THE SEAFARERS
 
 OTHER WORKS BY A. CORBETT-SMITH 
 
 THE FAR EAST 
 
 Japan and the Pacific 
 
 The Evolution of Modern China 
 
 The New Woman of China 
 
 THE PUBLIC HEALTH 
 
 The Problem of the Nations (Sexual Disease 
 and the Education of the Individual) 
 
 MILITARY 
 
 Scouting for Gunners 
 Active Service Chats 
 
 THE WORLD WAR 
 
 The German Menace (Lectures and Essays 
 
 since 1908) 
 The Clash of Ideals 
 The Retreat from Mons 
 The Marne — and After 
 
 POETRY 
 
 Greeting and Farewell, and other Poems 
 A Prologue for St. George's Day 
 Elizabeth 
 
 THE DRAMA 
 
 The Chinese Drama, Yesterday and To-day 
 Critical Essays 
 Three One-Act Plays 
 
 MUSIC (Literature) 
 
 The Renaissance of English Folk Song 
 
 The Chinese and their Music 
 
 The Music of Grieg 
 
 Music in the Services, and other Essays 
 
 MUSIC (Compositions) 
 Elizabeth (an Opera) 
 On the Irish Shore (Concert Overture) 
 Two Orchestral Suites on Irish Folk-Melodies 
 Festal March in A, for Military Band 
 Elizabethan Lyrics (Voice and Orchestra) 
 Soldier Songs from " A Shropshire Lad " (do.) 
 Under the Window (with Kate Greenaway) 
 The Irish Guards (with Rudyard Kipling) 
 The Battle of Jutland (a Naval Ballad) 
 Songs (published in a definitive edition, " The 
 Songs of 'Aston Tyrrold ' ")
 
 Photo: Alice Hughes. 
 
 3o^t
 
 THE 
 
 SEAFARERS 
 
 BY 
 
 A. GORBETT-SMITH 
 
 (Major, R.F.A.) 
 
 With Portraits and Plans 
 
 Let us be backed by God, and with the seas 
 Which He has given for force impregnable, 
 And with their helps only defend ourselves. 
 In them and in ourselves our safety lies. 
 
 CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD 
 
 London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 
 
 1919
 
 Uo 
 
 My Comrades 
 
 of 
 
 The Senior Service 
 
 and 
 
 To All who Kept the Seas 
 
 1914—1918 
 
 In Gratitude.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 1. THE MARINERS OF ENGLAND 
 II. THE TRADITION OF THE ROYAL NAVY 
 III. THE SEA AFFAIR . 
 
 Co-operation 
 
 Combat 
 
 the nelson tradition 
 mainly about jutland bank 
 
 LIGHT CRAFT AND SINGLE 
 ACTIONS . 
 
 Convoy .... 
 Communications . . 
 
 the blockade of germany 
 
 the bringers of bread . 
 
 the avengers 
 
 the mine -sweepers 
 
 Author's Note . 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Index 
 
 ship 
 
 1 
 41 
 69 
 76 
 
 94 
 115 
 
 135 
 159 
 173 
 180 
 190 
 210 
 230 
 
 249 
 
 268 
 
 273
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 Admiral Viscount Jellicoe . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Admiral Sir David Beatty ... 50 
 
 Rear-Admiral Sir Reginald Yorke Tyrwhitt 98 
 Vice -Admiral Sir Roger Keyes . .166 
 
 PLANS 
 
 Action in Kattegat, November 2, 1917 . 102 
 Diagram of North Sea Minefield . .216
 
 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 i 
 
 THE MARINERS OF ENGLAND 
 
 . . . . a chant for the sailors of all nations 
 
 Of sea-captains young or old, and the males, and of all intrepid 
 
 sailors, 
 Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor 
 
 death dismay, 
 Pick'd sparingly without noise by thee, old ocean, chosen by thee, 
 Thou sea that pickesl and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations. 
 Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee. 
 Indomitable, untamed as thee. Walt Whitman. 
 
 His Majesty's battle-cruiser Tiger lay at her moor- 
 ings off Tynemouth. Some trifling, necessary repairs 
 were going forward, and she had taken on board 
 to do the work a number of civilian " hands " ; 
 ' dockyard maties," as they call them in the Service. 
 The job was but half finished when a wireless message 
 came through that German ships were out in the 
 North Sea. The Tiger promptly raised steam for 
 16-20 knots, slipped her cables, and " proceeded as 
 requisite " to join her consorts. 
 
 It was a very hurried departure ; so hurried, 
 in fact, that she had no time to put her " dockyard 
 maties ' on shore. Out into the North Sea the 
 Tiger steamed, and aboard of her went, willy-nilly, 
 the " dockyard maties."
 
 2 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Now, when they were well out to sea and had 
 begun to grasp the fact that there was something 
 more serious in prospect than a little pleasure trip 
 to Scarborough, these " maties " began to feel some- 
 what nervous. In fact one of them created such a 
 disturbance that he was incontinently clapped into 
 a strait-waistcoat and strapped up to a bulk- 
 head. 
 
 One of the bluejackets making his way aft could 
 not resist stopping to pass the time of day with the 
 struggling captive. 
 
 "You're one of them blighters," said he, 'wot 
 sits at home in an armchair and asks ' Wot's the 
 blinking Navy a'-doin' of?' Well, now you're 
 darned well going to see wot the Navy's a-doin' 
 of." 
 
 And he did. 
 
 At least that is what the men of the Royal 
 Navy thought about it. 
 
 The British Navy has accomplished once again 
 its traditional task. It is the Sea Power of Britain 
 Which, under God's Almighty Hand, has again de- 
 cided the issue of this, the latest War of Liberation. 
 
 Let there be no misunderstanding now, nor 
 hereafter, on that point. It was, under the good 
 providence of God, the Mariners of England who 
 stood between Germany and the domination of the 
 world. It was the Mariners of England who brought 
 to their knees, one by one, the subject-allies of 
 Germany, and, at the last, brought tottering to its 
 fall the arch-enemy Empire itself.
 
 MARINERS OF ENGLAND 3 
 
 And as the achievement of that task has evoked 
 the mightiest effort in a noble cause that a Nation 
 has ever made since first the world was peopled, 
 so is the story of it the proudest, the most exultant 
 which has ever inspired tongue or pen to the telling 
 of it. Well may one cry : 
 
 O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend 
 
 The brightest heaven of invention, 
 
 A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, :- 
 
 And monarchs to behold the swelling scene. 
 
 The Mariners of England, and the Sea Power 
 which they have wielded ! Yet the story can never be 
 told. Invoke to your aid how you may the Arts 
 of Music, of Poetry and of Painting, and still must 
 you remain dumb before the splendour and majesty 
 of the vision. For the vision is of the eternal Sea 
 itself, and of that which the Sea has created, the 
 Soul of an Island Race. It is that mighty Spiritual 
 Force, of which the British Navy is but the visible 
 embodiment, which has decided the issue. 
 
 What has the Navy done ? And the reply is 
 ''Everything." Nothing that has been accomplished 
 by sea or by land would have been possible of 
 accomplishment had not the British Navy made 
 it so. 
 
 And the British Navy, what is it ? How may 
 we describe it? How should we think of it? 
 
 We can neither understand what it is nor what 
 it has done until we have learned a little of that 
 which has gone to the making of it. And to do 
 that we must understand — ourselves. For the British 
 Navy is not a thing apart ; not some curious exotic 
 growth; not some alien race grafted on to our
 
 4 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 common stock. It is the offspring of our parentage, 
 it is of one family with us. And if any man would 
 seek a privilege which he holds to be prouder than 
 the calling of our Seafarers blood-brothers then he 
 is no man of ours. 
 
 To speak, then, of the British Navy* we must 
 have in our hearts to mean a far greater power than 
 those grim warships of the Northern mists and all 
 that never-ending list of vessels, down to the ice- 
 breakers of the White Sea and the gunboats of the 
 African rivers and lakes, which fly the White Ensign. 
 When you have visualised those ships of the Royal 
 Navy in all their astonishing variety and the men 
 who man them, you will have glimpsed but a small 
 fraction of the mighty Sea Service of ours which is the 
 real British Navy. 
 
 The Merchant Seamen 
 
 For the foundation of the Royal Navy, the very 
 heart-centre of it to-day as it has ever been, is the 
 Merchant Service. The big ships and the little ships, 
 from the lordly Atlantic liner to the old lumbering 
 G-knot tramp, which go a-threshing to and fro across 
 the Seven Seas ; these, with the skippers and the 
 mates and the men of them, aye, and their wives 
 and their kiddies ; these of the Mercantile Marine 
 are one family with us and are of the British Navy. 
 
 Three hundred years ago there sailed out of 
 Plymouth Sound a little merchant ship called the 
 
 * The terms "British" Navy and "Royal" Navy are not synony- 
 mous. It will he noted that throughout the volume a definite dis- 
 tinction is made between the two.
 
 THE MERCHANT SEAMEN 5 
 
 Elizabeth. A couple of hundred ton she was, and 
 she carried ten little guns aboard her. But her 
 decks were so laden high with merchandise and 
 trading gear that of the ten guns she could, if need 
 were, only bring into action five of them. John 
 Pascoe was the name of her skipper, and he was a 
 man of the West Country. Thirty-six men all told 
 made the crew, and these, too, were of Devon and 
 Cornwall. 
 
 For three days the Elizabeth slipped along, her 
 sails full set to a following nor' -easterly breeze, out 
 through the Narrow Seas down past Ushant bound for 
 the coasts of Barbary. And on the morning of the 
 fourth day she sighted three Algerine pirate craft 
 newly sped from harrying the coasts of the Bristol 
 Channel. 
 
 The three pirates — and they carried lifty guns 
 between them — closed the little Elizabeth and sum- 
 moned her to surrender. But Pascoe called to his 
 men of the West Country, and they cast loose the 
 lashings of their live little guns, and they manned 
 the tops of their little merchant ship, and so the 
 fight began. 
 
 All through the long hours of that midsummer 
 day did they strive — for their ship, for their gear, 
 for the honour of the Hag, English and Scots crosses 
 interwoven, which lluttered overhead. Seven times 
 did the pirates swarm inboard of her ; seven times 
 did the men of Devon hurl them back into the sea. 
 This way and that swayed that ki bloody and cruel 
 bickering ' until, at the last, with the setting of 
 the sun, when the men of Devon looked once more 
 to greet their enemies, behold, one of the pirate
 
 6 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 craft had sunk and the other two had turned tail 
 and (led. 
 
 Now the little Elizabeth was a merchant ship. 
 
 Four years ago there sailed out of Holland, bound 
 for Thames-mouth, a merchant tramp called the 
 Avocct. And the name of her skipper was Brennell. 
 She, too, carried a crew of thirty odd men, but the 
 only armament aboard was a matter of three rifles 
 and a handful of rockets such as they put up at the 
 Crystal Palace for Brock's benefit night. 
 
 Three hours or so out of Rotterdam there swooped 
 down to attack her three pirate craft in the shape 
 of three Hun aeroplanes ; one a big fighting-machine, 
 the other two smaller scouts. Each carried a machine- 
 gun and a goodly store of bombs. 
 
 For a space of thirty minutes did the Huns loose 
 their bombs over and around the little Avocct ; but 
 such was Brennell's skill in seamanship, so cunningly 
 did he manoeuvre his ship inward and outward upon 
 a zigzag course, that barely a single bomb found 
 its target. And in those thirty minutes thirty-five 
 bombs were hurled downward. 
 
 So, too, did the deck hands of the Avocct strive 
 to repel the murderous attack. With their three 
 puny rifles they blazed away at the aircraft as one 
 shoots at the screaming gull borne down the gale. 
 And the rifles grew red-hot to the hand so that no 
 man might hold them. And the handful of rockets 
 were loosed off the while the flying-men laughed 
 in derision under the canopy of green and crimson 
 stars. But one laughed too long, for a rocket sent 
 him banking heavily over so that he might hardly 
 win to his balance again.
 
 THE MERCHANT SEAMEN 7 
 
 And now the Huns, having loosed all their bombs, 
 swung down to a closer attack. At eight hundred 
 feet off the port beam * the fighting-machine opened 
 fire with the machine-gun. And through the hail 
 of lead that swept the Avocet from fo'c'sle to poopf 
 the helmsman held to his wheel and the master still 
 conned his ship. And with naked fists the deck 
 hands fought on. 
 
 Now all seemed at an end, for men dropped here 
 and there about the deck or under the poor cover 
 which wooden hatches might give. But away to 
 the horizon there appeared a smudge of smoke, and 
 with it the Huns turned over and away back to 
 their lair by Zeebrugge or ever the avenging destroyers 
 could close to range. 
 
 But Brennell and his men had fought the fight 
 through, and — the Avocet was of the Merchant 
 Service. 
 
 Four years ago — a little merchant ship ! 
 
 Three hundred years ago — a little merchant ship ! 
 
 Three hundred years ago ! But even then was 
 the Mercantile Marine of England old in years and 
 in wisdom. Even then was it the envy and admira- 
 tion of the world, just as it is to-day. 
 
 We fought Philip of Spain and the Spanish 
 Armada in 1588 with 197 ships. Men-of-war of the 
 Royal Navy ? Not so. No fewer than 103 of them 
 were of the Merchant Service. 
 
 Drake sailed into Cadiz Harbour to singe the 
 
 * J'url beam, the Left-hand side of the ship, looking forrard. 
 
 t Forecastle, I he forward part of llic ship. Poop, the slcrn of 
 I lie ship.
 
 S THE SEAFARERS 
 
 King of Spain's beard with 40 odd ships. Men-of- 
 war ? Just G ships of the 40 belonged to the Royal 
 Navy. The rest ? They were merchant ships. 
 
 Would you learn how a " well-informed neutral 
 observer " (even in those days they existed) spoke 
 of the English mariners, merchant seamen for the 
 most part, in the campaign of the Armada ? Read, 
 then, the remarks of the Venetian Ambassador, a 
 seafarer like the remainder of his countrymen. 
 
 " These people fight to the death," he wrote, 
 "and it is their habit before they sail to swear to 
 one another that they will fire the ship rather than 
 yield themselves prisoners, so resolute is this race 
 in battle." 
 
 I seem to hear an echo of that tribute in the 
 rousing cheers and blasts of syrens which greeted 
 the W andlc and her gallant crew as she steamed 
 into the Pool of London with a list on her after 
 sinking, unarmed collier though she was, a German 
 submarine. 
 
