That story is not unlikely to haunt you all the way home, and for a long time afterwards. It may even make a difference to your whole feeling about the war under water, as waged by our own Service. The submarine is not merely an incredibly clever box of mechanical toys, nor is it only the fit weapon of a cruel and ruthless enemy; it is also a true part of the Navy without fear and without reproach, whose men play the great game for each other and for their country, and play it more greatly than we know. The tune of their service is a kind of undertone; but it is in the heroic key, and cannot fall below it.
CHAPTER IV
A BRITISH SUBMARINE BASE
Our submarine now returns to the surface. She is proceeding on patrol, and her commander, as he bids us good-bye, recommends us to put into the port from which he has just come, and see what a submarine base is like. We take his advice, and return to our trawler. Her head is turned westward and signals are made and answered. The skipper informs us that we are about to pass through a mine-field where the mines are as thick as herring-roe. It is some consolation to hear that ‘The Sweep’ has already done its daily morning work, and that the channel is presumably clear.
The East Coast of England, from Tynemouth to Thames mouth, is pierced with some ten or a dozen estuaries, all more or less suitable for flotilla bases. It is unnecessary to say how many of these are used by our submarines, or which of them it is that we are about to enter. But a short description can do no harm, because one of these bases is very like another, and all are absolutely impervious to enemy craft. Even if they could navigate the mine-field, so thickly strewn with both our mines and their own, and so constantly and thoughtfully rearranged, they would not find it possible to slip, as we are doing, past the elaborate boom at the harbour mouth, or to escape being sunk by the guns which dominate it, and the seaplanes which are constantly passing over it.
And now that we are inside, it looks an even more dangerous place for an intruder—a perfect hornets’ nest. Close to us on the left lies a small pier, with buildings on a hill behind it—the Commodore’s house and offices, seamen’s training-school, and gymnasium. At the pier-head are two or three picket-boats; and a little further on, a light cruiser with her observation balloon mounted. The vast sheds beyond are the hangars of the Air Service. They are painted in a kind of Futurist style, which gives them a queer look from below, but makes them, when seen from a thousand feet up, either invisible or like a landscape of high roads, cornfields, hay-stacks and groups of trees—objects quite uninviting to any stray air-raider. But their best protection is the efficiency of the machines and men inside them.
Over on the opposite side of the river stretches a long quay. The background of it is a naval railway station; the ships lying in front of it are partly supply ships, partly merchant vessels brought in under convoy, and two of them are depot ships, moored permanently there, and used as headquarters for the Submarine, Destroyer, and other services. Out in the centre of the harbour lies a still larger depot ship, the floating headquarters of the Admiral who is Commodore of the port; and behind her, in two long lines, stretching away upstream into the far distance, lies an apparently inexhaustible force of light cruisers, destroyers, and destroyer-leaders, with here and there a submarine—one is slung aloft in a dry-dock for overhauling. A side creek to the left is crowded with trawlers and drifters, whose men are now ashore ‘between sweeps.’ At this hour of the day the place is at its fullest, for the daily ‘Beef Trip,’ or food convoy, has just come in, and the dozen destroyers which escorted it are all lying at their moorings, on both sides of the main stream line. There they will be till to-night, when at 7 o’clock to the second they will all slip away again into the twilight like thin grey ghostly dogs, shepherding another flock of very substantial sheep.
The trawler puts us aboard the depot ship; but the Admiral is not there. A picket-boat takes us over to his pier, and we find him in his chart-room, surrounded by maps marked with spots and figures in different colours, quite unintelligible except to those who have the key, and even to them no subject for conversation at large. But the Admiral is a good talker, his mind is an encyclopædia of submarine war and the working of a naval base, and he is amazingly quick in separating the facts which interest you, and yet are fit for repetition outside, from those which you must forget as soon as you have heard them. He begins by explaining the daily routine of the port—the mine-sweeping, which is done regularly twice a day, but at what times the enemy can only guess, and the mine-laying, which is a game of brain against brain, each side trying to see through the other’s devices and catch him with their own. An elementary example would be the obvious dodge of moving the enemy’s mine a short distance, instead of removing it altogether—so that when next he comes that way, he shall run into it unexpectedly, and perish by his own trap. But this, as I have described it, is too simple a device to be successful, and the ingenuity of our mine-layers has improved upon it by a dozen skilful variations. Much can be done by studying carefully the habits of the German mind. One officer, who is specially skilled in this matter, has the credit of being able to make a U.C.-boat lay her eggs just where he pleases, and of knowing exactly when it will be time to go and collect them.
Our own mine-laying and coastal patrol would be more exciting if the possible successes were not limited to an occasional submarine. It is a little dull to be always laying traps for a flotilla that never comes. The work of our coastal submarines is therefore monotonous; but it is none the less invaluable. Besides making sure, it trains a continual succession of crews for oversea work, and gives experience to young commanders. The number of boats increases every year, and the flow of volunteer entries keeps pace with it. The standard demanded is very high, and it is fully maintained. The prize of efficiency is immediate entry into the hardships and dangers of the oversea patrol.