably an enthusiast. He claims for his pets every virtue. They run true, they bite surely: they can speak, indeed, in the complaint of their guide-wires when they are not sympathetically governed. While it is true that we curse the awkward 'gadgets' in their multitude of tricks, denounce the insistence with which they dive for a snug and immovable berth under our bilge keels—those of us who have come through a hidden minefield share the expert's affection for the shiny fish-like monsters. We cannot see their operation: we have no knowledge of our danger till it is past and over, a dark shape with ugly outpointing horns, turning and spinning in the seawash of our wake.

INSTRUCTIONAL ANTI-SUBMARINE COURSE FOR MERCHANT OFFICERS AT GLASGOW

Adoption of the convoy system has brought a host to our gangways. Our war staff was more than doubled in the few weeks that followed the sinister April of 1917. If, at an earlier date, we had reasonable ground for complaint that our expert knowledge of our business was studiously ignored by the Admiralty, apparently they did not rate our ability so lightly when this old form of ship protection was revived. The additions to our staff included a large proportion of our own officers, withdrawn from posts where their knowledge of merchant-ship practice was not of great value. In convoy, measures were called for that our ordinary routine had not contemplated. The shore division of our new staff aid us in adapting our commercial sea-gear to the more instant demands of war service. They 'clear our hawse' from turns and twists in the chain of our landward connections. Repairs and adjustments, crew troubles, stores—that on a strict ruling may be deemed private matters—became public and important when considered as vital to the sailing of a convoy. In overseeing the ships at the starting-line, indexing and listing the varying classes and powers of the vessels, the convoy section have no light task. To the longshore division, who compose and arrange the integrals of our convoys, we have added a sea-staff of commodores, R.N. and R.N.R., who go to sea with us and control the manœuvres and operations of our ships in station. For this, not only a knowledge of squadron movements is required: the ruling of a convoy of merchantmen is complicated as much by the range of character of individual masters as by the diverse capabilities of the ships.

It was not until the spring of 1917 that Admiralty instituted a scheme of instruction in anti-submarine measures for officers of the Merchants' Service. We were finding the defensive tune difficult to pick up as we marched. The German submarine had grown to be a more complete and deadly warship. Sinkings had reached an alarming height: a spirit almost of fatalism was permeating the sea-actions of some of our Service. Our guns were of little avail against under-water attack. Notwithstanding the tricks of our zigzag, the torpedoes struck home on our hulls. If our luck was 'in,' we came through: if we had bad fortune, well, our luck was 'out'! A considerable school—the bold 'make-a-dash-for-it-and-chance-the-ducks' section of our fellows—did not wholly conform to naval instructions. In many cases zigzag was but cursorily maintained; in darkening ship, measures were makeshift and inadequate.

Schools for our instruction were set up at various centres, in convenient seaport districts. At the first, attendance was voluntary, but it was quickly evident to the Admiralty that certain classes of owners would give few facilities to their officers to attend, when they might be more profitably employed in keeping gangway or in supervising cargo stowage. (The fatalistic spirit was not confined to the seagoers among us.) Attendance at the classes of instruction was made compulsory; it became part of our qualification for office that we should have completed the course.

Although our new schooling occupies but five days, it is intensive in its scope and application. The cold print of our official instructions has its limitations, and Admiralty circulars are not perhaps famous for lucidity. More can be done by a skilled interpreter with a blackboard in a few minutes than could be gathered in half an hour's reading. At first assembly there is perhaps an atmosphere of boredom. Routine details and a programme of operations are hardly welcome to masters accustomed to command. In a way, we have condescended to come among our juniors, to listen with the mates and second mates to what may be said: we assume, perhaps, a detached air of constraint.

It is no small tribute to the lecturer that this feeling rarely persists beyond the opening periods. Only the most perversely immovable can resist the interest of a practical demonstration. The classes are under charge of an officer, R.N., who has had deep-sea experience of enemy submarine activities. Often he is of the 'Q-ship' branch, and can enliven his lectures with incidents that show us a side of the sea-contest with which not many are familiar. If we are informed of the deadly advantage of the submarine, we are equally enlightened as to its limitations. In a few minutes, by virtue of a plot on the blackboard, the vantage of a proper zigzag is made clear and convincing. Points of view—in a literal sense—are expounded, and not a few of us recall our placing of look-outs and register a better plan. Following the officer in charge, a lieutenant of the Submarine Service dissects his vessel on the blackboard, carefully detailing the action in states of weather and circumstance. The under-water manœuvres of an attack are plotted out and explained in a practical way that no handbook could rival. The personal magnetism of the expert rivets our attention; the routine of under-seafaring gives us a good inkling of the manner of man we have to meet and fight at sea; we are given an insight to the mind-working of our unseen opponent—the brain below the periscope is probed and examined for our education.