 Drake, Frobisher, Ralegh, Hawkins, Grenville, 
 Willoughby, aye, and scores of others like them, 
 they went a- voyaging through the uncharted Seas, 
 t hose gallant gentlemen, adventurers all, not on 
 your men-o'-war but in little cockle-shells of mer- 
 chantmen. (How often, I wonder, do our American 
 cousins recall the fact that the colonisation of Virginia 
 by Walter Ralegh was the foundation of the United 
 States !) 
 
 Who can study unmoved the splendour of the 
 pageant of sea-service wrought in those days ? To 
 the farthest corners of the world the Merchant Sea- 
 men of England bore their Country's Flag. Twice
 
 THE MERCHANT SEAMEN 9 
 
 was the globe circumnavigated : the foundation of 
 the British Empire in India was laid : round the 
 north of Norway and through the White Sea was a 
 trade route created with Russia : the fishing and 
 seal trade of the Newfoundland Banks : a regular 
 commerce with the West Indies and the Spanish 
 Main : the Orinoco River explored : the Cape of 
 Good Hope rounded — and then the half is not told. 
 Those were indeed true words which Pietro Mocenigo, 
 another Ambassador of Venice, spoke : — 
 
 ' This Kingdom has for its territory the ocean, 
 whereupon it trades with the universe, or establishes, 
 its dominions with the movable forts of its ships, 
 which, uniting force with speed, diffuse to the bound- 
 aries of the world the glorious trafhckings of their 
 own valour." 
 
 And with the words I see dream-like the picture 
 of a great merchant explorer, Henry Hudson, as he 
 sailed from Greenwich on May Day, 1607, to find 
 a north-west passage through the ice to China. 
 Sailing in a little ship of 80 tons with a crew of but 
 ten men and a boy, his own son, to man her. The 
 stark wonder of the venture ! And yet he was back 
 again the next year fitting out a second expedition, 
 the Discovery, of 55 tons. Doomed though they 
 were, he and his little son, to meet a cruel death 
 in the frozen North, yet his name lives on through 
 the years by the Inland Sea and the Strait which 
 he discovered. 
 
 Fighting men ever were the merchant seamen 
 of England. They had need to be, for in the old 
 days, the only protection to their ships and gear
 
 io THE SEAFARERS 
 
 lay in their own cool heads, stout hearts and strong 
 arms. The records of Edward III., which tell of 
 six hundred years ago, show how the merchantmen 
 would put to sea without any armed convoy to 
 shepherd them. "Let them fend for themselves," 
 said the paternal Government of those days. 
 
 So also was it ordained in 1914, but this time 
 with disastrous results until the Powers that Be 
 in Whitehall made another ruling. Not because 
 the spirit and hardihood of the seamen was any 
 less than it was (is there any need to remark it ?) 
 but because of the conditions of U-boat piracy 
 with which they had to grapple, and because now 
 the food supply from over-seas was vital to our 
 people as it never had been before. In the Napo- 
 leonic wars, with only ten million souls to feed, the 
 country was self-supporting. 
 
 The old days of the " wind-jammer " may have 
 passed away, but there is need of seamanship with 
 steam as with sail. If any doubt it let him turn 
 to the story of the Ortega and of Douglas Kinneir, 
 her skipper. 
 
 Running down the South American coast to 
 make the far southern passage the Ortega s look-out 
 sighted astern a German cruiser fast overhauling 
 them. As ordained, the Ortega had to " fend for 
 herself," for she carried no guns aboard, and, in 
 any case, the enemy warship could have settled 
 the business by lying outside the merchantman's 
 range and pounding her to death. 
 
 Kinneir on the bridge rang down for full steam 
 ahead. 
 
 1 Every ounce you can get out of her and a lot
 
 THE MERCHANT SEAMEN n 
 
 over," said he, " if you have to rip up the decks 
 for firing." 
 
 And the engineers and the stokers heard the call 
 and buckled to it. 
 
 Kinneir eagerly scanned his chart. " Keep 'em 
 off for a couple of hours and we'll beat 'em," he 
 muttered. 
 
 And at the turn of the two hours just as the 
 cruiser opened fire Kinneir swung his ship over 
 and drove straight for a gloomy channel and a tide 
 racing strong beneath heavy frowning cliffs. 
 
 The Second Officer by his side gripped the bridge- 
 rail in amazement. For the channel had never 
 been charted, and it lay unknown, unsailed by man. 
 Once, twice had the surveyors of the sea attempted 
 the passage to map its dangers, but so threatening 
 was it with cross-currents and hidden reefs that 
 it was not worth the toil. 
 
 Straight into the unknown drove the Ortega, and 
 Kinneir ringing down again for slower speed conned 
 her in. In beneath the beetling cliffs which seemed 
 to roll sullenly backward to the touch of the hardy 
 adventurers, stemming the edge of a foaming current, 
 twisting to the cruel teeth of some jagged rock half 
 hidden, sounding her way foot by foot, so did Kinneir 
 guide his ship. And the German captain holding 
 his cruiser at the entrance danced upon his deck and 
 shook his list in baffled fury. For he had met with a 
 man of the sea, and he learned then, if* never before, 
 that no nation of land-folk can breed such men. 
 
 Steadily onward steamed the Ortega in and out, 
 this way and that, until at last the dazzling sunlight 
 of open sea caught and illumined with llaming gold
 
 12 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the little ensign fluttering ever overhead, and the 
 Ortega had won through. And Avhen they came to 
 look at her bows not a foot of her paint-work had 
 been scraped away. 
 
 Slowly through the years was the maritime power 
 of Britain welded together by the unconscious striv- 
 ing of her mariners. Those who will may study the 
 records, and no more absorbing story can be told. 
 For many a long day in our history were the merchant 
 seamen and their ships the true Royal Navy of the 
 realm, summoned to fight by Royal Command. 
 They came, pressed men and volunteers, to give of 
 their best. For prize money and gain ?— mostly 
 perhaps ; for the honour of the flag ? — possibly ; 
 for the love of adventure, ever the British craving ? 
 — so I would wish to believe. 
 
 And they lived and worked and fought under 
 conditions of incredible hardship ; conditions of 
 sickness, of horrible food, of cramped dwelling space, 
 in Arctic and Tropic seas, seven years, maybe, to a 
 commission during which there was never a sight of 
 their own native land. 
 
 \\c look back now and can see only the glamour 
 
 of those days. Our hearts throb to the magic of 
 
 Nelson's name and to all that his immortality means. 
 
 We watch breathless with awe as Hawke leads his 
 
 fleet into Quiberon Bay through a howling gale on 
 
 a lee shore. We sail in spirit with Anson on his 
 
 amazing venture as one by one his consorts fail 
 
 him, and yet his undaunted soul wins through.* 
 
 * The story of Commodore George Anson's voyage in the 
 Centurion (1740-1744) is perhaps the most remarkable in our 
 Naval annals. The narrative created a furore throughout Europe,
 
 THE MERCHANT SEAMEN 13 
 
 Rodney in the West Indies ; Hood in the Medi- 
 terranean ; the names of them and of a hundred 
 other sea-captains tell how the Sea Power of Britain 
 was built up. But what of the mariners of England 
 upon whose bodies the admirals builded ? Who 
 sings of them, save in songs and ballads designed 
 to weave a rosy spell over their work and hide the 
 squalor of their daily lives. " Yeo ho ! for the 
 life of a sailor," they sing. 
 
 Yet it is but common justice that we should 
 pause sometimes to remember. To remember, for 
 instance, that when the seamen mutinied at the 
 Nore (most of us vaguely recall the incident), they 
 sought only in their demands just a few trifles to 
 make their lives more tolerable : a little better 
 food, fresh vegetables when in port, an occasional 
 day ashore, the non-stoppage of their pay when 
 lying wounded (imagine having to mutiny to redress 
 such a grievance as that !). " The Lower deck," 
 John Masefield has remarked, ' was the home of 
 every vice, every baseness, every misery. The life 
 lived there was something like the life of a negro 
 slave who happened to be housed in a gaol." 
 
 Yes, it is well that we should remember these 
 things. For only in remembering them can we 
 learn very dimly to appreciate the inborn qualities 
 of the breed and race which have made England 
 and the Empire what they are to-day. 
 
 Again, it was only very gradually that the Royal 
 
 especially in Germany, where " everyone was at work on it with 
 grammars and dictionaries." It is obtainable in " Everyman's 
 
 Library."
 
 i 4 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Navy was created into the fighting Senior Service 
 that we have known in the Great War. When Charles 
 the First was King there were some 1,000 merchant 
 ships in the country's service which were held avail- 
 able for war duties when called upon. Of these, it 
 is interesting now to note, 400 were engaged 
 in the coal trade. On the Thames alone, from 
 Gravcsend to London, there were no fewer than 
 twenty thousand mariners (so it was estimated), who 
 were liable to be called up. 
 
 In 1914 the personnel of the Royal Navy numbered 
 145,000 men. In 1918 it numbered 440,000, and 
 most of those additional men had gone to it from 
 the Mercantile Marine. 
 
 It should be a fascinating thing to watch this 
 building of the Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine. 
 As fascinating as the building of a house which an 
 architect has modelled to be our home. Here I 
 may only set in place a few guide-posts to mark 
 the planning of the structure, and in the hope that 
 those who see them may turn with quickened interest 
 to many another volume of our Sea Story. 
 
 But if any man still doubts the value of the 
 Mercantile Marine to the Empire in the Great War 
 and how the merchant seamen have striven and 
 died as members of one great family with us, let 
 him think over those figures which I have just 
 quoted, and then consider these :* 
 
 During the four years or so of the War, 2,475 
 merchant ships of ours have been sunk under their 
 crews by the enemy : these, with 670 fishing vessels, 
 
 * The figures quoted, to October 31, 1918, are given on the 
 authority of the First Lord of the Admiralty.
 
 THE FISHER FOLK 15 
 
 have meant a total of 3,145 crews turned adrift. 
 In short 15,000 merchant seamen of ours have 
 perished, giving their lives that England might live. 
 How is the Nation going to show its gratitude ? 
 How repay a little of the debt ? 
 
 The Fisher Folk 
 
 So there is the Royal Navy which flies the White 
 Ensign ; and there is the Mercantile Marine which 
 flies the Blue and the Red Ensigns. But with these 
 you are only but beginning to learn the meaning 
 of the Sea Service which goes to the building of the 
 British Navy. 
 
 In August, '14, and as, with the passing days, 
 the incredible rumour of Hun murders on the High 
 Seas grew to a dreadful certainty, there rallied to the 
 call another " band of brothers." 
 
 From the mist-shrouded headlands and treacherous 
 tides of the far Northern isles, from the grim, for- 
 bidding towns and tiny grey villages that line the 
 Scottish coast from Wick to Berwick and from 
 Kirkcudbright to Dunnet Head there came the 
 dour Scots fisherfolk, men, wives, lasses and bairns. 
 
 " Aye," cried they, " 'tis the call o' the Lord, 
 and we maun follow it. Yon murdering devils ha' 
 smirched the seas. Tis we maun mak' them clean 
 again." 
 
 And they turned awhile from their nets (though 
 not wholly, for the Scots are canny folk), and they 
 took aboard strange weapons (which in time they 
 came almost to worship), and set about a new manner
 
 i6 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 of fishing for a new, strange kind of fish. A fish 
 that carries death within its jaws. 
 
 From Bamborough Castle and Tynemouth, from 
 the smoke-laden Hartlepools and the nestling red- 
 roofed villages of the Yorkshire Ridings down to 
 Ilumber mouth and the Wash the fisherfolk rallied 
 to the Call. Grimsby and Yarmouth heard it, the 
 men of Essex and Kent, round the coast-line to 
 the Lizard where the Cornishmen turned again to 
 their luggers, just as they manned them in the 
 smuggling days of old. 
 
 It was the S.O.S. from their brethren of the sea, 
 and the Call was picked up by the Seafarers. 
 
 Long years ago, when the Eighth Henry ruled 
 this land of ours, we were fighting a never-ending 
 war with Frenchmen and pirates. And whenever 
 there was the need, and English ships in the Narrow 
 Seas were faring badly, out from the south-coast 
 ports there sped the fisherfolk leaving their wives 
 and kiddies to " carry on." 
 
 ' We've come aboard," they said, " to serve 
 the guns." 
 
 And they manned the guns where the gun crews 
 had fallen by dead or dying. And their womenfolk 
 would sail their little fishing-smacks sixteen or 
 twenty miles out to sea, and run home again laughing 
 before the wind, chased by French privateers. 
 
 Four hundred years ago ! And what was the 
 story that they told in 1918 ? 
 
 It was the early morning of June 20. Five 
 hundred miles away to the north-west of the Shet- 
 lands, close against the edge of the Arctic Circle,
 
 THE FISHER FOLK 17 
 
 there lie famous fishing-grounds. In the clear 
 twilight of a Northern summer's dawn six fishing- 
 trawlers lay hove-to, clearing away their fishing 
 gear and stowing it inboard. The night's catch 
 had been a good one, and the little craft rode heavily 
 to the swell, close packed to the decks and over with 
 the gleaming fish. 
 
 In the deck-house of No. 1 Trawler Lieutenant 
 John F. MacCabe, R.N.V.R., sat by a table sipping 
 a cup of steaming cocoa, the while he studied a 
 course from a greasy, tattered chart. From the deck 
 the clumping of heavy sea-boots and the grinding 
 of steam-winches told that his morning watch was 
 at hand when, admiral of the tiny squadron, he 
 must take his command safely to port. 
 
 Forrard, the look-out man was in wordy argu- 
 ment with the ship's boy, a youngster of fifteen, on 
 the respective merits of the Adriatic and Malacca 
 Straits as fishing-grounds (they had seen mine- 
 sweeping service in both places) when 
 
 " Yon's a strange beastie, ah'm thinking," said 
 Look Out, pointing away to the port beam. 
 
 A dull swirl of water edged with silver broke 
 away from the back of some creature of the sea as 
 it came to the surface some 7,000 yards away. 
 
 " Gawd ! " gasped the boy. " What the 'ell 
 is it ? " 
 
 " Object, porrt bow," called Look Out through 
 funnelled hands. 
 
 MacCabe raised his head as a medley of strange 
 jargon, oaths and excited discussion sent the gulls 
 screaming in chorus away from their breakfast. 
 • 1 tell ye 'tis a U-boat,"
 
 18 THE SEAFARRRS 
 
 kw Ye're daft, ye fule. What budy over saw a 
 boat Tor under water the likes o' yon." 
 
 " Aye, mebbe. And ye'll say, nae doot, what 
 way she came oot there. Just drooped oot i'rac 
 the sky likely." 
 
 MacCabe hoisted himself on to the tiny bridge 
 and seized a telescope. One look was enough, 
 but it brought a long whistle of astonishment to 
 his lips. Then a short, swift command. The signal 
 cones were run up. 
 
