Days to Remember: The British Empire in the Great War

by John Buchan; Sir Henry John Newbolt

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE MERCANTILE MARINE AND FISHING FLEETS.

Among the great deeds of the war there is one which, though hardly to be described in detail, ranks in truth among the greatest of all. It is a collective deed: the conduct of the whole British Mercantile Marine and the Fishing Fleet—Services not less worthy than the professional Navy and Army to represent the "decent and dauntless people" of these islands. It had been prophesied before the war that after three ships had been sunk by enemy submarines no merchantman would put to sea. The prophet, though himself a naval man, can have known little of the resourcefulness of his own Service, and still less of the temper of his fellow-countrymen.

During the four years of the war, British commerce was never held up by any unwillingness of our seamen to face gun-fire or torpedo: skippers, engineers, and deck hands who had had three, four, or five ships sunk under them were constantly asking to be employed again before their clothes were dry. Seventeen thousand of them died in the 9,000,000 tons of shipping that we lost; yet not a man among the survivors drew back. On the contrary, it must be recorded that the enemy owed much of his success to the habitual and imperturbable confidence of the British skipper in his own ship and his own judgment. The men of the Mercantile Marine and Fishing Fleets also took their full share in the work of defending our coasts and hunting down their lawless and cruel enemies; and in this work they showed every quality of a great Service. It was in no empty form of words that the King honoured the memory of "that great company of our men, who, though trained only to the peaceful traffic of the sea, yet in the hour of national danger gave themselves, with the ancient skill and endurance of their breed, to face new perils and new cruelties of war, and in a right cause served fearlessly to the end." Of this skill, endurance, and fearlessness, recorded in a thousand terse and unpretentious logs, an example or two may be picked almost at random.

In 1915, when the U-boat war was still a new experience, a sharp little double action was fought by two armed smacks, the Boy Alfred and the I'll Try, against two German submarines. The British boats were commanded by Skipper Walter S. Wharton and Skipper Thomas Crisp, and were out in the North Sea, when they sighted a pair of U-boats coming straight towards them on the surface. The first came within 300 yards of the Boy Alfred and stopped. Then followed an extraordinary piece of work, intelligible only to the German mind. The U-boat signalled with a flag to the Boy Alfred to come nearer, and at the same time opened fire upon her with rifles or a machine-gun, hitting her in many places, though by mere chance not a single casualty resulted.

Skipper Wharton's time had not yet come; he was neither for submission nor for a duel at long range; he risked all for a close fight. He first threw out his small boat, and by this encouraged the U-boat to approach nearer. She submerged and immediately reappeared within a hundred yards. A man then came out of the conning-tower and hailed the Boy Alfred, giving the order to abandon ship, as he intended to torpedo. But Skipper Wharton had now the range he desired—the hundred yards hammer and tongs range so dear to Nelson's gunners—and instead of "Abandon ship" he gave the order "Open fire." His man at the 12-pounder did not fail him; the first round was just short, and the second just over, but having straddled his target, the gunner put his third shot into the submarine's hull, just before the conning-tower, where it burst on contact. The fourth shot was better still: it pierced the conning-tower and burst inside. The U-boat, with her torpedo unfired, sank like a stone, and a significant wide-spreading patch of oil marked her grave.

In the meantime the second enemy had gone to the east of the I'll Try, who was herself east of the Boy Alfred. He was still more cautious than his companion, and remained submerged for some time, cruising around the I'll Try with only a periscope showing. Skipper Crisp, having a motor fitted to his smack, was too handy for the German, and kept altering course so as to bring the periscope ahead of him, whenever it was visible. The enemy disappeared entirely no less than six times, but at last summoned up courage to break surface. His hesitation was fatal to him—he had given the smack time to make every preparation with perfect order and coolness. When he appeared suddenly at last, his upper deck and conning-tower were no sooner clearly exposed than Skipper Crisp put his helm hard over, brought the enemy on to his broadside, and opened fire with his 13-pounder gun. At this moment a torpedo passed under the smack's stern, missing only by 2 feet, then coming to the surface and running along past the Boy Alfred. It was the U-boat's first and last effort; in the same instant, the I'll Try fired her only shot. The shell struck the base of the conning-tower and exploded, blowing pieces of the submarine into the water on all sides.

The U-boat immediately took a list to starboard and plunged bows first; she disappeared so rapidly that the smack's gunner had not even time for a second blow. The I'll Try hurried to the spot, and there saw large bubbles of air coming up, and a wide and increasing patch of oil. She marked the position with a Dan buoy and stood by with the Boy Alfred for three-quarters of an hour. Finally, as the enemy gave no sign of life, the two smacks returned together to harbour. Their skippers were both rewarded for their excellent work; Skipper Wharton, who had already killed two U-boats and had received the D.S.C. and the D.S.M. with a bar, was now given a bar to the D.S.C. Skipper Crisp already had the D.S.M., and now received the D.S.C.

In another of these fishermen's fights it was the trawl itself which actually brought on the battle at close quarters and made victory possible. One day in February 1915 the trawler Rosetta, Skipper G. A. Novo, had gone out to fish, but she had on deck a 6-pounder gun ingeniously concealed. She joined a small fleet of four smacks and two steam trawlers some 45 miles out, and fished with them all night. Before dawn a voice was heard shouting out of the twilight: it came from one of the steam trawlers. "Cut your gear away, there's a submarine three-quarters of a mile away; he's sunk a smack and I have the crew on board." "All right, thank you," said Skipper Novo; but to get away from the enemy was precisely what he did not want to do. For some fifteen minutes he went on towing his trawl, in hope of being attacked; but as nothing happened, he thought he was too far away from the smacks, and began to haul up his trawl. He was bringing his boat round before the wind, and had all but the last twenty fathoms of the trawl in, when the winch suddenly refused to heave any more, and the warp ran out again about ten fathoms—a thing beyond all experience. "Hullo!" said the skipper, "there's something funny." He jumped down off the bridge and asked the mate what was the reason of the winch running back. "I don't know, skipper; the stop-valve is opened out full." The skipper tried it himself; then went to the engine-man and asked him if full steam was on. "The steam's all right." "Then reverse winch!" said the skipper, and went to give a hand himself, as was his custom in a difficulty; the hauling went on this time, all but to the end.

Suddenly the mate gripped him by the arm. "Skipper, a submarine on board us." And there the enemy was, a bare hundred yards off on the starboard quarter. "Hard a-starboard, and a tick ahead!" shouted the skipper, and rushed for the gun, with the crew following. The gun was properly in charge of the mate, and he got to it first; but the brief dialogue which followed robbed him of his glory. "Right, skipper," he said, meaning thereby "This is my job." But in the same breath the skipper said "All right, Jack, I got him! you run on bridge and keep him astern." The Rosetta's discipline was good; the mate went like a man, and the skipper laid the gun.