This is the story of a British naval officer's trip to the Western fighting ground as he told it to me the day he returned to London:—
"'Four days!' said I to myself. 'Not very long in which to get a real taste of the World War on land.' However, the morning after I had received 'leave' I departed from London in an automobile and as we sped through the country there seemed, at first, to be little to remind us that England was at war—except, perhaps, the many busy persons on all farms and fields. Finally, we came across a mobile air-station on which were two aeroplanes with folded wings. It was something which made you think.
"In a South Coast port, however, there was military activity everywhere. On the waters, far out from the harbour, which one imagines as denuded of craft, I saw dozens of ships. There were large and small tramps, mine-sweepers, and trawlers, and you were fascinated by the sight. There was a dread lest one of them might disappear through a mine or a torpedo any instant.
"Thousands of soldiers were at the dock, waiting to embark on ships for France. A couple of thousand of them belonged to the Scotch Labour Battalion, ready for work with pick and shovel. Their speech was almost like a foreign language as they 'Jock'd' and 'Donal'd,' joked and sang, when they swung aboard the vessel in single file.
"There was no waving of handkerchiefs and no shouting good-byes when the black-and-tan craft was ready to leave. The skipper was on the bridge. He looked down at an officer ashore, nodded his head, and the other returned the nod. Hawsers were instantly slipped, and the steamer skipped away from the British port on the minute, and soon met her escort—destroyers, out of sight not long since, now ready for their job. These slender speedsters of the sea never stop; so everything must be done according to schedule. Four of the destroyers surrounded us as we ploughed through the water.
"From the bridge came the order for every soul aboard to put on a life-belt, and our friends from Scotland hastened aft to obtain the equipment, scurrying and bustling about the damp cabin for the best belts.
"Half-way across the straits we met the opposite number vessel to ours. She had an escort of three warships, so that for a flash there were seven destroyers on the breast of that water. But it was not for long. A swish, and they were nearer England and we nearer France, they getting some of our smoke and we some of theirs. Steamers go into the French port stern first, and soon I found myself treading French soil. Our Scotch labourers were hurried off the vessel, and they vanished with extraordinary quickness; and this also reminds me that no sooner was our steamship safe in the harbour than the warships nipped off to England, and all you could see in a few minutes was a wreath of water and smoke as they raced homewards.
"The skipper of the passenger craft has seen exciting times. While I stood on the bridge with him and his first officer, he told me of a night he won't easily forget. He was running the Queen, and going over empty, having smuggled aboard a staff officer who had missed the other vessel. It was darkening, and the Queen was about four miles off the British coast when this skipper saw dark hulls, blanched lines, and flaming funnels—all showing terrific speed. First, he took the strange craft to be new French destroyers; but they hailed him in English, and, of course, for an instant he thought then they were British warships, when suddenly it dawned on him. 'By God, they're Germans!' he ejaculated to the staff officer. 'Nip into the cabin, and get those clothes off and into an oilskin, fast as you like.'
"The army man got it done just in time, for an officer and two men from one of the German destroyers sprang aboard the Queen after the enemy warship had bumped the passenger craft. The German demanded the captain's papers, and was told that everything had been thrown overboard.
"The Germans were pale, and the pistol in the officer's hand shook dangerously. The skipper declared that the only papers relating to the Queen were in his cabin.