 " Steam full pressure. Line ahead on No. 1. 
 Three cables length. Course so and so." * 
 
 Never, I dare swear, did the ships of the Second 
 Battle Squadron swing into "line ahead" with 
 finer precision than did those half-dozen little 
 weather-scarred trawlers of the Scots fishermen. 
 And, as they took the line, a great column of water 
 shot up from the burst of a 6-inch shell 50 yards 
 astern of the leading ship. 
 
 No longer a doubt whether it was a sea-serpent 
 or an enemy ship. But still men rubbed their eyes 
 with amazement as they looked at her. Who, 
 indeed, had ever seen an under-watcr boat " the 
 likes o' yon ! ' The length of her no one could 
 gauge, but with her massive conning-tower, her 
 masts, and heavy armament — two 6-inch guns, and 
 two smaller ones — she seemed more like a small 
 cruiser than a submarine. Swift enough to steam 
 rings round the trawlers ; strong enough to blow 
 them out of the water as she pleased. 
 
 * Line ahead, ships following in succession. Cable length, a 
 " cable " indicates about 200 yards ; thus the trawlers would be 
 at about ono yards interval,
 
 THE FISHER FOLK 19 
 
 And now, as the trawlers began to plough heavily 
 along astern of their leader — oh, so slowly, it seemed 
 — the submarine closed to shorter range and opened 
 fire with every gun that would bear. And gallantly 
 the trawler-men clapped-to the breeches of their 
 little pea-shooters to return the fire as best they 
 might. 
 
 " Ye'll be wanting fish to y're breakfasts, mebbe," 
 called one. "Wcel, ye can mak a braw meal frae 
 that yin " — and a fat mackerel went skimming 
 over the side, hurled in derision towards the enemy. 
 
 Mighty waterspouts from the bursting shells 
 soared heavenward around and over the leading 
 trawler, drenching the decks, carrying herrings, 
 dabs and mackerel swirling through the scuppers. 
 And MacCabe clung to the rail with one hand, 
 megaphone in the other, eyes fixed on the enemy, 
 watching and answering every point of the helm 
 he might make. It was seamanship once again 
 which must decide. 
 
 Six hundred yards astern the second of the line 
 pushed steadily after her leader. And full across 
 her decks, from her squat bows to her square-cut 
 after structure, there swept a hailstorm of deadly 
 shrapnel. 
 
 Down drops the gunner-hand, a great gash 
 across the forehead. And, on the moment, a second 
 clambers cursing over the slippery fish to take his 
 place. The look-out man forrard suddenly gives 
 a choking gasp, claps hand to throat, and pitches 
 heavily backward into the sea. 
 
 One after another the men of No. 2 go down 
 under the storm of lead. But ever the master holds
 
 2o THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the wheel, swinging it point by point over to the 
 lender's signal. And ever is there a man in place 
 to heave a cartridge into the tiny gun, swing the 
 breech to and fire. 
 
 The submarine alters her course in a new man- 
 oeuvre — to work ahead of the line. But the Lieu- 
 tenant, acting-Admiral, is ready for it. Over on the 
 new course steers the U-boat, and as promptly is 
 the challenge answered. Never for a moment does 
 the little flotilla lose its formation. With superb 
 handling and consummate seamanship the trawlers 
 are swung over to keep the enemy ever on the beam 
 that the tiny guns may still be brought to bear. 
 
 Sternly, methodically, do the men work. Sud- 
 denly, with a freshening wind from the right quarter 
 comes the looked-for chance to pour out a screen of 
 smoke from the boxes. 
 
 With muttered curses (can. you not hear him ?) 
 the U-boat commander needs must alter course again 
 to work round the black cloud which veils his prey. 
 
 But now the hour grows desperate for the fisher- 
 men. It is " back to the wall " once again for that 
 breed of men who are ever at their greatest at the 
 end of a losing fight. Fifteen rounds of shell left 
 to the leading trawler, ten rounds to No. 2, twenty 
 maybe to each of the others. 
 
 Every man of No. 2 is down wounded, some are 
 dead. But still there is a gunner left to carry on 
 with hands which drip blood as they jerk the spent 
 cartridge from the breech of the poor little out- 
 ranged gun. 
 
 Eight rounds left, and — " Prepare to ram," 
 signals the leader.
 
 THE FISHER FOLK 21 
 
 The end at last. Well, 'twas a good light, and 
 
 " By God, she's closing us," mutters MacCabc 
 in excitement. " They'll never be such fools," and 
 he props the telescope against the bridge screen. 
 
 The submarine commander, cursing (one imagines) 
 at the delay in finishing a trifling job, began to steer 
 in his ship to deal the knock-out blow. 
 
 " Geddes," MacCabc hailed his gunner through 
 the megaphone, " she's closing us. Canny, lad, and 
 you'll get her. Aim forrard." 
 
 " Aye, aye, sir," sang Geddes as he twirled the 
 elevating gear. 
 
 Crash! And a shell burst clean amidships No. 1, 
 hurling MacCabe stunned to the deck. 
 
 But the gunner of No. 2 had seen the enemy 
 manoeuvre. 
 
 " The Lord hae delivered him tae us," and 
 spitting on his hands he rammed a shell home. 
 " One, two, three, four," he slowly counted, and 
 fired. 
 
 The shell smashed in on the tail of the submarine 
 as she steamed straight for the line. 
 
 " Mistimed her speed," he muttered, ' but th' 
 next time." And home into the breech went another 
 shell. 
 
 A sudden burst of flame from the U-boat's bows, 
 and dimly through the smoke the tense watchers 
 from the trawlers saw the formal 6-inch gun heave 
 up and plunge over into the sea. Geddes had " gone 
 cannily." A mighty Scottish cheer rang over the 
 waters. 
 
 Round swung the submarine to bring her aft 
 gun to bear.
 
 22 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Eight rounds, Geddes, my lad ! Eight rounds 
 left. Canny, boy, canny ! 
 
 Crack went the little gun once more, and — fair 
 and true into the base of the conning-tower burst 
 the shell. Another burst of flame ; a great column 
 of smoke sweeping upwards, drifting over the sea, 
 shrouding the U-boat. 
 
 Slowly, sullenly the black cloud melted into the 
 silvery light ; thinned into a shimmering veil of 
 mist ; vanished. And only the gulls and the sea- 
 birds skimming downwards hovered for a moment 
 to mark another ocean grave. 
 
 " This was a fisherman's fight," wrote Lieutenant 
 MacCabe concluding his despatch. "And without 
 doubt they put up a right stout one. I deem it 
 an honour to have been in command of them." 
 
 And so say all of us ! 
 
 The Island Race 
 
 From the seafarers of our Island coast-line we 
 turn to the Fourth Estate of the British Navy. And 
 the fourth is the greatest of all, for almost may Ave 
 say that it embraces this entire Sea Service of ours. 
 How to define it I know not, for how may we set 
 a boundary in words to that which is of the spirit ? 
 The professional Service of the Royal Navy we can 
 understand, and the officers and the men who are 
 born and bred in it. The Mercantile Marine, the 
 Commerce and the carrying trade of the Empire, 
 that, too, we appreciate just as we understand the 
 folk who seek a livelihood from the harvesting of
 
 THE ISLAND RAGE 23 
 
 the sea. But how may we understand rightly the 
 Call which summons the tens of thousands of lands- 
 men to a sea service ; or the nobility of spirit which 
 pulses through the veins of our womenkind, land- 
 folk though they be, when a cruel sea-death beckons 
 them beneath the waves ? 
 
 It is the story of these brothers and sisters of 
 ours which has been the wonder of the world in 
 these four years of the Great War. It is this story 
 of an Island Race which will throb through the 
 centuries to come. Perchance it has been the last 
 fight in which, as an Island Empire, we shall ever 
 strive. Well, at the least, it has been to us a worthy 
 one. We have wrought, I dare to think, better than 
 we can now imagine. We may look back through 
 the years with confidence and, invoking " the spirits 
 of our fathers that start from every wave," point 
 with pride to this our temper and handiwork of 
 later days. " As it was in the beginning, is now." 
 Turn down the scroll of our Island history, glance 
 here and there and you shall read how the landsmen 
 ever hearkened to the Call of the Sea. 
 
 In the dim, far-off days of the mighty Saxon King 
 
 Who did first 
 Willi prescient wisdom from the slips set free 
 The keels, those far forerunners of thy Fleet : 
 
 the men who served the ships, trading and Navy — 
 there was no distinction between them — were for 
 the most part landsmen. Through the summer 
 months they kept the seas, but with the time of 
 harvest they returned to their lands and holdings, 
 for they were farmers and husbandmen. And so
 
 24 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 through the frost-bound winter days to the awakening 
 of spring and the sowing of the seed. 
 
 William of Normandy won to a landing and 
 the Kingship of this realm because he remembered 
 what Saxon Harold had forgotten, the meaning 
 and use of Sea Power. Richard of the Lion Heart, 
 the first of our King Admirals to adventure an English 
 fleet into distant seas, won his victory over the 
 Saracen warships by the valour of landsmen, soldiers 
 and sailors too as they were. 
 
 All through those earlier years of our history 
 you may find amongst our Island folk the steady 
 growth of a realisation, vague only at first, that 
 the sea was all in all to us as a people. 
 
 Keep then the sea that is the wall of England : 
 And then is England kept by God His hand ; 
 
 wrote an old chronicler five hundred years ago.* It 
 was only when we failed to remember this that 
 disaster and defeat overtook us. 
 
 But it was in the Great Age of adventure under 
 the Tudor Kings, Henry VII. to Elizabeth, that 
 the Call of the Sea swept like a gale through 
 England. Over the heads of the coast-dwellers 
 was the spindrift borne, far away inland. And 
 the salt spray beat upon the casements of the town- 
 dwellers, of the folk who had never looked upon 
 the majesty of sea- waves and recked little of the 
 
 * From the famous " Libel of English Policy," published circa 
 1420. The introduction runs : — " Here beginneth the Prologue 
 of the processe of the Libel of English policie, exhorting all England 
 to kcepe the sea . . . : showing what profite cometh thereof and 
 also wind worship and salvation to England, and to all English- 
 men." The "Libel" is reprinted in " Hakluyt's Voyages" 
 'Everyman's Library"), vol. i., page 174.
 
 THE ISLAND RAGE 25 
 
 faring of ships. And the tang of the salt filled 
 their nostrils, and the savour of it was heady as 
 new wine, so that men turned from the peace of 
 the countryside and the busy hum of the cities 
 to make strange ventures in the lands of the Golden 
 West. 
 
 Students of the law, apprentices and clerks, 
 men from the loom and the plough, priests and 
 herdsmen, miners and Court exquisites, all were 
 represented in the tiny ships that beat onward 
 across the Atlantic or breasted the ice-floes of the 
 stern Arctic seas. The story tells even of a reverend 
 Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral who forsook his 
 cloistered ease to go a-voyaging, a gentleman ad- 
 venturer, to the coasts of Guinea. 
 
 And how cruel the seafaring in those tiny ships 
 must have been ! The Gulden Hind, which carried 
 Drake and his men around the world, was but 200 
 tons burthen. A modern submarine displaces 1,000 
 tons submerged. 
 
 Turn, now, fur a moment to August, 1914, four 
 hundred years later, and note how the landsmen 
 hearkened once again to the call. 
 
 At the opening of the War, nothing more aston- 
 ished officers and ratings of the Royal Navy than 
 the odd (to a sailor) assortment of men who rolled 
 up to serve in the Grand Fleet. Enlisting at Ports- 
 mouth, Devonport, and other of the naval bases, 
 they would be allotted to various ships, there to 
 be told off for jobs. 
 
 You picture the commander of one of the light 
 cruisers sitting at a table on deck the while a long
 
 26 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 queue of these lw hostility " men (as the Navy terms 
 them) passes before him. 
 
 " Well, my lad," to the first man, " what was 
 your job in civil life ? " 
 
 " Stableman, sir. " 
 
 " Stableman ! " 
 
 You wouldn't think that the Royal Navy has 
 much use for stablemen, would you ? But doubt- 
 less the man had heard tell of the Horse Marines, 
 and so he would be welcome. 
 
 " Next ! What was your job, my lad ? ' 
 
 " Ah was a market gardener "—this in broad 
 Somerset. 
 
 " Good lord ! " ejaculates the Commander. 
 
 Well, the Navy is not often at a loss, and the 
 master-at-arms, after turning over the problem for 
 a moment, suggested that the lad from Somerset 
 might well turn a hand to weighing out the potatoes 
 for the ship's company. 
 
 All the morning the Commander worked con- 
 scientiously down the line. Compositors, jew's- 
 harp makers, mortuary attendants, match dippers, 
 skin dressers, dairy farmers, clerical robe makers, 
 and brokers' men — the Commander staggered blindly 
 down into the ward-room at 11.30 for the stiff est 
 cocktail the mess-man could concoct ; 11.40 saw 
 him back again. 
 
 Carpet-menders, pedieurists, and pawnbrokers' 
 assistants ; perambulator makers and potboys, pickle- 
 bottlers and theatre " chuckers-out " — so they passed 
 by. The last of the line came to the table. 
 ' Well, sir, I was a painter," he answered. 
 : Thank the lord ! ' gasped the Commander,
 
 THE ISLAND RACE 27 
 
 almost past speech. " A man who can do a decent 
 bit of work at last ! " 
 
 So the master-at-arms escorted the painter forrard, 
 gave him some pots of paint and some brushes, 
 and left him to carry on at a gun-shield. 
 
 Half-wav through the afternoon the Commander 
 strolled forrard out of curiosity to see how the man 
 had done his job. All over the gun shield was 
 pictured some amazing post-impressionist sunset, 
 Avhile pots and paint lay sprawling about the deck 
 in a most glorious mess. It was the last straw. 
 
 ' Painter ! " thundered the Commander. 
 ' Painter, did you say ? What in heaven's name 
 was the painting job you did before the war ? ' 
 
 ' Well, sir," said the man, " I — er — er — well, I 
 generally used to exhibit at the Royal Academy." 
 
 Now these " hostility men " — the market gar- 
 deners, match-dippers, and the like — were volun- 
 teers, not pressed men. And you would think that 
 when it came to doing their bit they would have 
 preferred to do it with the good solid earth under 
 their feet. If they really wanted to get wet they 
 knew that they could get all the wet they wanted, 
 and more, in the trenches in Flanders. Why they 
 should prefer to go bumping about on the breezy, 
 briny, billowy ocean, remains a mystery ; or it 
 would remain a mystery did we not realise some- 
 thing of the innate sea-breed of the men, the cen- 
 turies-old tradition of an Island Race which runs 
 in the veins of them and, so I hold, of each one 
 of us. 
 
