As the Beef Trip plodded along at eleven knots, taking eleven hours to cross, the flying-boat pilots were sent out in relays, meeting the surface craft at various places on the route as requisite, and remaining with them until relieved. The relays were so arranged that each set of flying-boats was out for five hours and a half.
This work called for extreme nicety in navigation, in order that the boats should make contact with the moving ships at the correct time and position. At first the results were rather ragged, but eventually it became an evolution. The pilots were later informed, in a letter of appreciation, that before they took a hand in the game the crews of the destroyers and light cruisers were kept at action stations throughout the entire trip, but that, now the flying-boats accompanied them, half of the men were allowed to stand off.
Zeppelins from the sheds of Wittmundshaven, Nordholz, and Tondern ran regular daylight patrols outside the Bight and as far south as Terschelling Bank. They did their navigation by wireless, so their positions and courses were fixed by the English direction-finding wireless stations, in the same way as the German submarines were fixed. The euphonism for this method in the service was to say: "We are told by the Little Woman in Borkum that Anna is at so and so." Anna being the first Zeppelin, Bertha the second, Clara the third, and so on. But they were wily birds and hard to catch, their crews keeping a sharp look-out around and all about. The boats had to cross the North Sea to get at them, and they could outclimb a flying-boat heavily laden with petrol for the return journey. They could only be attacked successfully by surprise, and at first the boats had no success.
These Zeppelins kept a suspicious eye on what our light naval forces were doing, and occasionally dropped bombs on the Harwich submarines doing surface patrol on the Dogger Bank. But fortunately gas-bags roll too much for good dropping to be done from them, and their bombs had little effect. Sometimes they would wireless for seaplanes to come out and bomb our submarines, but as, almost up to the end of the war, the Huns used bombs which touched off and burst on the surface of the water, they had little success.
I blew over to Parkeston one day to yarn with a submarine commander about this. He put me into a big soft arm-chair in the wardroom of the mother-ship, placed a potent cocktail in my fist, provided me with a cigarette, and then we communed sweetly together.
"Remember the Fritz your fellows sighted twice last month on the Brown Ridge?" he asked. "Sent out an E-boat to stalk him. Caught him blown on the surface. Put a tin fish into him. Thanks."
He did not use many words but said a great deal. I asked him if submarine often stalked submarine.
"Talked to a fellow up from down south. On diving patrol. Saw Fritz on surface. Torpedo blew Hun commander out of conning-tower. Sole survivor. Seemed much worried. Finally opened heart. Warned our man to clear out as four more U-boats were working in immediate area. Said he could not bear to be sunk twice in one day."
"Please go on," I asked.
"Boat from here stalked Fritz. Fritz heard him—dived. Both went blind under water dead slow. Our chap felt Fritz scrape past under him. Opened everything. Made himself as heavy as possible. Drove Fritz down to bottom. Soft mud. Sat on him for twelve hours. Tide silted them in. Our boat nearly caught. Just managed to pull himself out."