How strange it is to come here at midnight and hear the Germans talking! Germany has been so successfully cut off from contact with the civilization she assaulted that these communications have the air of being messages from Mars. There are times when the radio operator picks up frantic cries sent by one U-boat to another; I have before me as I write a record of such a call. It began at 2.14 A.M., shortly after a certain submarine was depth-bombed by an American destroyer. First to be received was OLN's clear, insistent call for RXK and ZZN, probably the two nearest members of the U-boat fleet. Were they cries for help? Probably. Again and again the spark uttered its despairing message. For some time there was no answer. The other two boats may have been submerged; quite possibly sunk. Then at 2.40 from far, far away came ADL calling OLN. At 2.45 OLN answered very faintly. A minute or two later, ADL tried and tried again to get either RXK and ZZN. But there was no answer. Was she trying to send them to the help of the stricken vessel? At 2.57 ADL tries for the hard pressed OLN, but no answer comes to her across the darkness of the sea.
Night and day, a force of operators sit here taking down the messages, sending important ones directly to the chief officers, and letting unimportant ones accumulate in batches of four and five. The messages are written or typewritten on a form in shape and make-up not unlike that of an ordinary telegram blank. All day and all night long, the messengers hurry through the corridors of the great ship with bundles of these naval signals. And since everything intended for the Navy comes in code, decoders too must be at hand at all hours to unravel the messages. It is no easy task, for the codes are changed for safety's sake every little while. On board the great ship I visited, the chaplain did a big share of this work. I can see him now bent over his table in the wireless room, spelling out sentences far more complicated than the Latin and Greek of his university days.
There is one wireless service which will not be remembered with affection by our sailors over there, the Government Wireless Press Service. I was in the Grand Fleet when that dashing business of the first Zeebrugge raid occurred. The "Press News" on the following morning mentioned it, and warned us impressively to keep our knowledge to ourselves. As a result we spoke of it at breakfast time with bated breath. I myself, a modest person, was stricken with a sudden access of importance at possessing a Grand Fleet secret.
Then at ten o'clock the morning papers came down from a certain great city with a full, detailed account of the raid!
The thing that we have most against it, however, is its conduct during the great offensive of the spring of 1918. The air was resounding with the wireless pæans of the on-rushing Germans; and everybody was worried, and anxious to know the fortunes of our troops. One rushed to breakfast early to have first chance at the press news. Friends gathered behind one's shoulder, and tried to read before sitting down. What's the news? What's the news? This (or something very like it) was the news:
"Dr. Ostropantski, president of the Græco-Lettish Diet, denounced yesterday at a meeting of the Novoe Vremya the German assault on the liberties of Beluchistan."
There was one vast, concerted groan from the sons of the Grand Fleet. Some wondered what the anxious folk far out at sea on the destroyers were saying. Finally the wit of the table shook his head gravely.
"Boys," said he, "where would we be if the civilians refused to tell?"