Left to herself, E. 2 now found that she also possessed a heroic lieutenant. Under the date September 7 there stands the brief record: ‘Lieutenant Lyon swam to and destroyed two dhows.’ The story, so well begun, ends next day. At 2.15 A.M. this adventurer, like the other, swam off with a raft and bag of gun-cotton. His object, like the other’s, was to destroy a railway bridge. His friends watched him until, at seventy yards’ distance, he faded into the dusk. From that moment onwards no sound was ever heard from him. The night was absolutely still, and noises on shore were distinctly audible; but nothing like a signal ever came. It had been agreed that if any trouble arose he should fire his Webley pistol, and the submarine should then show a red light and open fire on the station, which was 300 yards distant. For five hours she remained there waiting. An explosion was heard, but nothing followed, and broad daylight found Commander Stocks still waiting with desperate loyalty. At 7.15 he dived out to sea. An hour later he came to the surface and cruised about the place, hoping that Lyon had managed somehow to get into a boat or dhow. There were several near the village, and he might be lying off in one. But no boat drifted out, then or afterwards. Commander Stocks came again at dawn next day—perhaps, as he said, to bombard the railway station, perhaps for another reason. Six days later he dived for home, breaking right through the Nagara net, by a new and daring method of his own.
It was now Lieut.-Commander Bruce’s turn again, and he passed all records by patrolling the Marmora successfully in E. 12 for forty days. He had two other boats in company during part of this time—E. 20 and H. 1—and with the latter’s help he carried out a very pretty ‘spread attack’ on a gunboat off Kalolimno, on October 17. The intended manœuvre was for E. 12 to rise suddenly and drive the enemy by gunfire over H. 1, who dived at the first gun. The first drive failed, the second was beautifully managed; but, in the bad light of an approaching squall, H. 1’s torpedo missed. In a third attempt the bird was reported hit by several shells, but she escaped in the darkness. Lieut.-Commander Bruce also did good shooting at a powder factory near Constantinople; sank some shipping, and made some remarkable experiments with a new method of signalling. But his greatest experience was his return journey.
He had passed through the net, he thought, but suddenly observed that he was towing a portion of it with him. The boat began to sink quickly, bows down; the foremost hydroplane jammed. He immediately forced her nose up, by blowing ballast tanks and driving her at full speed. But, even in that position, she continued to sink till she reached 245 feet. At that depth the pressure was tremendous. The conning-tower scuttles burst in, and the conning-tower filled with water. The boat leaked badly, and the fore compartment had to be closed off to prevent the water getting into the battery, where it would have produced the fatal fumes of chlorine gas.
For ten mortal minutes the commander wrestled with his boat. At last, by putting three men on to the hydroplane with hand-gear, he forced the planes to work and the boat rose. He just managed to check her at twelve feet and got her down to fifty, but even at that depth six patrol vessels could be heard firing at her—probably she was still towing something which made a wake on the surface.
Blind, and almost unmanageable, E. 12 continued to plunge up and down, making very little way beyond Nagara. The conning-tower and its compass were out of action, but the commander conned his boat from the main gyro compass, and when both diving gauges failed he used the gauge by the periscope. The climax was reached when at eighty feet, just to the south of Kilid Bahr, another obstruction was met and carried away. But this was a stroke of luck, for when the commander, by a real inspiration, put on full speed ahead and worked his helm, the new entanglement slid along the side of the boat and carried away with it the old one from Nagara. The boat rose steeply by the bow and broke surface. Shore batteries and patrols opened fire, and a small shell cracked the conning-tower; others hit the bridge, and two torpedoes narrowly missed her astern. But she came safely through to Helles, and reached her base after a cruise of over 2,000 miles.
H. 1 also put nearly 2,000 miles to her credit, though her cruise lasted only thirty days, as against E. 12’s forty. Lieutenant Wilfred Pirie, her commander, took a hand in Lieut.-Commander Bruce’s signalling experiments and co-operated in several of his military enterprises, as we have already seen. He also worked with E. 20 and was the last to meet her. This was on October 31, the day before he dived for home. After that, nothing more was heard of her till December 5, when Commander Nasmith, who was once more in the Marmora with E. 11, captured a Shirket steamer and obtained much information from the captain, a French-speaking Turk. According to his statement, E. 20 had been ambushed, and her officers and crew taken prisoners. He also gave details of the German submarines based at Constantinople—he thought there were ten of them, including three large ones. Before accepting this, we shall do well to refer again to Mr. Einstein, who reports four small boats coming from Pola, of which only three arrived; and one larger one, U. 51, of which he tells an amusing story. U. 51 had been at Constantinople, but during August she went out and did not return; it was rumoured that she had gone home, or been sunk. Then the Turks were electrified by news of the arrival of a new German super-submarine, over two hundred feet long. All Constantinople crowded to see her go out on August 30. ‘Departure from Golden Horn of a new giant German submarine, the U. 54, over 200 feet long and with complete wireless apparatus.’ Next day: ‘The U. 54 turns out to be our old friend U. 51, with another number painted.’ On September 2 Mr. Einstein adds sarcastically: ‘Report that U. 54 was badly damaged by a Turkish battery at Silivri.... To mask this, they are spreading the rumour that an English submarine ran aground, and will doubtless bring in the German boat under a false number as though she were a captured prey.’ And two days later he was justified—‘U. 54 lies damaged in the Golden Horn from the fire of a Turkish battery. The reported sinking of an English boat is a downright lie.’
Commander Nasmith went down the Straits on December 23, after a record cruise of forty-eight days. In that time he sank no less than forty-six enemy ships, including a destroyer, the Var Hissar, and ten steamers. A fortnight before he left, E. 2, Commander Stocks, came up, and did good work in very bad weather, until she was recalled on January 2, 1916. The season was over, and she found, in passing down the Straits, that the Turkish net had apparently been removed, either by the enemy themselves, or perhaps by the wear and tear of British submarines repeatedly charging it and carrying it away piecemeal.
So ended our Eastern submarine campaign—a campaign in which our boats successfully achieved their military objects—in which, too, the skill of our officers and men was only surpassed by their courage, and by their chivalrous regard for the enemies whom they defeated.