CHAPTER VIII
PATROL
The Senior Naval Officer (or the S.N.O., as they clip it down to) at X—— had prepared me for finding an interesting human exhibit in the sharp-nosed, stub-sterned little craft snuggled up to the breast of its mothership for a drink of petrol, or whatever other life-giving essence she lived and laboured on, but hardly for the highly diversified assortment that was to reveal itself to me during those memorable days we were to rub shoulders and soak up blown brine and grog together as they threaded the gusty sea lanes of her winter North Sea patrol.
“I am sending you out on M.L. [D] ——,” the S.N.O. had said as he gazed down with an affectionate smile at the object of his remarks, “for several reasons, but principally on account of the men that are in her. You’ll find them a living, breathing object-lesson in the adaptability of the supposedly stodgy and inflexible Anglo-Saxon race. Her skipper, to use one of his own favourite expressions, is a live wire—always seems to be able to spark when there’s trouble in the wind. He came from somewhere
in Western Canada, I believe. Seems to have tried farming there for a spell, and I think he said something once about running his own agricultural tractor. At any rate, in some way or another, he has picked up more practical knowledge of petrol engines than many of our so-called experts.
[D] Motor launch.
“The fact is,” continued the S.N.O. as we turned back towards his office at the end of the quay, “the fact is that D——, though he never saw salt water before he crossed the Atlantic to do his bit in the War, and though he never has got and never will get, I’m afraid, his sea-legs, is in many respects the most useful M.L. Officer I have ever had to do with, and that’s saying a good deal, let me assure you.
“He’s always sick as a dog from the time he puts to sea to the time he returns to port. The only thing that is liable to be more sick is the Hun submarine he once gets his nose on. I’ve heard him say in a joking way, two or three times, that he always could scent a Hun as far as he could a skunk—I think that’s what he calls it; and from some of the things he’s done I must confess I’m more than half inclined to believe him. Perhaps his most remarkable achievement, however, is that of taking eight or ten men, just as green as he was himself regarding the sea, and making of them a crew that will handle that cranky little lump of a craft pretty nearly as smartly as old trawler-men would on the nautical side, and at the same time having a fund of resource always on tap that is
positively uncanny—almost Yankee, in fact,” he added with a smile. “Indeed, I believe D—— speaks of having knocked about the States a bit, which may account for some of the ‘wooden-nutmeg’ tricks he has played on the U-boats. Try to get him to tell you some of them. You’ll hardly be allowed to write much of them for a while yet—certainly not until they have become obsolete through the introduction of new devices; but you’ll find it good material some day.”