"Are they only using bow guns?"
"Yes; if they turn and fire all guns it won't be safe. They'll be astern next salvo…."
The first lieutenant had vanished again—the boat had spun round (on the principle of steering for the last general splash, and trusting to the meticulous routine of German gunnery corrections) when, with a vicious crack, the three shells passed over the bridge and burst on the water close aboard beyond the hull. The captain ducked—not so much from surprise, but to avoid what he knew was coming; he looked down the conning-tower and saw the third officer's mouth frame the words, "Signal passed"; he jumped down, pressing the diving alarm with one hand as he reached up with the other to close the lid. Then number four shell came, falling a few yards short of his saddle tanks, and sending a shower of water and small splinters across the boat: as usually happens, the bad shot had come nearest, though splinters are not of much use against a submarine hull. The lid snapped down and the tail kicked up a little, and a ragged salvo of shell from the broadsides of four light cruisers whitened the sea where the target had been. The ships tinned again and started on a wide sweep round the spot before edging back to their leader's course. (No ship unattended by destroyers will risk approaching the place where a submarine has dived.) Up the ladder to the leader's bridge ten miles ahead a messenger ran, and stood panting as he held out a signal from the wireless office for the Rear-Admiral to read. The Admiral nodded and looked astern—"No doubt of its origin," he said, frowning. "They call that their Submarine Emergency Reporting Code. We shall alter course——"
The fight between the submarine and its enemies has been waged throughout the war with great intensity of feeling. The submarine weapon aroused hatred aboard surface ships just because it made them feel helpless (I am not referring to acts outside the pale of International or Human laws). The submarine felt—well, not hatred, but fear. There is a ruthlessness of action which is apparently born of cruelty, but which is really due to instincts of self-preservation alone. When U 18 torpedoed and sank "E 22," she rose, in spite of the danger of attack by other E boats near, and picked up the survivors; she could, in view of the fact that her enemies were three miles off, risk doing this. Our own boats have on practically every occasion picked up the survivors of the U-boats they have sunk,—this because, having command of the sea, we could be sure in local waters of nothing hostile interfering. When Lieutenant D'Oyley-Hughes, however, sank U 153 off Cape St Vincent, and rose to pick up the men in the water, he saw another U-boat dive at him from close quarters, which forced him to go under also. In consequence the survivors were drowned—a contingency which might have been avoided if the two belligerent submarines diving round the spot could have trusted each other sufficiently to rise with a white flag flying. As things were, neither would risk being torpedoed on the surface. This spirit was induced early in the war (the incidents which started the feeling need not be quoted), and it is regretted that there was throughout no International arrangement by which a submarine could "go out of play" for a while with a white flag hoisted. The fact that the enemy's War-Book directly permits a breach of rules, if such breach is of vital necessity, is a great bar to the drawing up of humane and decent laws on the subject; while, of course, a breach of the rules by an angry surface vessel (no unlikely thing to occur) would at once abrogate all the rules in the minds of submarine people. There is no doubt that a new weapon calls for new laws to control and guide its use. The enemy boats were used illegally because the enemy Government ordered such use. In certain cases the U-boat captains exceeded their instructions and acted yet more illegally. In such cases it rests with the enemy Government to repudiate or approve their subordinates' actions. In our submarine service we had no orders to be "frightful," and therefore we were humane and acted legally; if we had had such orders as the enemy gave, we would have carried them out, and, from a technical point of view, carried them out much better. But we would have had no instances of personal excess in such acts, just because that sort of thing would not have appealed to our officers. I should mention that the cases of "excess" among U-boat captains were confined to a few, in comparison with the numbers employed, and certain of those few met their deaths before they could return to tell of their deeds.
If submarines are allowed to navies of the future, they must have a code of rules to work by. The code should be drawn up by people who know their subject, and who are also influenced in their ideas by the laws of chivalry and not by the ideas of the German War-Book. Apart from questions of right or wrong, unnecessary killing in war does not pay. Anybody can think of instances of this, but to suggest a case: if a U-boat had been sunk by our patrol vessels while she was in the act of picking up survivors from a torpedoed ship, well, the Germans would have lost a U-boat, but would have gained a splendid piece of propaganda. The patrol vessels could not be blamed, but the U-boat Service would have had a good grievance for the rest of the war. It is not only what you do in war that counts—the way you do it has a lot of influence also on the ultimate result. It is true that war is the negation of ethics, and that expediency is the ruling motive in all war-like acts, but it is a mistake to think, as the enemy did, that ruthlessness pays—decency may very often pay better. In war, a nation must take the blame for the acts of its militant servants; it sometimes pays to disavow such acts, and to sacrifice a subordinate, but in the main all blame must fall on the Government giving the orders. The essence of a military or naval force is discipline, and owing to that discipline all responsibility must in the end be shouldered by the Governments, except in the cases where individual officers have exceeded their orders or interpreted them to the dissatisfaction of their seniors. In our Submarine Service no boat left harbour without definite written orders, and the exact spirit in which her duty was to be carried out was fully understood. If any officer at any time had departed from his orders to the extent of "frightfulness," he would have found himself at once in a serious position: as nobody ever tried the experiment, I cannot quote any cases.
I cannot do better, in speaking of the crews of our boats, than to quote from a despatch of Commodore Keyes (as he was then), written in 1914:—
"When a submarine is submerged, her captain alone is able to see what is taking place; the success of the enterprise and the safety of the vessel depend on his skill and nerve, and the prompt, precise execution of his orders by the officers and men under his command. Our submarines have been pioneers in waters which might well have been mined. They have been subjected to skilful and well-thought-out anti-submarine tactics by a highly-trained and determined enemy, attacked by gun-fire and torpedo, driven to lie on the bottom at a great depth to preserve battery-power, hunted for hours at a time by hostile torpedo craft….
"Sudden alterations of course and depth, the sound of propellers overhead, and the concussion of bursting shells, give an indication to the crew of the risks to which they are being exposed; and it speaks well for the morale of these young officers and men, and their gallant faith in their captains, that they have invariably carried out their duties quietly, keenly, and confidently under conditions which might well have tried the most hardened veteran.
"The Commanding Officers of the submarines are of the opinion that it is impossible to single out individuals when all performed their duties so admirably, and in this I concur…."
That description of the submarine sailor held good throughout the war, as in 1914.