 There is hardly an incident in the sea-warfare
 
 28 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 of these last years which has not had a precedent 
 in former sea-wars of ours. But again I remark, 
 in nothing has the spirit of the race shone forth in 
 brighter splendour than in its response to the Call 
 of the Sea. 
 
 Penetrate into the most unlikely districts — the 
 horrible, verminous slums of Sheffield, with a family 
 living in each corner of a room ; the teeming squalor 
 of the Leeds quarters ; the drab joylessness of the 
 Potteries — everywhere you will hear the same tale 
 of the men who have gone a-seafaring. Certainlv 
 not in great numbers as numbers go, for the Navy 
 at its greatest point of expansion in 1918 was but 
 a very small Service, in number of personnel, be- 
 side the seven millions of the Land Army. It 
 counted, as I have told, less than half a million 
 men. But rather in point of percentage. 
 
 You who chance to read can, I am sure, reckon 
 amongst friends and acquaintances many a man 
 who, living a land life with never a thought ex- 
 pressed of the sea, yet hearkened to the Call. Men 
 who fled, maybe, from the musty study of the Law, 
 or the actor-haunted Bodegas of the Strand, or 
 the whirling presses of newspaper-land, to revel in 
 the unceasing toil and danger of a motor-launch 
 in the Dover Patrol or of a mine-sweeper in the 
 frozen Shetland seas. 
 
 Glancing back again into our history, some of 
 the most remarkable instances of landsmen turning 
 to sea- warfare may be found in the armies of Richard 
 Cromwell. In 1653 the first Commissioners of the 
 Admiralty were appointed by Act of Parliament, 
 and out of the eleven men so appointed no fewer
 
 THE ISLAND RAGE 29 
 
 than eight were Army officers : four generals, three 
 colonels, and a major. Of these Robert Blake 
 became the most famous. Mr. and Mrs. John Citizen 
 of to-day recall his name principally from the exploit 
 narrated in the popular song, " The Admiral's 
 Broom." 
 
 But Robert Blake first won to fame as a soldier. 
 He served in the Army until he was fifty years 
 of age, and then went to sea for the first time in 
 his life. But by his service afloat he is accounted 
 one of the two or three greatest sea-captains that 
 England has ever known. 
 
 Then there were Deane, Monck, and Montagu, 
 all Army men, and they all became fine seamen. 
 "It is a significant fact," says Sir William Laird 
 Clowes, " that when, under the Commonwealth, 
 Great Britain entered upon a more ambitious and 
 difficult naval policy than she had previously dared 
 to essay, the chiefs who best served her at sea were, 
 by training, land officers, and consequently men 
 of wider attainments and more general education 
 and experience than belonged to the regular sea 
 officers of the time."* 
 
 Prince Rupert, a grandson of James I., another 
 soldier and sailor, was indeed an "Admirable Crich- 
 ton." He served on shore in the Civil War, was a 
 barrister-at-law, one of the first Fellows of the 
 Royal Society, commanded for a time a squadron 
 of semi-pirates, was a notable scientist, became our 
 Commander-in-Chief at sea in the third Dutch war, 
 and was Governor of Windsor Castle. 
 
 •" The Royal Navy. A History." W. Laird Clowes. Vol. ii., 
 pat>e 'J7.
 
 30 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Thus far the men of the Island Race. How 
 shall we tell of the nobility of soul that has made 
 our women so worthy to be the mothers, wives, and 
 sweethearts of those sea-heroes ? Or, rather, should 
 we not say that has inspired the seamen to deeds 
 and to deaths worthy of their womenfolk ? 
 
 A merchant tramp put into a British port one 
 morning and unloaded her cargo. She had run 
 the gauntlet of a submarine attack and it had been 
 a very close thing. Her crew was not a British one, 
 save for the skipper and mate, and when it came 
 to clearing port to return in ballast to Norway 
 the men refused to go aboard and sail. 
 
 The skipper argued and cursed them for chicken- 
 livered rabbits, but failed to move them. 
 
 Down to the wharfside came the skipper's wife : 
 learned how things were. 
 
 " All right," she said, " just wait a bit." 
 
 In a quarter of an hour she was back again, 
 a porter trundling a box in front of her. 
 
 " Now," she called to the deck-hands, " I'm 
 coming on this trip along o' my old man. An' 
 what's more, I've got my best hat inside that box, 
 and I'll see the Huns somewhere before they get 
 that." 
 
 And the deck-hands clambered back inboard 
 with their tails between their legs, shamed by the 
 pluck and spirit of an Englishwoman. 
 
 " The women have been splendid," is one of the 
 remarks which has been uttered most frequently 
 by the statesmen or publicists of all Allied coun- 
 tries. We know well how they have filled the 
 places of our men and " carried on " in the most
 
 THE ISLAND RACE 31 
 
 arduous tasks 011 the land, in factories, and else- 
 where. But it is, I am certain, not fully realised 
 how gloriously our women have faced death upon 
 the high seas at the instance of the Hun murderers. 
 Not once nor twice, but scores of times, from the 
 sinking of the Aguila in March, 1915, when the 
 stewardess and the only woman passenger were 
 murdered, the latter by gun-fire, down to the last 
 awful outrage in 1918. 
 
 How many of our women have been thus done 
 to death on the seas I do not know — during the 
 first two years of the submarine warfare the num- 
 ber was nearly 1,500 — but this I do know. In 
 every case where a ship was carrying any women 
 on board of her, and where the records remain, 
 you will find testimony to their splendid courage. 
 
 " The women took their places in the boats as 
 calmly as if they were going down to their meals, 
 and when in the boats they began singing."* That 
 is only typical. 
 
 There was a ship of ours called the Llandovery 
 Castle — a hospital ship in the Canadian Medical 
 Service. On a midsummer night of 1918 she was 
 inward bound to Liverpool from Halifax, N.S., with 
 a medical staff and crew on board, 258 souls. She 
 was torpedoed without warning 11G miles from 
 land, and sank ; 234 perished with her. 
 
 Amongst the staff were fourteen Sisters of the 
 Canadian Nursing Service. Each one of them had 
 gone to France from Canada on active service with 
 
 * Testimony of the captain of the liner City of Birmingham, 
 torpedoed without warning, November 27th, 19X6,
 
 32 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the first Canadian contingent, and had worked in 
 casualty clearing stations under shell-fire. Now 
 they were making the voyage to and from Canada 
 by way of holiday and rest. 
 
 Of these Sisters the senior in service was Mar- 
 garet Marjorie Fraser. And there was never a 
 Canadian — nor any man that had met her — but 
 held Sister Fraser in dear, affectionate regard. To 
 her, friend and enemy if wounded were alike — men 
 to be tended with all her skill, all her pity. Many 
 scores of Germans had passed beneath her care ; 
 many a cup of water had she held to their parched 
 lips ; many the letters she had written for them, 
 dying messages to their people in Germany. But 
 these things were only the proud duty of every 
 member of the Nursing Service of the Red Cross — 
 save in Germany. 
 
 The ship was struck ; within ten minutes she 
 had gone down. But in those few brief minutes 
 the fourteen Sisters, clad, most of them, in night- 
 dress and slippers, had been mustered on deck 
 and placed in a boat under the charge of two 
 or three seamen and a sergeant of the Medical 
 Service. 
 
 Into the unknown terror of that black, seething 
 waste of waters the little boat was lowered from 
 the davits. With a couple of axes the seamen slash 
 at the ropes to set her free as she takes the water. 
 One axe breaks ; then the other. And the boat 
 grinds and crashes against the side of the sinking 
 ship, tossed this way and that on the waves. 
 
 " Do you think there's any chance ? ' said 
 Nurse Fraser to the sergeant. And she spoke as
 
 THE ISLAND RAGE 33 
 
 calmly, as dispassionately as though she were asking 
 the hour of day. 
 
 And the sergeant in silence shook his head. 
 
 Now the ropes give close by the runners, and 
 the boat is free. Free ! But no human skill can 
 drive her away from the cruel suction of the ship. 
 The oars snap and break as the men try to fend 
 her away from the side. 
 
 Slowly, remorselessly, the boat with her precious 
 freight is drawn by a giant hand towards the stern 
 of the ship. With a moaning crash the after-deck 
 breaks and dissolves into fragments. Against a last 
 pitiful effort the boat is dragged into the whirlpool, 
 oversets and is gone. And with her, never rising 
 again, until that Day when the Sea shall give up 
 its Dead, sank the fourteen devoted women. 
 
 The sergeant was the only one from the boat 
 who was saved. But this has he left upon record. 
 From the moment when they were brought on deck 
 to face the certainty of a cruel death never a whimper, 
 never a murmur was heard from any one of those 
 noble Sisters. They went to their deaths gallantly 
 and proudly as British women have ever faced death 
 on the Seas, whether under the Hand of God or at 
 the bloody will of a murderer. 
 
 True daughters of the great Sea Mother, who 
 set within you the heroic unfettered Soul, your 
 bodies are at rest upon her gracious bosom. But 
 through the ages your Spirit shall live on in flaming 
 splendour to guide and inspire the sons and daughters 
 that shall come hereafter.* 
 
 * I had thought to demand that there should be included in 
 the Terms of Peace to be dictated provision whereby there should 
 D
 
 34 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 You, Canada ! You will not forget. But lest 
 we of England, we of other Nations in our Common- 
 wealth, who also sorrow proudly for our Dead — 
 lest we should sometimes fail a little in remembrance, 
 here I set forth in poor tribute the Roll of this your 
 Sacrifice : — 
 
 Christine Campbell. 
 Carola Josephine Douglas. 
 Alexina Dussault. 
 Minnie Follette. 
 Margaret Jane Fortescue. 
 Margaret Marjorie Fraser. 
 Minnie Katherine Gallaher. 
 Jessie Mabel McDiarmid. 
 Mary Agnes McKenzie. 
 Rena McLean. 
 MacBelle Sampson. 
 Gladys Irene Sare. 
 Anna Irene Stamers. 
 Jean Templeman. 
 
 Now I would tell of the courage of yet another, 
 a wife and a mother. Not because it was the courage 
 of one woman, but because it belonged to hundreds 
 of thousands of women of our Race. It needs but 
 a glance at the " In Memoriam ' columns of The 
 
 be erected in each of the largest cities of Germany, or at least in 
 Berlin, a noble monument to the memory of British -women mur- 
 dered by Germans on the High Seas. The monument to be designed 
 and executed by our own people, tiie cost being levied upon the 
 women of Germany who have abetted and gloried in the infamy 
 of their submarine commanders. There is precedent for this in 
 the great memorial arch which Germany compelled the Chinese 
 Lo erect in Peking. But such suggested monument would be re- 
 garded by the Germans, not as a badge of infamy but as a glorifica- 
 tion of their valour (sic).
 
 THE ISLAND RAGE 35 
 
 Times, and of all daily journals of the Country, down 
 to the humblest evening local paper, to realise how, 
 during the Great War, the women of Britain faced 
 the sacrifice of their sons and brothers. 
 
 It was after the Victory of Jutland Bank. In 
 a certain great naval base (it matters not which), 
 there are dingy suburbs, peopled by seafaring folk, 
 which stretch for miles in mean streets and dismal, 
 meagre houses. 
 
 In one of those streets there are fourteen houses 
 all adjoining, in each one of which the mother of 
 the little home had been newly made a widow. Her 
 man had gone down in the Battle of Jutland. 
 
 And I spoke with one of those women, and this 
 was how she answered. 
 
 " There's some as says," she remarked quietly, 
 " that Beatty didn't ought to have taken on the 
 whole of the German fleet with them battle-cruisers 
 of his. But my man was in one o' them cruisers, 
 and he went down in her, and I know what he'd ha' 
 said ; he wouldn't ha' run away not if there' d been 
 ten times as many." 
 
 And then she went on, pointing to some children 
 in the corner of the room — and ah ! the ring of 
 ineffable pride in her voice : 
 
 " And look at them children. II is children. 
 Think of the blood that's in 'cm. His blood. Think 
 what that means to England and the next generation 
 with the blood of a father like that in 'em." 
 
 But I would say more than that. I would say : 
 " Think what it means to England and the next 
 generation with the Mood of a woman like that in 
 their veins."
 
 36 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 In such fashion, then, do I picture the British 
 Navy, a mighty Sea Service of Four Estates, yet one 
 and in spirit indivisible: — 
 
 (1) The Royal Navy, of fighting ships and their 
 
 auxiliaries ; 
 
 (2) The Mercantile Marine, the greatest industry of 
 
 the Realm and the most stupendous monu- 
 ment of human energy and achievement that 
 the world has ever seen, and from which the 
 Royal Navy was born ; 
 
 (3) The Seafaring Folk of the coast line ; and 
 
 (4) The Land Folk, men and women, in whose veins 
 
 run the tradition and spirit of the Island 
 Race. 
 
 The more one studies Britain's sea-history the 
 more surely does it appear that her Sea-Service has 
 ever been one belonging especially to the people, 
 the democracy. Comparing it, I mean, with the 
 land-service of the Army. 
 
 As everyone knows (or does everyone know ?) 
 the maintenance of an Army for Great Britain has 
 to be sanctioned each year by Parliament. The 
 maintenance of the Sea-Service is of the people, 
 and is as free as the sea itself. The Mercantile 
 Marine, in the far distant past, was created by 
 individual enterprise. Its adventuring and achieve- 
 ment through the centuries has been that of in- 
 dividuals, of the people, sometimes supported, some- 
 times hampered, by the Government of the day. 
 And yet so mighty a force is it in its embracement 
 of the whole world that our people who have created 
 it, who support it, and who live only by its service, 
 our people know little or nothing about it. An 
 astonishing paradox indeed !
 
 THE ISLAND RAGE 37 
 
 The Army had ever been a Service of the " aris- 
 tocracy," the Royal Navy one of the " democracy." 
 The Navy is a poor man's profession in which ini- 
 tiative and efficiency have always counted towards 
 promotion. " A military command called for exalted 
 rank," Lord Rosebery once remarked, " or the 
 seniority which often spelled senility." 
 
 In the Army the number of men who, before the 
 War, rose from the ranks to posts of high command 
 might be counted on the fingers of the hand. But 
 in the Royal Navy some of the most famous names 
 in our history arc those of men who fought their 
 way up from the bottom of the ladder. John Jervis, 
 Admiral of the Fleet Earl St. Vincent, as he came to 
 be, was the son of a country lawyer. Collingwood 
 was the son of a merchant. Nelson himself was 
 the son of a country parson, and served an appren- 
 ticeship on board a merchant ship. 
 
 The Mariners of England ! It is a proud title. 
 Once again have the bearers of it won for themselves 
 in the Cause which they have lately served, the 
 honour and gratitude of their Country and their 
 Country's Allies. 
 
