A Naval Venture: The War Story of an Armoured Cruiser

by T. T. Jeans

Two football grounds had been made, quite close to this "wireless" station, and the use of them was given to each ship in turn—two matches a day on each. So, often the ward-room and gun-room combined to play the officers of other ships; often, too, the men arranged matches between different parts of the ship—Bubbles and his fo'c'sle men—the Orphan and the Sub with their foretop men—the War Baby and his marines—the Lamp-post and Rawlins with their quarter-deck men.

Many good games they had, and if only there had been any cheering news, this period would have been a very pleasant one. But nothing went well anywhere. The great "push" in Flanders and France had come to a full stop; the Russians only just managed to keep the Germans from advancing—in fact, but for the approach of winter, people wondered whether they could keep them out of Petrograd (no one could get used to that name), and whilst the Germans and Austrians swept across the Danube into Serbia, the Bulgarians poured across the eastern frontier. Troops in thousands, French and British, had been rushed across to Salonica, but Greece still "sat on the fence"; she would not help, and the French and British arrived too late to prevent Serbia being overwhelmed. No attempt had been made on the Peninsula to advance; and dysentery raged in the army—thousands of cases being taken away every week. The number of German submarines in the Mediterranean had become more numerous, and the area to patrol with trawlers, destroyers, scouts, and sloops was so vast that the difficulties of suppressing them grew enormously. One thing alone was satisfactory: enough stores had been landed on the various beaches to maintain the army there, at a "pinch", for six weeks—long enough to tide over any probable period of bad weather, when landing might be impossible. There was also a certain satisfaction in seeing the constant stream of ships which came in through the harbour entrance every morning, and to know that they had safely run the gauntlet of the submarines; but everyone realized that "The Great Adventure" had failed, and that to maintain the army in its present precarious footing on the Peninsula was causing an immense drain on the resources of British shipping, without any apparent disadvantage to the enemy.

One bright spot cheered everyone—the deeds of our own submarines in the Sea of Marmora. But for them, the prestige of the Allies in the East would have fallen to a very low ebb at that time.

By the middle of October "all white" uniform changed to "all blue", and this marked the commencement of cooler weather.

Lord Kitchener arrived early in November, inspected all the army "positions", and went away again.

Till his coming, there had been some speculations as to the possibility of evacuating the Peninsula; but the extraordinary difficulties of this operation had been so evident, that those two military experts, the China Doll and the Pimple, had long since decided that it could not be accomplished without tremendous loss of life, a huge number of men left behind as prisoners, and most of the guns abandoned.

Now, again, everyone wondered what Lord Kitchener thought, and what would happen.

After his departure the weather broke up temporarily, and a south-westerly gale—only a mild one—left Suvla and Anzac and Cape Helles beaches strewn with wrecked or stranded picket-boats, lighters, and "water-beetles".

In the third week of November the Achates received the welcome order to proceed to Kephalo. The full moon shone brilliantly as she slipped out through the nets, and off she went. Two hours after leaving Mudros the track of one torpedo shot across her bows, and half a minute later another passed some eighty yards astern of her—Fritz, or one of his brothers, had fired two torpedoes—so she increased speed and "zig-zagged".

The danger had vanished by the time it had been realized; and all that the Honourable Mess and the gramophone knew about it, was the sudden rushing down of men to close those water-tight doors and hatchways which remained open, and a lurid description from the Pimple afterwards. It did not interrupt the delightful concert with worn-out records and blunted needles.