The captain of the Zip turned his glasses back to cover the little group of officers on the liner’s
bridge. “There’s the skipper,” he said presently. “I only hope he’s well ahead of the game on the sleeps, for I wouldn’t mind betting that he won’t be leaving that bridge for a cup of coffee for some time. It’s going to be an anxious interval for him—very anxious. It’s quite beyond calculation, the value to the Allies at this moment of a ship of the size and speed of the Lymptania, and her skipper must know from what has happened the last week, that the Huns are all out to bag her this time, and he can hardly be able to extract any too much comfort out of the fact that it’s about a hundred to one that we’ll bag the Fritz that tries it—either before or after the event. Yes, it will be an anxious time for him—but,” a grimly wry smile coming to his face as he turned his eyes to the opening seaward horizon, “even so, it’ll be nothing to the time we’re in for in the Zip and all the rest of the escort. He’ll be able to sleep if he happens to take a notion to; we won’t, at least, not during the time we’ve got her to shepherd. Again, he’s only got the chance of being hit by a torpedo to worry about; we’ve got the certainty of being hit by head-seas that have as much kick in them to a driven destroyer as a tin-fish full of gun-cotton. Unless the weather gets either a good deal better or a shade worse, we’re sure up against the real thing this time.
“The fact is,” continued the captain, taking up the slack in the hood of his weather-proof jacket as a slight alteration of course brought a new slant
of wind; “the fact is, I’d much rather see it get worse than better. If it would only kick up enough sea so that there was no chance of a submarine operating in it, she could drive right along on her own without any need of destroyers. But so long as we’ve this weather there’s a possibility of a torpedo running in, we’ve got to hang on to the last shiver, and there are two or three things which are going to make ‘hanging on’ this particular trip just a few degrees worse than anything we’ve stacked up against before. This is about the way things stand: The Lymptania’s best protection is her speed; but while she is just about the fastest of the big ships, she is also just about the biggest of the fast ships. This means that the size of the target she presents goes a long way toward offsetting the advantage of her speed; so that the presence of destroyers—in any kind of weather a submarine can work in—is very desirable, and may be vital.
“Now the escorting of any steamer that makes over twenty knots an hour is a lively piece of business, no matter what the weather, for destroyers, to screen most effectively, should zigzag a good deal more sharply than their convoy, and that, of course, calls for several knots more speed. This can be managed all right in fair weather, or even in rough, where there is only a following or a beam sea; but where the seas come banging down from more than a point or two for’ard of the beam it is
quite a different matter. In that event, the speed of the whole procession depends entirely on how much the destroyers can stand without being reduced to scrap-iron. Naturally, the ship under escort endeavours to make her speed conform to the best the destroyers can do under the circumstances; but since an extra knot or two an hour might well make all the difference in avoiding a submarine attack, the tendency always is to keep the escorting craft extended to just about their limit of endurance.
“Just how the mean will be struck between what a fast steamer thinks its escorting destroyers ought to stand, and what the destroyers really can stand, depends upon several things. Perhaps the principal factor is the state of mind of the skipper of the steamer, and that, in turn, is influenced by the value of his ship—both actual and potential—and the danger of submarine attack at that particular time in the waters under traverse. When the destroyers set out to escort a very fast and valuable ship, steering into heavy head seas in waters where there are known to be a number of U-boats operating, they’ve got the whole combination working against them, and the result is—just what you’re slated to see this trip. Best take a good look at the Zip while you’ve got a chance; she may be quite a bit altered by the time we get back to port again. And you might take a squint at the Flossie over there, too. She’s our latest and swiftest, the
Fotilla’s pride. But this is her first experience of taking out an ex-ocean greyhound, and if, in a burst of fresh enthusiasm, she chances to tap any of these several extra knots of speed she is supposed to have—well, the Flossie’s sky-line in that case will be modified more than those of all the rest of her older and wiser sisters put together.”
Those were prophetic words.
“The one thing that makes it certain that we’ll be put to the limit to-night,” resumed the captain, after he had rung up more speed on our coming out into opener water, “is the news in this morning’s official announcement of the sinking of the Justicia. We seem just to have struck the peak of the midsummer U-boat campaign. It was scarcely a week ago that they got the Carpathian. Then, a few days later, came the Marmora (you won’t forget for a while the strafe we had at the U-boat which put her down), and now it’s the Justicia, the biggest ship they’ve sunk in a year or so. That’s the thing that must be worrying the skipper of the Lymptania, for it shows they’re after the great troop-carriers. The way they stuck to the Justicia proves they’re not yet beyond taking some risk if the stake is high enough. Now and then some Fritz is found desperate enough to commit hari-kari by coming up close (if the chance offers) and making sure of getting his torpedo home. He gets what’s coming to him, of course, but there is also a fair chance of his getting the ship he is after; and