 How have they earned that gratitude ? " What 
 has the Navy done ? ' I have yet to speak more 
 fully of the Royal Navy, the fighting Senior Service, 
 and then must we turn to consider the question and 
 find an adequate reply. Else will this brief intro- 
 duction of the characters in the great drama seem 
 but windy boasting. 
 
 Yet will I dare now something of a reply and 
 set down here that which should rightly come as
 
 38 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 an epilogue. And I find the reply in words written 
 to his countrymen many a long year ago by a gallant 
 and courteous enemy, the Dutch Admiral De Ruyter, 
 after he had beaten in fair fight the English Fleet. 
 
 " But," so he wrote in his despatch, " all that 
 we discovered was that Englishmen might be killed, 
 and English ships burnt, but that English courage 
 was invincible."
 
 THE TRADITION OF THE 
 ROYAL NAVY
 
 II 
 
 THE TRADITION OF THE 
 ROYAL NAVY 
 
 Flaunt out sea your separate flags of nations ! 
 
 Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals I 
 
 But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man one 
 
 flag above all the rest, 
 A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above 
 
 death, 
 
 Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and males, 
 
 And all that went down doing their duly, 
 
 Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old, 
 
 A pennant universal, subtly waving all lime, o'er all brave sailors, 
 
 All seas, all sliips. 
 
 — ^alt Whitman. 
 
 There should be a legend (if there is I do not know 
 it) which tells how once upon a day the great god 
 Thor delved from the earth a massive bar of dun- 
 coloured iron. That he chiselled upon it mystic 
 runes, and set it upon shipboard to sail forth to 
 the destiny which he decreed in the writing. 
 
 ileu iron to reil soil. 
 
 ^Ijipimut attu rljapman sljall t"asl;ion me. 
 
 .^Ijiuman and toarrior sljall nmlu me. 
 
 And the dragon-prowed ship sailed on across 
 the waters of the Northern Seas questing southern- 
 wards for a shore which should be red as the iron 
 which she bore. And the seas grew narrower so 
 that one standing by the steering-oar of the ship 
 
 41
 
 42 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 might descry the cliffs upon either hand. Tawny 
 of colour they were to the left hand ; of dazzling 
 fairness to the right. And the ship sailed on, passing 
 between them. 
 
 Now in her sailing, as she came to breast the 
 great sweep of the waves where they roll in from 
 the Western Ocean upon the Narrow Seas, behold, 
 upon the right there rose a land gleaming with colour 
 like to a ruby set within platinum. Red as the ruby 
 was the rich loam of that fair country ; and the 
 Viking-ship, heaven-guided, turned aside upon her 
 course for her quest was ended. 
 
 Into a deep cove she sailed and there, embeached, 
 yielded up her gift upon the shore. And the planks 
 and timbers that were her body she strewed here 
 and there all upon the coast from one end to the 
 other. 
 
 Now the men of that country were tillers of the 
 soil (though some adventured a little way upon the 
 sea). And they found the magic iron upon the 
 beach and set to shaping and fashioning it, though 
 to what end they knew not. The timbers of 
 that great ship too they found. And the Spirit of 
 her entered into their souls so that they turned 
 more and more from tilling the soil to a more hardy 
 adventuring upon the seas, becoming shipmen and 
 merchants when beforetime they had been husband- 
 men. 
 
 The years passed into centuries, and the god- 
 given iron became a precious heritage. Fathers and 
 sons, they hammered and cast it into shape, ever 
 working upon it through the passing years. But 
 they knew not what they wrought nor why, though
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 43 
 
 little by little the iron came to the semblance of a 
 weapon. 
 
 And with the years the merchant shipmen of 
 that country became ever more and more hardy 
 and ventursome, so that the fame of their deeds 
 was carried to the ends of the world. And steadily 
 and surely by their thoughts and deeds was the 
 iron welded and fashioned and tempered until the 
 shape of it became certain. And lo ! it was a 
 great Sword. 
 
 So the merchant seamen in all reverence bore 
 with them the Sword when they went a-faring. 
 And it became an emblem and a bond of brother- 
 hood to them. But never did they cease from 
 fashioning it to a finer temper and keenness, for 
 thus they showed their love and faith and gratitude. 
 
 Now the fair, red-soiled home of the seamen 
 was but a little part of a lovely island. And so 
 doughty were the traffickings of those men through- 
 out the world that the Island country grew rich 
 and mighty by their valour. 
 
 And so it came that the Island must needs have 
 great ships built for its protection and for the guard- 
 ing of its commerce. 
 
 So the Rulers of the Island sent to the men of 
 that little red land — and it was in the West — and 
 besought them to teach the building of ships-of-war 
 and to serve upon them against an enemy, setting 
 a pattern and example to other men of the Race. 
 
 And the men of the fair Western land came 
 gladly. And they bore with them, as the most 
 precious gift which they could bestow, the Sword 
 which they had fashioned.
 
 44 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Sturdy were the ships they builded ; nobly did 
 they serve them against all enemies. And with 
 the serving, so did the Sword become ever more 
 keenly tempered and exquisite in its ornament and 
 workmanship. Over all seas and into all lands was 
 it borne, so that all men wherever it shone must 
 needs praise its beauty and hold in highest honour 
 the sea-warriors that bore it. 
 
 In every land where it shone flashing aloft, 
 sword and buckler both, there were wrongs righted, 
 the weak protected, justice dealt, tyranny o'er- 
 thrown. Chivalry to those it vanquished, humanity 
 and gentleness, these followed. 
 
 So in time there came the greatest war of all, 
 when a people, mad with lust and jealousy, strove 
 by every foulness and treachery to prevail against 
 the Men of the Sword and the peoples whom the 
 Sword protected. So they strove, and the more 
 foul and bloody their deeds the more brightly 
 gleamed the Sword, untarnished by speek of rust 
 or dirt. And at the last, so brilliant was its splendour, 
 so mighty the arms of the sea-warriors, that the 
 enemy, driven to a last attack, fell to the earth, 
 blinded by the glory of its lustre, and yielded them- 
 selves. 
 
 And the Island Kingdom was this dear land of 
 England. And the name of the fair country of 
 the red soil in the West was Devon, the cradle of 
 our seafaring race. And the name of the Sword 
 
 was " ftraoition of tbc Sea." 
 
 So would I frame the legend and seek to tell 
 by a parable how the Tradition of the Royal Navy
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 45 
 
 came to be the noble thing that it is to-day. 
 Not by a little has it been created. You must 
 needs go back through the centuries, pausing here 
 and there to note how this man and that, one ship 
 and her company and another gave to the fashion- 
 ing of it. And ever behind there rolls the eternal 
 mystery of the Sea ; ever there stands firm-set 
 the bond and brotherhood of the men who strive 
 unceasingly to pierce the veil of that mystery. 
 
 In the hands of officers of all ranks and ratings 
 of the Royal Navy to-day, the " Tradition of the 
 Sea ' has taken, not a new meaning, but a more 
 noble and spiritual a one. It has, indeed, become 
 that " signal for all nations ' of which Walt 
 Whitman has written. Faced by the incredible 
 treachery and horror of the German submarine war- 
 fare, incited to retaliate by a sternness, an inhumanity 
 even, which all would have held legitimate, the 
 manhood of the Royal Navy held ever to the Tradi- 
 tion of the Brotherhood and won for the Island 
 Race a glory which shall never fade. 
 
 We have come out of this business with clean 
 hands. I am not sure that this will not be our 
 proudest boast. We like to think now with pride 
 of the attitude which the Royal Navy adopted 
 when German submarine commanders began to 
 sink passenger and merchant ships without warn- 
 ing. Our people strongly urged (and naturally so) 
 that such Germans, when captured, should be 
 treated as felons, imprisoned, and put upon their 
 trial for murder. 
 
 But the Royal Navy would have none of it. 
 They must be treated as prisoncrs-of-war, said the
 
 46 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Navy. And the Navy had its own way. Quixotic, 
 perhaps. Foolish, you will say. Maybe it was. 
 
 During the concluding year of the war, however, 
 there was a definite change in the outlook of officers 
 and men. Horror had been heaped upon horror, 
 and the uttermost limits in the Pirate's Progress 
 had been reached. " Spurlos versenkt " — " Sink with- 
 out leaving a trace." Murder every soul on board 
 and smash up the ship's boats. 
 
 Even then the Royal Navy could not retaliate. 
 But, realising at long last that there was no shred 
 of humanity left to the Germans, fighting forces 
 or people, justice and reparation was called for. 
 There was only one way open at the time by which 
 the Navy could voice its demand, and it was taken. 
 Officers, all ranks and ratings, backed up Mr. Have- 
 lock Wilson's manifesto of the Seamen's and Fire- 
 men's Union for a boycott of German goods, ships, 
 and sailors. It was a solid vote. I believe in 
 Devonport alone some 30,000 signatures were ob- 
 tained. 
 
 It is impossible to realise how significant was 
 that change of attitude unless you know some- 
 thing of the meaning of Sea Tradition, and what 
 it had come to signify in the Royal Navy; unless 
 you remember how intense is the feeling for chivalry 
 and humanity under all possible conditions.* 
 
 There is a little story which Mr. Rudyard 
 Kipling has outlined, f but I am sure that he will 
 
 * Special attention is invited to the address of Admiral 
 Beatty reproduced in Appendix II. 
 
 t *' Sea Warfare," Rudyard Kipling, page 209. (Macmillan 
 and Co.)
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 47 
 
 forgive me for repeating it in fuller detail. I like 
 to set it side by side with another, to hang them up 
 as pictures in the panels of the mind, to glance 
 at occasionally and ponder over. 
 
 A flotilla of our destroyers went out one fine 
 morning across the North Sea to strafe Zeppelins. 
 They put up a couple of the gas-bags, and for half 
 an hour or so things were pretty lively. The Zepps 
 up above were dropping bombs all over the place, 
 and — well, the destroyers were giving back as good 
 as they received. Better, perhaps. 
 
 Right in the middle of the action one of the 
 destroyers signalled to the flotilla leader for per- 
 mission to " stop ship " and " pick up ship's dog," 
 which had fallen overboard. 
 
 Permission was given, the ship was stopped, and 
 a boat was lowered. The dog, so they said, was 
 swimming straight for the Belgian coast, and they 
 swore that he was a German spy in disguise. But 
 that didn't make any difference. They pulled after 
 him, picked him up, smacked him about the ears, 
 put him inboard the destroyer, and sent him below 
 to ruminate over his behaviour. What they must 
 have thought about it all up in the Zepps is left 
 to the imagination. 
 
 That is the first picture. Here is the second. 
 It isn't a sea story, but it will serve. 
 
 It was on the Western Front. In one of the 
 villages which the Huns had just evacuated — 
 " according to plan ' —a patrol of our men, four 
 privates and a corporal, was marching up the street. 
 
 As they passed an old ruin of a church, battered 
 by shell lire, they heard, coming from inside (if you
 
 48 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 can call it " inside "), cries and piteous moans, as 
 from some animal in agony. 
 
 They clambered over the ruins, following the 
 sound, and there, against a wall, they found a little 
 kitten, crucified, with its tiny paws twisted round 
 with strands of barbed wire. 
 
 One of our lads jumped forward with his cutters 
 and broke the wire. Upon the instant the four 
 men were blown to pieces by a Hun contact bomb 
 attached. 
 
 It is an enemy which knows well how to turn 
 to his own foul use this tradition of humanity and 
 chivalry.* 
 
 Now the rescue of the ship's dog was, to the 
 ship's company of that destroyer, the most natural 
 thing in the world. It was all in the day's work. 
 And therein lies the whole point of the action. 
 The saving of life, even though it were only of a 
 dumb animal, is a matter of second nature to those 
 in whom the tradition of chivalry and humanity 
 is implanted. 
 
 The immortal spirit of Nelson ever broods, they 
 
 say, in watchful guardianship over the Fleet. And, 
 
 with the saying, men most naturally think of his 
 
 great leadership as a fighting seaman. But seldom 
 
 has any great captain of men, one who by his life's 
 
 work should set a noble example to his fellows, 
 
 seldom has any man given to the world so many 
 
 exquisite instances of humane feeling as Nelson 
 
 did. Nelson was the incarnate spirit of Sea Tradi- 
 
 * Incidentally they have used the same method for murdering 
 our stretcher-bearer parties — attaching a bomb to a dead German 
 left lying outside a trench. Our men would come to pick him up 
 to bury him, and would be blown to pieces.
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 49 
 
 tion, and to understand the Royal Navy of to-day 
 you must know first how Nelson lived. 
 
 One recalls, for instance, the disastrous attack 
 upon Teneriffe when Nelson, with his right arm 
 shattered, nearly fainting with loss of blood, yet 
 through sheer will-power himself saving the lives 
 of his seamen strugo-lincr in the water — one recalls 
 how they tried to carry him on board the nearest 
 ship, the Seahorse. 
 
 How Nelson, even in his agony, remembered 
 that on board of her was Mrs. Fremantle, the bride 
 of one of his captains, and that Captain Fremantle 
 was on shore, dead or a prisoner. How they told 
 Nelson that it was life or death to him. 
 
 " I had rather suffer death," he replied, " than 
 alarm Mrs. Fremantle, by letting her see me in 
 this state, when I can give her no tidings what- 
 ever of her husband." 
 
 And so they carried him to his own ship. 
 
 One anecdote from a hundred others. With 
 such an exemplar is it to be wondered that the 
 tradition of the Royal Navy ranks as it does ? It 
 is the same " band of brothers ' to-day, even more 
 firmly united, that fought as Nelson's comrades at 
 the Rattle of the Nile. 
 
 Many a score of times have I seen how actual 
 and living a thing is this tradition. The passing 
 of centuries cannot affect the service of the sea. 
 The mighty battleships of the (irand Fleet to-day 
 differ only in degree from the triremes that fought 
 at Salamis. Always the first principles are the 
 same. So with the sea tradition, 
 e
 
 50 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 I have sat within the Admiral's eabin in the 
 Flag Ship of the Grand Fleet, and have listened to 
 the Commander-in-Chief as he has received in con- 
 ference the captains of a battleship squadron. 
 
 " My captains," so the Admiral spoke of them. 
 And in that mode of thought and address was the 
 immemorial tradition of sea comradeship. For the 
 captains spoke with the Commander-in-Chief, and 
 he with them, exactly as Francis Drake spoke with 
 his commanders on the Spanish Main.* It is not, 
 cannot be so in the Army. 
 
