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

by David W. Bone

The flood tide making over the shoals sets in with a thrussh of broken water alee of the wreck. The salvors' cutter, from which the mate is sounding and marking bottom, spins in widening circles in the eddies and shows the strength of early springs. As yet the stream binds the wreck hard to the bank, setting broad on from seaward, but relief will come when the spent water turns east on the last of the flood. Survey completed, the salvage officers clamber to the deck again. The leak in number three is their only concern; if that can be overcome, there seems no bar to a successful programme. The commander questions the mate as to the depth of water alongside, is assured of draught, and signals his vessel to heave up and come on. The strength and onrush of the tidal race makes the manœuvre difficult, and it is on second attempt, with a wide sweep and backing on plane of the current, she drives unhandily to position. The impact of her boarding, for all the guardian fenders, jars and stirs the wreck, but brings a confident look to the salvors' faces; as readily shaken as that, they assure themselves the responding hull will come off with 'a bit of a pinch' on the angle of withdrawal that they have planned on the tidal chart.

With hawsers and warps barely fast, the great pumps are hove up in air and swung over the hatchway of the doubtful hold. But for the general order to carry on, there are few directions and little admonition. Every man of the busy group of mechanics and riggers has 'a brick for the wall,' and the wriggling lengths of armoured hose are coupled and launched over the coamings as quickly as the massive motors are lowered. Foundering with splash and gurgle, like uncouth sea-monsters in their appanage of tortuous rubber tentacles, the sheen of their polished bulk looms through the green translucent flood of solid seawater, the grave and surely augmented tide that they are trimmed to master. Again, the seeming hopelessness of the task, the handicap of man against element, presents a doubt to one's mind. Two shell-like casings of steel, a line of piping and cab-tyre coils for power leads—to compete with the infiltration of an ocean; there are even small fish darting in the flood of it, a radiating Medusa floats in and out the weltering 'tween-decks, waving loathsome feelers as though in mockery of human efforts!

Like a war-whoop to the onslaught the dynamos of the salvage vessel start motion, and hum in crescendo to a high tenor tone; the vibrations of their speed and cycle are joined in conduct to the empty hull of the wreck, and she quickens with a throb and stir as of her arteries coursing. There is no preparatory trickle at outboard end of the hose ejections; with a rush and roar, a clean, solid flood pours over, an uninterrupted cascade at seven tons from each per minute!

The carpenter sounds the depth with rod and chalked lanyard, then lowers a tethered float to water-level of the flooded compartment. In this way he sets a starting mark for the competition, a gauge for the throw of the pumps. In interest with the issue, the salvage men gather round the hatchway, and all eyes are turned to the bobbing cork disc to note the progress of the contest. Stirring and drifting to slack of the line, the float seems serenely indifferent to its important motion; wayward and buoyant, it trims, this way and that, then steadies suddenly on a taut restraint; slowly it seems to rise in the water as though drawn by an invisible hand. It spins a little to lay of the cord, then hangs, moisture dropping and forming rings on the glassy surface of the well! By no seeming effort but the pulse-like quiver of the hose, the level falls away. A bolt-head on the plating shows under water, then tips an upper edge above; a minute later the round is exposed and drying in a slant of the sun.

The tense regard with which we have scanned the guide-mark gives way to jest and relief when it is seen that drainage is assured; a facetious mechanic at the hose-end makes motions as of pulling a bar handle to draw a foaming glass. "Sop it up, old sport!" says the rigger, patting the pipes. "Sop it up an' spit! Ol' Neptune ain't arf thusty!"

During our engagement, Titan has not been idle. There remains only an hour or two of flood tide and much has to be done. Leaving steam-pumps to cope with the more moderate leakage at the after section, she has hauled forward on the rising tide on the shoal side of the wreck. At the bows she has applied suction to the prisoned water in the fore holds, and a new stream pours overside in foaming ejection. The roar and throb of her power motors adds further volume and vibration to the rousing treatment by which the nerves of the stranded hulk seem braced. Stirred by the new life on her, the old ship may well forget she has no stern and only part a bottom. Already the decks, gaunt and red-rusted as they are, take on a cheering look of service and animation. The seamen in the rigging and workmen crowded round the hatchways might be the dockers boarded for a day's work on the loading, and only the thunder of the motors and crash of the sluicing torrent remain foreign to a normal ship-day.

The sun has gone west when the tidal current surging past shows a change in direction. We throw sightly flotsam overboard and note the drift that takes the refuse astern. No longer the green slimy plates of the hull show above water, the tide has lapped their sea-growth and ripples high on a cleaner surface. With high water approaching we draw near the point of balance in buoyancy, and the salving tenders tighten up headfasts and stern ropes in readiness for a slip or drag. The sea-tug that has till now been a quiet partner in operations, smokes up and backs in astern to pass a hawser to the wreck. She drops away with a good scope, and lies handy to tow at orders.

Tirelessly, droning and throbbing with insistent monotony, the pumps continue their labour and draw the weight of water that holds the wreck down. At number three hold the flood below is no longer a still and placid well. The penned and mastered water seethes and whirls in impotent fury at the suction that draws and churns only to expel. Some solid matter, seaweed perhaps, has drifted to the leak and stems a volume of the incoming water; there seems a prospect that a single pump may keep the level.

In somewhat tense expectancy, we await a crisis in the operations. There is a feeling that all these masterly movements should lead to a spectacular resurrection—a stir and tremor in the frame of her, reviving sea-throes, a lurch, a list, a mighty heave, and a staggering relaunch to the deeps.

Precise and businesslike, modern salvage avoids such a flourishing end to their labours. As skilful surgeons, they object strongly to excitement. Their frail and tortured sea-patients can rarely stand more than gentle suasion. As surely as the tide they work by, the factors of weight and displacement and trim have been figured and calculated. . . . The commander draws our attention to a quiet and steady rise in the bows, the knightheads perceptibly edging nearer to a wisp of standing cloud. Without a jar or surge the wreck becomes a floating ship; she lists a little, as the towing hawser creaks and strains, and we draw off gently to seaward.