John Dene of Toronto: A Comedy of Whitehall

by Herbert George Jenkins

And now all was ready. That morning the Destroyer had been floated into the Toronto to see that everything on the mother-ship was in order. Once floated out again, there remained only the taking on board stores and munitions. These lay piled upon the Toronto's deck ready at the word of command to be transferred to the Destroyer.

In design the Destroyer was very similar to the latest form of submarine: 310 ft. 6 ins. in length, she had a breadth of 26 ft. 6. ins. amidships, tapering to a point fore and aft. She carried two ordinary torpedo tubes and mounted two 3 in. guns; but these were in the nature of an auxiliary armament. Her main armament consisted of eight pneumatic-tubes, two in the bows, two in the stern, one on either bow and one on either beam. These fired small arrow-headed missiles, rather like miniature torpedoes fitted with lance-heads for cutting through nets. They had sufficient power to penetrate the plates of a submarine, and were furnished with an automatic detonator, which caused the bursting charge to explode three seconds after impact. The charge was sufficient to blow a hole in the side of a "U"-boat large enough to ensure its immediate destruction.

These projectiles were rendered additionally deadly by the fact that their heads became automatically magnetic as they sped through the water. Thus the target against which they were launched achieved its own destination. They were fitted with small gyroscopes to keep them straight until the magnetic-heads began to exert a dominating influence.

Amidships was the conning-tower, with its four searchlights, so arranged as to be capable of being used singly or together. Thus it was possible to illuminate the waters for half a mile in every direction. Above the conning-tower were two collapsible periscopes, and beneath it the central ballast, beneath which lay the charge of T.N.T. that John Dene had boasted would send the Destroyer to Kingdom Come should she ever be in danger of capture.

Abaft the conning-tower were the engines, a switchboard, and finally the berths of the engine-room staff. For'ard of the conning-tower were the berths of the crew, and still further for'ard were those of John Dene and the officers. John Dene's invention of a new and lighter storage-battery had enabled him to control the Destroyer entirely by electricity. She possessed an endurance of fifteen-hundred miles, and as for the most part she held a watching brief, this would mean that she could remain at sea for a month or more.

Her speed submerged was fourteen knots, which gave her a superiority over the fastest German craft, and she could remain submerged for two days. She could then recharge her compressed-air chambers without coming to the surface by means of a tube, through which fresh air could be sucked from the surface, and the foul discharged. These were weighted and floated in various parts in such a manner that they could be thrown out in a diagonal direction. The object of this was to protect the Destroyer from depth-charges in the event of her whereabouts being discovered by an enemy ship, which would render it dangerous for her to come to the surface.

"The Destroyer's a submarine," John Dene had remarked, "and submarines fight and live under water and not on it."

Consequently in designing the Destroyer he had first considered the special requirements entailed by the novelty of the methods she would employ. She had deck-guns, periscopes and torpedo-tubes; but they were in every sense subsidiary to those qualities that rendered her unique among boats capable of submersion, viz., her searchlights and her magnetic projectiles. Under water there were only two dangers capable of threatening her—mines and depth-charges. Properly handled and without mishap, there was no reason why she should ever return to the surface except in the neighbourhood of her own harbour.

Her most remarkable device, however, was the microphone, so sensitive that, with the aid of her searchlights it would enable the Destroyer to account for any "U"-boat that came within seven or eight miles of where she was lying.

As Blake stood surveying his handiwork, he was joined by his second-in-command, Jasper Quinton, known among his intimates as "Spotty," a nickname due to the irregularity of his complexion. Quinton was an Englishman who had gone to Canada to make his fortune as a mining-engineer. Soon after war broke out he had successfully applied to John Dene for a job, and had acquitted himself so well that John Dene had taken him into his confidence in regard to the Destroyer, and "Jasp," as he called him, had proved "a cinch." John Dene made few mistakes about men and none about women: the one he understood, the other he avoided.