 As between the officers, so is it between officers 
 and men. Of all my impressions of the Royal Navy 
 (forgive a momentary personal note), and I have 
 been with squadrons in all parts of the world, no 
 one is more vivid in my mind than that of the com- 
 radeship which exists between the officers and all 
 other ranks, petty officers, seamen, stokers, and 
 marines. 
 
 And once again I must needs think of Francis 
 Drake. (Give me time and I will find you a pre- 
 cedent in our sea-history for everything that has 
 befallen in these later years — save only the con- 
 temptible surrender of the German fleet.) And 
 here I will set down his famous words upon which 
 this part of our Naval tradition would seem to have 
 been modelled. They were spoken far down the 
 
 * Those who have been honoured by the privilege of a visit to 
 the Commander-in-Chief on board the Flag Ship will recall the 
 beauty of the furniture and appointments in the Admiral's cabin. 
 If they know their sea-history they will also recall how Francis 
 Drake carried for his table a noble store of gold and silver plate 
 that he might uphold in foreign parts the dignity of the Queen's 
 majesty, and of her Realm.
 
 fe^%/?€ 
 
 : M^Mmh u** 
 
 ADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 51 
 
 South American coast during the voyage round the 
 world in the Golden Hind, at a time when Drake 
 was fighting hard against the discords of his 
 seamen. 
 
 " Here," he said, " is such controversy between 
 the sailors and the gentlemen (officers) and such 
 stomaching between the gentlemen and sailors, that 
 it doth even make me mad to hear it. But, my 
 masters, I must have it left. For I must have the 
 gentlemen to haul and draw with the mariner, and 
 the mariner with the gentleman. What ! let us 
 show ourselves all to be of a company, and let us 
 not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our 
 decay and overthrow. I would know him that 
 would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I 
 know there is not any such here." 
 
 So Francis Drake insisted three hundred odd 
 years ago, and so is it to-day. The gentleman 
 hauls and draws with the mariner. A sound, healthy 
 tradition. The German thought he knew better. 
 lie, poor little man, thought to laugh in his sleeve 
 at a tradition which was old before he was born. 
 Well, he has learned his lesson, Not, for a moment, 
 though, that he is like to profit by it ! 
 
 I cannot attempt to define this present-day 
 comradeship. It lies in a hundred odd trifles of 
 everyday routine on board His Majesty's ships. 
 Manners of approach, ways of speech, this and that 
 way of doing tilings. Nor does discipline relax for 
 a moment ; il* anything it is intensified by the com- 
 radeship. You will, for instance, never find in the 
 Itoyal Navy such a thing as slackness in saluting
 
 52 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 or lack of proper respect towards an officer who 
 bears the King's commission. 
 
 One might illustrate in a hundred ways this 
 bond of comradeship between officer and man, but 
 there is one incident in particular which comes to 
 mind because it is so splendidly typical and because, 
 too, of the high rank of the officer concerned. 
 
 Of all those gallant Senior Officers retired from 
 the Navy prior to 1914, and who, at the outbreak 
 of the War, came back to serve in any subordinate 
 capacity and with any rank, no one is more famous 
 than Admiral Sir James Startin, Entering the Navy 
 in 1869 he fought in the Zulu War, the Egyptian 
 War, the Benin War, and the China War, won two 
 medals and two clasps for saving life, and retired, 
 Vice-Admiral, in, I believe, 1913. 
 
 But when the war came in 1914, Admiral Startin, 
 like many another good man and true, went down 
 to the Admiralty in Whitehall, and sat on the steps 
 and said : " Give me a rank, and give me a job, 
 I don't care what it is." 
 
 And because My Lords Commissioners are sea- 
 men themselves, and know the meaning of sea 
 tradition, they gave him a job and a rank. And 
 the rank was Lieutenant-Commander (which isn't 
 very much of a rank when you've been an Admiral), 
 and the job was the command of a flotilla of mine- 
 sweeping trawlers. And so Lieutenant-Commander 
 Startin, R.N.R., at the age of fifty-nine, began once 
 again at the bottom of the ladder because there 
 was sea service to be performed, and because the 
 tradition of the Royal Navy enjoins that a man's 
 service shall end only with his death.
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 53 
 
 Now I spoke one day in 1917 to a senior Naval 
 Officer in the Grand Fleet, and asked him if he knew 
 Admiral Startin. 
 
 " Know him ! ' he replied, " he is the bravest 
 man in the Navy." 
 
 The bravest man in the Navy ! And that was 
 the tribute of a brother officer. Well, you shall 
 hear. 
 
 Early in 1918, having won his way up to the 
 rank of Commodore, R.N.R., Sir James Startin was 
 in command of the mine-sweeping base at the mouth 
 of the Firth of Forth. Out one morning in the 
 Firth in a small ship Admiral Startin (as we must 
 call him) sighted one of the launches of his flotilla 
 heavily on fire. She carried a lot of oil, the fire 
 had got to it and the engine-room was a roaring 
 furnace. 
 
 The Admiral closed the launch in his ship. " Any- 
 one on board her?" he asked. And they told him 
 that one of the engineers was still in the engine- 
 room. 
 
 There is no stopping Admiral Startin in a 
 case like that, as many others had often learned, 
 and, shaking off all attempts to hold him back, the 
 Admiral clambered straight on board and plunged 
 into the hell of flame. 
 
 Fighting his way along the deck he got some- 
 how into the engine-room. Groping on hands and 
 knees he found the engineer lying unconscious by 
 the tubes. With a mighty effort the Admiral 
 dragged him out, fought a way back again with 
 the body in his arms, and so lowered him over the 
 side.
 
 54 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 The engineer, alas, was dead, but there is no 
 doubt that had he not been past human aid the 
 Admiral would have saved his life. 
 
 Such is the comradeship between officers and 
 men of the Royal Navy. An Admiral and an en- 
 gineer. Such is the tradition of the Navy. They 
 awarded the Albert Medal to Admiral Startin, and 
 — he was sixty-three years old when he won it. 
 
 Chivalry and humanity ; and with the German 
 submarine warfare when the murderers were, more 
 than once, taken almost red-handed. But a British 
 naval officer does not renounce his right of man- 
 hood even with a German prisoner-of-war. 
 
 There was a certain U-boat which had been 
 taking its toll of shipping. But the avengers were 
 on its track, and one fine morning the U-boat had 
 to come to the surface and surrender her commander 
 and crew to a British destroyer. 
 
 As is the way in the Royal Navy the British 
 commander placed his cabin and wardrobe at the 
 disposal of the captured enemy officer commanding. 
 The German officer thanked his chivalrous captor 
 by spitting in his face. 
 
 Without a moment's hesitation the British officer 
 got in a splendid left, and with a clean upper cut 
 on the point of the chin sent the German spinning 
 overboard into the sea. 
 
 Leaving him there for a minute or so to get 
 thoroughly wet, the destroyer commander then dived 
 overboard after the German, picked him up, and 
 hauled him inboard again. Then the German went 
 below. 
 
 I like that story.
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 55 
 
 The tradition of the Royal Navy to-day is, as 
 I have suggested, the outcome of centuries. You 
 may compare it to a mighty oak-tree which has 
 sprung from a tiny acorn, growing steadily through 
 the years. Now its branches spread throughout the 
 world, and in every country that tradition is the 
 synonym for everything that is most noble, most 
 efficient, most chivalrous. 
 
 Nor is that merely a figure of speech. Our 
 people, I am sure, have no conception how the folk 
 of foreign countries regard the Royal Navy. In 
 lands which border upon the sea it is a living, prac- 
 tical reality : in the far interior of the great con- 
 tinents it has become a story of legendary renown. 
 
 Four hundred miles up the great Yang-tse-Kiang 
 river an ocean-going ship may steam towards the 
 heart of China, and unload at Hankow. Hundreds 
 of miles beyond that, by the rapids of Ichang, I 
 came one day by a bend in the river. And as I 
 rounded the corner I saw, incredible of the vision, 
 the White Ensign of the Royal Navy fluttering above 
 the low tree-tops. A British gunboat ! Had I 
 never before felt pride in our sea-power and the 
 Navy indeed my heart throbbed to it then. 
 
 '' You know our fighting ships, then ? ' I said 
 to the headman of a near-by village. 
 
 ' We know them," said the Chinese. " Your 
 iirc-dragon junks are mighty upon all the rivers. 
 Not want to talk with them." 
 
 To a little mountain village <>!' Roumania there 
 came the news (from German sources) of the great 
 German victory over the British Fleet at Jutland 
 Bank. Even the British public had been staggered by
 
 56 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the idiotic communique issued that Saturday morn- 
 ing by our own Admiralty. Not so the Roumanians. 
 Their faith was greater. 
 
 ' Quite impossible," they said to the German 
 telegram, " the British Navy can never be defeated. 
 The Germans lie." And a fortnight passed before 
 the truth reached their ears. But their hearts had 
 told them long before. 
 
 Like a diamond with its hundred facets of 
 light, so is the infinite variety of the Royal Navy's 
 tradition. But I shall fail completely in my purpose 
 unless you appreciate this — that there is no phase 
 of that tradition which is not directly a part of the 
 Navy's everyday life and work. Officers and men 
 do not talk about it, do not even think about it 
 (save indirectly), for to act up to the tradition in 
 every hour of their sea-service is with them but a 
 part of their being. 
 
 When Lieutenant F. W. Craven, R.N., in his little 
 T.B.D. saved some 500 lives from a sinking ship in a 
 heavy sea and a thick mist off the south of Ireland 
 early in 1918— saved them by such consummate 
 seamanship as no sailor there had ever witnessed 
 before — he was only doing what every other " owner ' 
 of a destroyer would at least have tried to do, maybe 
 giving his life in the attempt. That piece of work, 
 magnificent in its gallantry and skill, was to Lieu- 
 tenant Craven no more than a momentary extension 
 of his patrol routine. His portrait did not appear 
 in the Daily Wire (he saw to that), and if by some 
 mischance an enterprising reporter had managed 
 to get it printed I honestly believe that the editor
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 57 
 
 would have been served by the commander with a 
 writ for " defamation of character." 
 
 Then there was the commanding officer of a 
 motor-launch serving with a flotilla of mine-sweeping 
 trawlers. (The incident is taken at random from 
 scores like it, and such as my Naval acquaintances 
 would scorn to mention.) A particularly ugly-looking 
 mine was sighted adrift. A very heavy sea was 
 running, and the crack shots of the trawlers failed 
 to hit and explode it by rifle fire. The officer ran 
 his launch close to the mine (a sea might have carried 
 her crashing on top of it), and then coolly jumped 
 overboard, swam to it, passed a tow-line through 
 some eyelet holes in the mine, and so had it hauled 
 ashore. 
 
 That mine had to be got rid of, and as the method 
 employed seemed the most simple and direct the 
 officer " carried on." I have no doubt he had 
 forgotten all about the incident before the week 
 was out. 
 
 One is irresistibly reminded of the old fisherman 
 (in the war's early days) who was seen hauling a 
 great German mine alongside a pier of a certain 
 south-coast resort. 
 
 " Take the damned thing away," shouted a 
 horrified officer. " It'll explode." 
 
 " 'E be quite armless, mister," said the fisher- 
 man. " Oi've knocked they 'orns off wi' a boat- 
 '00k." 
 
 But that by the way. 
 
 The tradition, and the spirit in which it is upheld. 
 The two are as one, for no tradition may exist by
 
 58 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 lip-service only. And the spirit which upholds the 
 tradition of the Royal Navy is the spirit which wins 
 battles. And, after all, it is to win battles that 
 the Royal Navy exists. 
 
 It was that spirit, that will to conquer, that 
 despising of odds, which carried Admiral Jervis to 
 victory at St. Vincent with his fifteen ships against 
 twenty-seven of Spain ; which carried Blake and 
 his seamen into the Bay of Teneriffe when even 
 partly to fail meant certain annihilation. It was 
 the tradition which bore Admiral Duncan in the 
 Venerable into the Texel River against heavy odds, 
 and it was the spirit which bade him cry to his 
 ship's company before they went into action : 
 
 " I have taken the soundings of the water, and 
 I know that when my ship sinks my flag will still 
 
 It was the same unconquerable optimism which 
 sustained Admiral Jellicoe throughout his herculean 
 task of keeping the personnel of the Grand Fleet 
 in perfect fighting trim throughout the weary months 
 of watching and waiting in the North Sea. 
 
 This generation may not, but our children surely 
 will be brought to realise something of the imperish- 
 able debt which the Empire and civilisation owe 
 to Admiral Jellicoe. Is it too much to say that 
 he created the Grand Fleet ? It was, without a 
 shadow of doubt, his inspiring and human personality 
 and leadership that made of the Grand Fleet so 
 perfect an instrument of war as finally to secure by 
 it the greatest victory in the history of the world ; 
 a victory won without the firing of a single gun or 
 the loss of a single life.
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 59 
 
 But for the moment I write of another matter. 
 In a letter to Lady Jellicoe the Admiral paid his 
 tribute to the manner in which the men under his 
 command were upholding the Navy tradition through 
 those winter months of unceasing strain and vigilance. 
 ' The men," he wrote, " are setting an example 
 of cheery patience that is splendid . . . The nights 
 are very long, the sky is very grey, and the decks 
 are very, very wet. But none of these things affect 
 the spirit of the men, any more than the cold and 
 wet trenches and the constant shell-fire affect the 
 spirits of those splendid soldiers of ours ... It is 
 good to be a Briton nowadays." 
 
 And if I may make the momentary digression I 
 would like the officers and men of the " Old Army " 
 to know that it was also in no small measure the 
 all too scanty news of the supreme gallantry evinced 
 by the " Old Contemptibles " in France and Flanders 
 that helped to inspire the Grand Fleet during those 
 long watches at sea. The admiration of the Royal 
 Navy for the " Old Contemptibles ' was, and is 
 unbounded. * 
 
 " I cannot adequately express the pride with 
 which the spirit of the Fleet filled me." So wrote 
 Admiral Jellicoe after the one great fleet action 
 vouchsafed to the Royal Navy in the war. 
 
 And with the words I see the picture of four 
 seamen wrecked from a destroyer in the middle of 
 that great fight, clinging to, crouching upon a raft, 
 while above and around them enormous projectiles 
 
 * 1 make the remark from personal experience with audiences 
 of every section of the Hoynl Navy ; but 1 know that the various 
 Admirals Commanding will bear out the assertion.
 
 60 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 hurtled through the air and mighty concussions rent 
 the very heavens. And I see those men, each one 
 of them staggering to his feet as four destroyers in 
 line ahead swept into action, and yelling himself 
 hoarse with a cheer to speed his comrades on. 
 
