Under the periscope

by Mark Herbert Joseph Bennett

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Sunday, the day of rest, was by no means restful for ‘123.’ A deluge of visitors poured into the boat, starting with the Chief Constructor and Engineer Commander of the Dockyard, and ending with foremen fitters and boilermakers and electricians. All these gentlemen appeared with lengthy lists and copies of the defect notes, and most of them, most certainly the Commander and the Constructor, seemed to be under the fixed impression that the boat was captained by a demon in disguise who was doing his dirty damnedest to get more done to her than was her just allowance. Visits to the S.N.O. and Naval Store Officer took place early in the day, and by noon the battery boards had been lifted by a host of workmen, and the great cells were coming out, dangling on the ends of tackles, to be gently lowered on to trucks and wheeled away to the battery sheds. Later in the afternoon a small army attacked the engine-room and began stripping the engines, while Hoskins and his merry men danced attendance and shed salt tears of sorrow.

The first few days were bound to be strenuous. The torpedoes, gun, and ammunition were all taken away and stowed in sheds and magazines, and another group of workmen got to work on the superstructure, lifting the condemned plates and generally making havoc and noise in the process.

Meanwhile, the crew were accommodated in the Naval Barracks, whence they were shepherded to work each morning by the coxswain, and the officers lived in hotels in the town. There was no thought of leave just yet, as there was too much work to do, and on Monday morning the boat was placed in dry dock.

As the water descended in the dock her underwater lines became visible, and one was struck with their resemblance to the shape of a fish. The tail, the fins, the head, all were there, and the holes in the bow-cap looked like the two great goggle eyes of an underwater monster.

The re-fit was now in full swing. Both batteries were out in the sheds, and Seagrave spent every spare minute he had in hovering over the cells and expostulating with the electrical experts who were to overhaul them. Meanwhile Raymond would be in the boat or visiting the powers that be, and Boyd was usually to be found in the vicinity of the office of that mighty man, the Naval Store Officer, for the greater part of the day. There was not much for the crew to do. The engine-room staff were helping the workmen in their department, and the electrical experts were busy also, but the ordinary rank and file were employed mostly in chipping paint and rust and cleaning up messes made by the busier members of the staff.

At the end of the first week the engines were practically ashore, the after superstructure had also been lifted, and the exhaust pipes removed. Both batteries were out and all the air bottles had gone ashore to be tested. Stages had been rigged round the boat, and men were working on the bow-cap, which was to be lowered and overhauled, and also on the rudders and hydroplanes which were being stripped down, rebushed, and generally attended to.

The boat was in a state of ordered chaos by now, and it was almost impossible to move in her below. Men seemed to be everywhere, all round her and underneath her even, for the Kingston valves in the bottom of the boat were being seen to and tested among other things. She lay in the dry dock like a landed salmon, hammered at and struck by merciless and persisting workmen who seemed to delight in tearing things to pieces. The main motors were already receiving their due modicum of attention, much to the distraction of the T.I., who spent most of his day in the torpedo shed.

Finally, after about ten days of it, when the ballast tanks had been cleaned out and painted (you had to crawl in through a tiny manhole to get to them), the time for testing arrived, and Seagrave was allowed to depart on his well-earned leave. The tanks were tested separately by a water pressure, water being pumped in and left at the required pressure for a stated interval. Then the tank was drained and opened up, and Raymond and Hoskins, who was a man in great demand just now, would crawl in clad in overalls and see that all was in order. The main ballast tank, the trimming tanks, auxiliary and buoyancy tanks, were all tested in this way, and even the fuel tanks had to go through the same ordeal, though of a much less severe character. By the time these tests were all satisfactorily finished, the re-fit was in its third week, and matters were at their height. The battery tanks had been cleaned out and were now being ‘rosmanited,’ or covered with a preparation that resists the action of the acid, if any should be spilt out of the cells. The bow-cap had been down and replaced, and the rudders and hydroplanes were once more in position by the time Seagrave returned from his ten days’ leave and Boyd was able to go away for his spell. Raymond, poor wight, would be lucky if he could snatch a couple of days just at the end of the performance.

The air bottles underwent their ordeal and were replaced singly, a matter of much labour, and the engines began to return in pieces and take shape and resemble their accustomed appearance. The bigger jobs were over, and the boat was painted inside and out, and left the dry dock after being a month out of the water. Then the battery began to come back, and the cells were strapped together and the boards laid down, and the internal appearance of the boat looked a little more ship-shape. But there was still a host of minor things to be done. Motors and rheostats were ashore, and had to be replaced and wired, alterations were being made to the bridge, and the superstructure was not yet in place. Presently Boyd returned from leave, and Raymond made a dash to London only to be recalled three days later over a matter of an alteration to the H.P. air line. The stores began to drift aboard and the boat to look a little more like her old self, for they were speeding things up now owing to urgent telegrams of recall to the Parentis, and every one was working at fever heat.