CHAPTER XI
TRAWLERS, SMACKS, AND DRIFTERS
Our Destroyer Service is perhaps as efficient, and as dashing, as anything ever seen in the way of organised human activity. It is long established, and its very perfection seems almost to stand in the way of our wonder at its achievement. The performance of our trawlers and drifters, on the other hand, is the more astonishing because it was an afterthought, the work of a service called into being—suddenly created, as it were, out of nothing—to meet the need of a grave moment which no imagination could well have provided against. When the moment came, everyone knew what might be expected from our Navy. It had not occurred to anyone that our fishermen might help to keep the sea against an outbreak of piracy, not only with courage but with marked success. Yet this they did; and of all the disappointments which the War has brought our enemies this must have been one of the most unexpected and unpleasant.
In reading the accounts which follow, it will be remarked that the work to which our trawlers and drifters set themselves, with such admirable readiness and courage, was not only new to them, but was continually taking new and unforeseen forms, so that they have been called upon to show quickness and adaptability, as well as the capacity for training and discipline. The armament and methods of the submarine of 1915 were different from those of the later and more dangerous boats of 1917. The trawlers, too, were much less adequately armed and equipped. Our men had at first to play a game in which there were no certain rules, and no standard weapons. We can hardly over-praise the officers of the R.N.R. who, in those critical days, took command of the special-service trawlers and fought them with the native skill of the Elizabethan sea-dogs. Nor can we admire too heartily the ready pluck and patriotism with which the skippers, mates, deck-hands and boys of our fishing-fleets turned their hands at a moment’s notice from nets to depth-charges and twelve-pounders, and undertook the daily sweeping of mines, in seas now doubly treacherous, and a hundred times more deadly. There is a strange and almost pathetic sound, even in the names of the little ships themselves—names bearing none of the splendour of history or the prestige of war, but the humble and intimate memories of wives and children, or the jesting pride of the homely seaport where they lived in the time of peace.
The Ina Williams (now His Majesty’s Trawler, Ina Williams) was steaming towards the Irish coast at seven o’clock, one evening in early summer, when she sighted a large submarine on her port beam, some two-and-a-half miles away. The enemy had just come to the surface; for there was no sign of him in that direction a few moments before, and he had not yet got his masts or ventilators up. The Ina Williams was armed, fortunately, with a 12-pounder gun, and commanded by Sub-Lieutenant C. Nettleingham, R.N.R., who had already been commended for good conduct, and after nine months’ hard work was not likely to lose a fighting chance.
He headed straight for the U-boat. She might, of course, submerge at any moment, leaving the pursuer helpless. But Mr. Nettleingham calculated that she would disdain so small an enemy, and remain upon the surface, relying upon her trained gunners and keeping her superiority of speed, with her torpedoes in case of extreme necessity. He was right in the main. The U-boat accepted battle by gunfire; but a torpedo which missed the starboard quarter of the Ina Williams by only 10 feet must have been fired at least as soon as the trawler sighted her, and showed that the enemy was not disposed to underrate even a British fishing-boat. Mr. Nettleingham had saved his ship by the promptness with which he turned towards the submarine, and he now opened fire, keeping helm to avoid any further torpedoes.