 Or I clamber again up the great steel mast of 
 a battleship at " action stations " in the North Sea 
 as she zigzags a course into the Skager Rak to 
 tempt the Huns forth to a fight. And emerging 
 into the " top ' where there should be, one would 
 think, the tense strain of hands on levers, eyes glued 
 to telescopes, gun-ranging signals and such like, I 
 iind instead the gunnery lieutenant-commander (a 
 famous International footballer) aiding and abetting 
 a seaman in giving an excellent imitation of George 
 Robey (with mask) in his latest song success. " Now 
 then, chorus please, all together ! ' " Shurr-upp." 
 
 Do you remember the British infantry storming 
 the German trenches to the cry of " This way for 
 the early doors " ? 
 
 Or again I see in imagination the glorious chase 
 of the German Niirnberg by H.M.S. Kent after the 
 battle of the Falkland Isles. The Kent, the dear 
 old lame duck of the British Squadron, with her 
 23 knots setting out to run down the German ship 
 with her 24 knots. It was Captain Keats and the 
 Superb over again. 
 
 Now was the day of the engineers and the stokers, 
 and magnificently did they answer the call. You 
 may picture the Niirnberg hull down over the horizon 
 — just a smudge of smoke — and you can see the men 
 of the Kent determined to burn everything in the 
 ship that could burn before she got away from them.
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 61 
 
 For they were out to avenge the death of a consort. 
 You see the revolution gauges in engine-room and 
 on the bridge creep steadily up. They say that 
 all the furniture in the ship was piled into the 
 furnaces. Steadily up; and now they are actually 
 knocking 25 knots out of her. Better still, they 
 are sticking to it. But it's only one knot to the good, 
 and imagine how long the chase must needs be. 
 
 But the " black squad " and the " greasers " are 
 in it to the death, and they bank up and keep the 
 cranks going until it would seem that every plate 
 and rivet will be shaken out of the ship. Then, at 
 long last, the welcome message from the fire-control 
 and the Kent's gunners are at work. From then 
 an hour and a half saw the end ; and the Monmouth 
 was avenged. 
 
 *»* 
 
 The spirit that wins battles ! It was that spirit 
 which won for England her first great victory at 
 sea just seven hundred years ago. The victory 
 won by Hubert de Burgh in the Straits of Dover 
 in 1217 over a French fleet of double his strength. 
 Indeed, " the Navy is very old and very wise." 
 
 It was the same spirit which won for Britain 
 what may chance to have been her last great fleet 
 action, when Vice-Admiral Beatty engaged an enemy 
 in advantage of numbers and position, holding on 
 grimly to enable the Commander-in-Chief to strike 
 the decisive blow. 
 
 For the tradition of the Royal Navy in such 
 matters is a very simple one: 
 
 Go straight for the enemy and dont give a damn 
 for the odds.
 
 62 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 And while the spirit which translates that tradi- 
 tion into action may, and most frequently does, win 
 its battle there comes, perhaps, a day when the 
 glory of defeat is a greater thing than the glory of 
 victory. Save, always for the loss of noble lives 
 that may never be replaced. Who will say that 
 Sir Richard Grcnville and his men of Devon were 
 not greater in their defeat than in their possible 
 victory ? The tradition of the Revenge is one of 
 the most inspiring in our Island history. 
 
 There was a little ship of ours, and the name of 
 her was the Mary Rose. And Mary Rose is a name 
 which is very famous in the annals of the Royal 
 Navy. You will find her fighting in wellnigh every 
 fleet action back to the campaign of the Spanish 
 Armada and beyond.* 
 
 Now this Mary Rose, the last of her name, was 
 one of our best and fastest destroyers, not long in 
 commission. And one day of October, 1917, she 
 steamed out from Norwegian waters in escort of a 
 convoy of a dozen odd merchantmen bound for the 
 West. And the name of her " skipper " was Charles 
 Fox, Lieutenant-Commander. 
 
 Twelve hours out she was, steaming ahead of the 
 convoy, when far astern, flashes of gun-fire were 
 sighted. Swinging round on her course the Mary 
 Rose steamed back to investigate, thinking that a 
 submarine was attacking. 
 
 The morning was misty, and, as she sped back, 
 suddenly there loomed up to her, at no more than 
 
 * I offer no apology for re-telling this story, for it is one which 
 will be told and retold through the generations until Britain is no 
 more a nation. Aye, and then will they remember it of us.
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 63 
 
 four miles distance, the phantasmal forms of three 
 large ships. Immediately the Mary Rose challenged. 
 No reply. Yes ; a gun flash, and a shell falling 
 astern of her. 
 
 Then the Mary Rose saw clearly. It was not 
 an enemy submarine but three of Germany's latest 
 and finest light cruisers — sent, as we know now, to 
 attack this particular convoy. 
 
 Fox rang down for " full speed " and, opening 
 fire with every gun he could bring to bear, drove 
 his ship straight for the enemy. 
 
 Three and a half miles — the range closed. Three 
 miles ! And the cruisers opened with their quick- 
 firers. Over and short burst the shells, straddling 
 her ; and the Mary Rose held on. 
 
 Two and a half miles ! Two miles ! And now 
 the men of the Mary Rose began to go down, wounded 
 or dead, beneath the bursting shrapnel. But ever 
 the Commander stood to it, and ever the Mary Rose 
 drove forward through the storm. 
 
 One and a half miles — long since point- 
 blank range for cruiser gunnery — but still . . . 
 On ! On ! One mile, one little mile ! And the 
 coxswain at a sharp order wrenches the helm 
 hard-a-port. The starboard torpedo-tubes come 
 to bear as the Mary Rose heels over, shipping a 
 great sea which sweeps her deck. (Death is certain, 
 but perhaps ten seconds respite for one sure blow 
 at the enemy.) 
 
 Over to the helm swings the tiny ship, and — 
 crash — a salvo of shell hmsts fair amidships, wrecks 
 the engine-room, and leaves the Mary Rose mortally 
 wounded, helpless, motionless on the water.
 
 64 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 That one salvo carried overboard or put out of 
 action every gun aboard of her save the little gun 
 aft, killed or wounded every man save the Com- 
 mander, the first and sub-lieutenants, half the gun 
 detachment aft, and a couple of men by a torpedo 
 tube. 
 
 And through the thunderous din of the bursting 
 shells and the choking fumes of the gas and burning 
 wreckage there came to the little detachment aft 
 the joyous cry of their Commander : 
 
 ' God bless my heart, lads ! Get her going 
 again — we're not done yet ! " 
 
 And they got the little gun going again. And 
 the two men by the torpedo tube pulled the lanyard 
 to lire the last torpedo at a cruiser as she passed, 
 and were struck down instantly at their post. And 
 the Commander dived into his cabin to sink over- 
 board the ship's papers — which is the last thing the 
 "owner" must do before his ship goes down. And 
 the first lieutenant called the gunner to him — as 
 Richard Grenville had done, how many years ago — 
 and cried : 
 
 " Sink the ship, master gunner ! " 
 
 But it didn't come to that. A last salvo took 
 her hard within the water-line, and the little Mary 
 Rose heeled over and sank with her White Ensign 
 flying to the last, and the echo of those — immortal 
 — words ringing down the world : 
 
 " God bless my heart, lads ! We're not done 
 yet ! " 
 
 Such is the tradition of the Royal Navy. Not 
 merely that a man's service shall end only with his
 
 TRADITION OF ROYAL NAVY 65 
 
 death, but, if the Call should come, that the manner 
 of his death shall be equally worthy. That there 
 should be gallantry in the passing, thoughtfulness 
 for others, humanity, loving-kindness. 
 
 The passing of Nelson, when he called for a 
 handkerchief to cover his face and the glittering 
 stars upon his breast in order that " he might be 
 conveyed to the cock-pit at this crisis unnoticed by 
 the crew." * The passing of Captain Loxley, when 
 he went down in the Formidable standing calmly 
 on the bridge with his little terrier by his side, and 
 calling to his men : " Be British, lads ! " The 
 passing of Thomas Crisp, V.C., master of the fishing 
 smack Nelson — " It's all right, boy. Do your best 
 with the gun ! " and then, after telling of his own 
 death by carrier-pigeon message, going down with 
 his ship. The passing of Jack Cornwell, ship's boy, 
 as he stood by his gun calmly awaiting orders. 
 These are of the Tradition. 
 
 The legacy which great-hearted men and boys such 
 as these have bequeathed to us is the most precious 
 of all our glorious heritage. This is the Sea Tradition, 
 sublime in its unselfishness, which England has 
 bequeathed to the world. And that I think is our 
 greatest pride. That a man may serve the cause 
 of humanity by doing his duty simply and quietly, 
 seeking no reward save only the reward that lies 
 in the performance of it— that is a great thing. 
 But that scores of thousands of a nation, one common 
 
 * Compare the death of Captain E. K. Bradbury, R.H.A., at 
 Xiry, when his last words were a request to be carried away quickly 
 that his men might not witness his agony and be unnerved. — 
 "Retnal from Mons," page 216. 
 F
 
 66 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 stock, should work to the same end, should be con- 
 tent so to work and to pass away unnoticed and 
 unnamed — save by a few faithful hearts — that, 
 surely, is most wonderful of all. 
 
 And if you would seek in the life and death of 
 one single seaman of ours (excepting Nelson) the 
 meaning of the Tradition of the Royal Navy you 
 will find it set forth day by day in the nobility of 
 purpose, the skill in achievement, the unfailing 
 devotion of one of Nelson's own Admirals, Colling- 
 wood. 
 
 Upon the cenotaph erected to his memory within 
 his native city, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is that tra- 
 dition summed up in the words which tell of Colling- 
 wood's passing : 
 
 HE HELD THE COMMAND OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 FOR NEARLY FIVE YEARS, 
 
 DURING WHICH HE NEVER QUITTED HIS VESSEL FOR A SINGLE DAY 
 
 DISPLAYING UNRIVALLED PROFESSIONAL SKILL 
 
 AND CONDUCTING MANY DIFFICULT AND IMPORTANT NEGOCIATIONS 
 
 WITH GREAT POLITICAL SAGACITY AND ADDRESS. 
 
 AT LENGTH ON THE DECLINE OF HIS HEALTH 
 
 HE BECAME ANXIOUS TO REVISIT HIS NATIVE LAND 
 
 BUT HAVING LEARNED THAT HIS SERVICES COULD ILL BE SPARED 
 
 IN THOSE CRITICAL TIMES, 
 
 HE REPLIED THAT HIS LIFE WAS HIS COUNTRY'S 
 
 AND PERSEVERED IN THE DISCHARGE OF HIS ARDUOUS DUTIES 
 
 TILL WORN OUT WITH FATIGUE HE EXPIRED AT SEA, 
 ON THE 7TH OF MARCH 1810, IN THE 6 1ST YEAR OF HIS AGE. 
 
 Oh England, my England ! You should be very 
 proud — and very humble. Proud indeed that such 
 breed of men are Yours to do You service ; humble, 
 stricken to the heart with shame that You give to 
 them in return, even to-day, such poverty of re- 
 compense and recognition.
 
 THE SEA AFFAIR
 
 Ill 
 
 THE SEA AFFAIR 
 
 To-day a rude brief recitative, 
 
 Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, 
 
 Of unnamed heroes in the ships — of waves spreading and spreading 
 
 far as the eye can reach, 
 Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing. 
 
 — Walt Whitman. 
 
 The British Navy has once again performed its 
 traditional task. The Island Kingdom has been 
 spared the horror of invasion, and her Sea Power 
 has been extended upon the Continents of the world 
 by the landing of her armies ; the freedom of the 
 seas has been maintained for such as pass " upon 
 their lawful occasions " ; and Civilisation has been 
 saved. 
 
 It is well to clear the ground at the outset and 
 take the negative side of the picture. " If it had 
 not been for the British Navy." And we may put 
 it in outline and very briefly, with but little effort 
 of the imagination. 
 
 First then, the original Expeditionary Force could 
 not have sailed, and, as we can see now, Paris would 
 have fallen and France would have been beaten to 
 her knees within a month or so. The Channel ports 
 would have been occupied from the Scheldt to 
 Brest, and then, within a little while, would have 
 come the turn of Great Britain. 
 
 69
 
 70 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 From Portsmouth to the Humber I see the 
 streams of refugees pouring inland from the coast 
 towns and villages. I picture the sack of Ipswich ; 
 English women ravished upon trestles set out in 
 the market-place,* and then driven out slashed and 
 mutilated into the fields. Magdalen Tower, Oxford, 
 comes crashing down through the chapel and over 
 Addison's Walk ; the Bodleian Library with its 
 precious store soars to the sky in a sheet of flame 
 while drunken German soldiery dance down the 
 Broad. Winchester Cathedral, with the West Front 
 battered out, serves as a stable for cavalry horses. 
 
 The tide of invasion sweeps across from the east, 
 and old men, women, children, Jews and aliens, 
 pour out of Leeds, Sheffield, and Nottingham, to- 
 wards the mountain fastnesses of Wales. Plunder 
 and rapine through the great industrial districts ; 
 men and boys driven at the bayonet point to dig 
 trenches, with a merciful stab at the end of the day 
 when they drop down exhausted. A carnival of 
 tipsy revellers in St. Paul's Cathedral ; Canterbury 
 an orgy of drunken lust and barbarism in and out 
 the ruins. German officers parading the streets in 
 copes and vestments, slashing with their swords at 
 every living thing. Little children slung up by 
 hooks in the shop-windows — but why continue ? 
 
 All these things, and hundreds of others incom- 
 parably more horrible, would they have done — had 
 it not been for the British Navy. 
 
 And afterwards ? After a peace dictated in 
 London — no such thing as a " conference." Our 
 
 * Vide appendix to the Bryce Report, p. 19.
 
 THE SEA AFFAIR 71 
 
 people in their hundreds of thousands herded into 
 actual slavery, with " eighteen hours a day forced 
 labour under the lash or at the point of the bayonet, 
 with a dog's death and a dog's burial at the end 
 
 of it." * 
 
 These are the things which many members of 
 the British Parliament (heaven forgive them !) 
 strove for, hoped for during four long years of a 
 world's agony. And they would have had their 
 way — had it not been for the British Navy. 
 
 Then in due course would have come the turn 
 of those " idiotic Yankees." | New York, Boston, 
 Richmond and Philadelphia would have learned 
 what Germany really thought of the United States 
 and the Monroe Doctrine. America would have 
 sprung to arms too late to save even herself — had 
 it not been for the British Navy. 
 
 Every ship that sailed the seas would have sailed 
 beneath the German flag or at the sufferance of 
 Germany. India, the magnificent loyalty of native 
 India — well, Germany prefers her own methods of 
 administration with " niggers." Remember the 
 Hereros and other native races of Africa ! From 
 Hamburg and Riga to Aden ; from Cairo to Mozam- 
 bique ; from Sierra Leone to Somaliland (look at 
 your atlas, please) the Germans would have marched 
 as conquerors and imposed their devilish " Kultur " 
 — again (forgive the repetition) had it not been for 
 the British Navy. 
 