The fight was a triumph for English gunnery. The Ina Williams had the good fortune to have fallen in with a wildshot. All his five shells were misses—some short, some on the trawler’s starboard side. The gunner of the Ina Williams had probably had no experience of firing at a moving target, almost level with the water. The U-boat was going 10–12 knots, too, and that was faster than he expected. The result was that his first three shots failed to get her; they fell astern, but each one distinctly nearer than the last. The pirate commander did not like the look of things; he called in his guns’ crews and prepared to submerge. Too late. The British gunner’s fourth shot caught the U-boat on the water-line, half-way between conning-tower and stern. A fifth followed instantly, close abaft the conning-tower itself. The wounded submarine was probably by this time out of hand, for she continued to submerge. Just before she disappeared, the sixth shell struck the conning-tower full at the water-line, and the fight was over. It had lasted fifteen minutes, and the Ina Williams was still 3,400 yards away when the enemy sank. She steamed straight on to the position of the U-boat, and found that even after the ten minutes which it took her to reach the spot, large bubbles of air were still rising, and the sea was being more and more thickly covered with a large lake of oil. The depth was fifty fathoms, and out of that depth, while the Ina Williams steamed round and round her buoy, she had the satisfaction of seeing the dead brute’s life-blood welling up with bursts of air-bubbles for nearly an hour, until the sea was thick for five hundred yards, and tainted for a much further distance. The smell of the stuff was peculiar, and new to the trawler’s crew; they could not find the right word to describe it. But they were eager to scent it again, and as often as possible, for it meant good work, good pay and a good report.
This was a thoroughly professional bit of service, a single fight at long range; but it was no smarter than the sharp double action fought by His Majesty’s Armed Smacks Boy Alfred and I’ll Try against two German submarines. The British boats were commanded by Skipper Walter S. Wharton, R.N.R., and Skipper Thomas Crisp, R.N.R., and were out in the North Sea when they sighted a pair of U-boats coming straight towards them on the surface. The first of these came within 300 yards of Boy Alfred and stopped. Then followed an extraordinary piece of work, only possible to a German pirate. The U-boat signalled with a flag to Boy Alfred to come nearer, and at the same time opened fire upon her with a machine-gun or rifles, hitting her in many places, though by mere chance not a single casualty resulted.
Skipper Wharton’s time had not yet come; he was not for a duel at long range. He threw out his small boat, and by this submissive behaviour encouraged the U-boat to come nearer, which she did by submerging and popping up again within a hundred yards. A man then came out of the conning-tower and hailed Boy Alfred, giving the order to abandon ship as he intended to torpedo. But 100 yards was a very different affair from 300. It was, in fact, a range Skipper Wharton thought quite suitable. He gave the order ‘Open fire’ instead of ‘Abandon ship,’ and his gunner did not fail him. The first round from the 12-pounder was just short, and the second just over; but having straddled his target, the good man put his third shot into the submarine’s hull, just before the conning-tower, where it burst on contact. The fourth shot was better still; it pierced the conning-tower and burst inside. The U-boat sank like a stone, and the usual wide-spreading patch of oil marked her grave.
In the meantime the second enemy submarine had gone to the east of I’ll Try, who was herself east of Boy Alfred. He was a still more cautious pirate than his companion, and remained submerged for some time, cruising around I’ll Try with only a periscope showing. Skipper Crisp, having a motor fitted to his smack, was too handy for the German, and kept altering course so as to bring the periscope ahead of him, whenever it was visible. The enemy disappeared entirely no less than six times, but at last summoned up courage to break surface. The hesitation was fatal to him—he had given the smack time to make every preparation. He appeared suddenly at last, only 200 yards off, on I’ll Try’s starboard bow; but his upper deck and big conning-tower were no sooner clearly exposed than Skipper Crisp put his helm hard over, brought the enemy on to his broadside and let fly with his 13-pounder gun. At this moment a torpedo passed under the smack’s stern, missing only by ten feet, then coming to the surface, and running along on the top past Boy Alfred. It was the U-boat’s first and last effort. In the same instant, I’ll Try’s shell—the only one fired—struck the base of the conning-tower and exploded, blowing pieces of the submarine into the water on all sides.
The U-boat immediately took a list to starboard and plunged bows first—she disappeared so rapidly that the gunner had not even time for a second shot. I’ll Try immediately hurried to the spot, and there saw large bubbles of air coming up and a large and increasing patch of oil. She marked the position with a Dan buoy, and stood by for three-quarters of an hour with Boy Alfred. Finally, as the enemy gave no sign of life, the two smacks returned together to harbour.