 * Mr. Rudyard Kipling's " Message to the Nation," February 
 15, 1 ( J18. 
 
 f That insult, more than anything else was, I believe, respon- 
 sible for bringing America in to the War.
 
 72 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 No. I do not exaggerate one iota. Ask M. 
 Clemenceau and M. Pichon and Marechal Foch ; 
 ask His Majesty of the Belgians, Admiral Sims and 
 Admiral Rodman ; ask M. Venizelos, and His Majesty 
 of Italy, and Field-Marshal Haig ; ask Hindenburg, 
 Ludendorff and William Hohenzollern, and you shall 
 have the same answer. 
 
 Germany lost the war when Britain entered it. 
 That is the gist of the matter. For Sea Power decided 
 the issue, as it has ever done since history was first 
 made. Had many of our politicians and publicists 
 remembered this elementary fact in the dark days 
 of 1917-18 there need have been exhibited none 
 of that miserable pessimism which characterised 
 their actions. But politicians know nothing of the 
 reality of Sea Power. The Premier, however, re- 
 membered. 
 
 " The Mariners of England ! ' And the pay of 
 the Captain of a super-Dreadnought, vested capital 
 of two million pounds sterling, carrying over 1,100 
 men, is a trifle over £400 a year. A sub-lieutenant, 
 R.N., after years of intensive training, receives — 
 less than a boy-riveter of fourteen on Tyneside. 
 His Majesty's midshipmen, of whom I shall speak 
 hereafter, and whose gallantry and heroism during 
 the War have been second to none, actually had 
 themselves (or their parents) to pay for the privi- 
 lege of so serving their country, until a " tem- 
 porary dispensation " from the Admiralty came 
 into force. 
 
 Of the scandalous — yes, " scandalous " — state 
 of affairs with the lower deck again I shall have
 
 THE SEA AFFAIR 73 
 
 something to say later.* But this I may remark 
 now. There is nothing, nothing which the officers 
 and men of the Royal Navy may demand that the 
 Nation must not give to them. We owe our lives, 
 our honour, our very existence as a nation to them 
 and it must be our greatest pride and happiness to 
 grant any request they may make. 
 
 These are the words of Admiral Sims, U.S.N., 
 to his countrymen : " If a catastrophe should happen 
 to the British Grand Fleet there is no power on 
 earth that can save us . . . The British Grand Fleet 
 is the foundation-stone of the cause of the whole 
 of the Allies." 
 
 I do not forget the work of the seamen and 
 ships of the Allies, Japan, France, Italy, and, during 
 the concluding year, America. But, as our Allies 
 have been ever anxious to urge, their efforts could 
 have availed but nothing without the Sea Power of 
 Britain, 
 
 The words of Admiral Sims provide the key 
 to the meaning of sea supremacy. ' The British 
 Grand Fleet is the foundation-stone." And Admiral 
 Sims was but repeating the words of another citizen 
 of the United States, Admiral A. T. Mahan, uttered 
 many years ago to tell the world how British sea 
 supremacy had defeated Napoleon. They have 
 been quoted a hundred times in the past five years, 
 but I venture to set them down yet once more for 
 they sum up as no other words have done the achieve- 
 ment of the Grand Fleet in this war also. 
 
 * Since these lines were in print an Admiralty Commission has 
 been appointed to go into the whole question of pay and allowances 
 In the Royal Navy. So I will leave the matter.
 
 74 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 " They were dull, weary, eventless months, those 
 months of waiting and watching of the big ships 
 before the French arsenals. Purposeless they surely 
 seemed to many, but they saved England. The 
 world has never seen a more impressive demonstra- 
 tion of the influence of sea-power upon its history. 
 Those far-distant, storm-beaten ships upon which 
 the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and 
 the domination of the world." 
 
 ' Communications dominate war " is a primary 
 maxim in all campaigns, whether by land or sea. 
 And the enemy's lines of communication must be cut 
 at a point the closest possible to his base. Nelson, 
 with his strategical genius, ventured more than once 
 to disobey this principle by holding his blockading 
 fleet at a distance from the base blockaded ; this 
 in order to tempt the enemy out to fight. But his 
 ultimate successes were won only after much trouble 
 and weariness of heart, and probably only a Nelson 
 could have " made good." 
 
 Thus, when you read of General Allenby's vic- 
 torious campaign in Palestine, or the capture of 
 Baghdad, or the conquest of Togoland, it must be 
 remembered always that British Armies in the 
 Field were but the extension of British Sea Power, 
 the spear- head upon the shaft, and that all was 
 accomplished solely because the British Grand Fleet 
 in the North Sea made it possible of accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 How then has the British Navy worked in fulfil- 
 ment of its traditional task ? 
 
 I picture the achievement of the Navy as coming
 
 THE SEA AFFAIR 75 
 
 within four categories. Four headings, four little 
 words each one of which begins with the letter 
 " C." (The pun is intended.) Here they are : — 
 
 CO-OPERATION 
 COMBAT 
 
 CONVOY 
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 The division is not official, nor is it arbitrary ; 
 nor does it matter in what sequence the headings 
 are taken. Also it will be found that the subject- 
 matter necessarily overlaps. That is inevitable. 
 I propose now to suggest a few points under each 
 heading by way of fixing them in the memory.
 
 GO-OPERATION 
 
 The Sister Services 
 
 " With 30,000 men in transports at the Downs the English can 
 paralyse 300,000 of my army, and that will reduce us to the rank 
 of a second-class Power." — Napoleon. 
 
 By "Co-operation" I mean the working together 
 of the Navy and Army combined in some distinct 
 and definite military operation. This, as distin- 
 guished from, say, the actual transport and escort of 
 troops by the Navy. I suggest this phase of the 
 Navy's work for first consideration because it is, 
 perhaps, the most involved and technical of all the 
 duties which a Navy is ever called upon to undertake. 
 As always I would avoid questions of the higher 
 strategy so that the word " technical " need cause no 
 alarm and a desire to skip this particular section. 
 
 Now the number of instances in history of ships 
 and troops acting together, supporting each other, 
 in a military operation are comparatively few.* 
 Opportunities for such action are rare. One 
 of the earliest in our own history was the occasion 
 of Francis Drake attacking San Domingo in 1586. 
 Drake had a genius for this kind of land and sea 
 
 * I venture throughout this book constantly to refer to in- 
 cidents in our earlier Naval history in the hope that the reader 
 may be stimulated to look back for himself. The more illustrations 
 which we have at our command, whether from personal experience 
 or from history, the sounder should be our grip upon the matter in 
 hand. 
 
 76
 
 GO-OPERATION 77 
 
 work combined — amphibious warfare, as it is termed 
 — and the principles which guided him at San Domingo 
 have actually served as a model ever since.* But 
 then Drake had the advantage of being a great 
 seaman and a great soldier too, and the combination 
 is very unusual. 
 
 One of the happiest instances of the British 
 Navy and Army working together was the attack 
 on, and capture of Quebec in 1759 by Vice- Admiral 
 Saunders and General Wolfe.f History has plenty 
 to say about Wolfe and Gray's " Elegy ' and the 
 death in action of the General at the moment of 
 victory, but, as usual, it is silent about the part 
 played by the Navy. And that part was every 
 bit as important as the work of the Army. ' The 
 mastery of the seaman's art," says John Leyland,J 
 " which Saunders displayed at that time, a com- 
 bination of daring caution, skill and command, has 
 rarely been surpassed." 
 
 The campaign in the Crimea is another instance 
 of the silence of history about the work of the Navy. 
 And yet the opening of the operations by Navy 
 and Army combined, in face of almost incredible 
 difficulties and with an enemy fully alive to all our 
 movements, was one of the most brilliant and 
 successful in our military history. § Personally, I 
 
 * The story is told in " Drake, and the Tudor Navy," Julian 
 Covbett, vol. ii., page 36 et scq. 
 
 f" History of the Royal Navy," W. Laird Clowes, vol. iii., 
 page 206 el seq. 
 
 \ " The Royal Navy," John Leyland (Cambridge University 
 Press), page 90. A delightful little volume (in a cheap edition) 
 which should be in every home in the Empire. 
 
 § Vide " Some Principles of Maritime Strategy," Julian Corbett, 
 page 292.
 
 78 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 imagine it to have been an operation infinitely more 
 hazardous than the attack on the Dardanelles in the 
 late war, and it was conducted, too, with an enemy 
 fleet " in being '" of a strength nearly equal to our 
 own. 
 
 Other interesting examples of such combined 
 operations may be found in the Revolutionary Cam- 
 paign in Chile, 1891 ; the Spanish-American War, 
 1898 ; the attack on Wei-hai-Wei by the Japanese 
 in 1895 ; and several of the actions in the Russo- 
 Japanese War of 1904-5.* 
 
 A very high degree of skill is necessary, not to 
 mention a most friendly and unselfish agreement 
 between the naval and military commanders, to 
 bring such combined operations to a happy issue. 
 For Great Britain it is obvious that no military 
 campaign can ever exist in which the Navy and the 
 Sea do not play a vital part. (Unless, of course, we 
 come to aerial transport — a most likely contingency.) 
 And nothing in the late war is happier than the close 
 friendship which existed between the two Services. 
 
 To Thomas Atkins the sailorman was one of 
 those legendary beings of the guardian angel type 
 of whom he had heard so much but had never seen, 
 but in whom he could repose implicit trust. To 
 Jack, denied the privilege of a good scrap, the soldier- 
 man was a Homeric hero who fought all day up to 
 his waist in mud, ate and drank nothing but mud 
 for his meals, and killed seven Huns with every 
 lunge of the bayonet. 
 
 * To the would-be student, "Letters on Amphibious Wars," 
 Brig.-General G. G. Aston, is warmly recommended.
 
 GO-OPERATION 79 
 
 In all the British Navy to-day there are no 
 happier and prouder men than that little handful 
 of petty-officers and A.B.'s who went on a Cook's 
 tour round the trenches and found themselves 
 manning machine-guns and rifles to repel a Hun 
 attack. And when they eventually got back to 
 H.M.S. Broadside ! Well, the captain has by im- 
 memorial custom a little bit of the quarter-deck to 
 take exercise on, but our trench heroes collared the 
 whole. 
 
 Up and down they would parade in a sublime 
 dignity which I am sure Admiral Beatty could never 
 approach. And no young ladies of Windsor Town 
 ever cast more envious and admiring glances upon 
 khaki-clad warriors than their out-in-the-cold mess- 
 mates cast upon those lucky men. Signalmen would 
 peer at them over the bridge awning ; stokers 
 would poke grimy heads out from odd, hidden 
 corners ; even the Captain himself, who is as God 
 to the ship's company,* sat morose in his cabin 
 and bewailed the day that he hadn't enlisted for 
 a soldier. 
 
 But down below on their mess-deck the heroes 
 would unbend a little. 
 
 " Well, mates, it was thuswisc." And Able 
 Seaman Tom Rogers cast an appraising glance at 
 the intent faces which blocked out every corner. 
 ' We'd been going a couple o' days and nights afore 
 we got into port where Haig was — don't remember 
 the name — and we was ordered to heave-to almost 
 the next station — about three cables distance. Now 
 Haig, what he don't get to know about Fritz isn't 
 
 * An Admiral is merely Royalty to the ship's company.
 
 80 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 worth knowing. Same as our Admiralty chaps. 
 And the very night we dropped anchor Haig took 
 in a signal that Fritz was coming out next day : 
 Hill 53 they called it." 
 
 " Where was you, Tom ? " inquired Howell, 
 O.D., meekly. 
 
 " All right, me lad, if you're spinning this 
 yarn " 
 
 A chorus of warm protest, and " Stow it, 
 Ginger ! " 
 
 The ruffled Tom resumed. " Well, Haig was 
 in a rare fix 'cos he hadn't got hardly any men down 
 there, and the line near-by was pretty thin. But 
 just as he was thinking about it one of the staff 
 chaps went up and said ' Beg pardon, sir, but the 
 Navy's here.' 
 
 " ' Navy ! ' says Haig. ' Thank God, then, we're 
 all right ! Where is it — are they ? ' So they told 
 him how we'd come alongside that night. ' Good,' 
 says Haig, ' signal them to close ; or — wait — send 
 my barge to pick them up.' " 
 
 " Barge ? " queried Howell. 
 
 " Motor car, I mean," answered Tom with a 
 scowl, and " Another word from you, my lad ! So 
 they picked us up — there was me and petty-officer 
 Simmons and six of us — and took us straight down 
 to Haig's cabin. He's a gentleman is Haig, take it 
 from me. And Haig says ' well, my lads, we always 
 have to come back on the Navy, and I know I can 
 depend on you to see us through ' — and a lot more 
 hot-air stuff. And we said ' aye, sir,' and stood 
 looking like a lot of owls " 
 
 " Trust you for that," murmured Howell.
 
 CO-OPERATION 81 
 
 " That's done it," said the exasperated Tom, 
 " out you go ! " 
 
 Fifteen seconds for refreshment. Then, after 
 the armistice 
 
 " Well, the long and short of it was they rushed 
 the lot of us off in the pinnace — car, I should say, 
 making about 48 knots all the way and pitching ! 
 — a destroyer isn't in it : I thought we'd be over 
 the side every minute. Then we fetched up in a 
 trench — the proper kind, with the mud up to your 
 armpits — and they handed out a machine-gun and 
 a couple of rifles and bayonets each, and a trolly- 
 load of ammunition, and told us to carry on the 
 minute Fritz put his head up. And so we did ! Gum ! 
 it was warm work ! They came on in hundreds 
 yelling like the devil. And we plugged away for 
 all we were worth. And when we'd finished all the 
 ammunition, ' come on, boys ! ' shouts old Simmons, 
 and up the side we went up on deck and let go with 
 the bayonet. I couldn't shake 'em off the end fast 
 enough. And after it was all over and there was no 
 more Huns left they took us back again and served 
 out a dozen tots of rum each. The ' end of a perfect 
 day ' ! " concluded Tom, with a reminiscent smack 
 of the lips. 
 
 " And what did Haig say ? ' asked a stoker 
 who'd got in somehow. 
 
 " Well," said Tom modestly, " it isn't for me 
 to say, but " 
 
 So there wc will leave them. And although 
 General Currie and the Canadians may reasonably 
 claim some share in that day's work I guess they 
 don't begrudge the D.C.M.'s and other awards so 
 
 G
 
 82 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 gallantly earned by the Navy in those " combined 
 operations." Perhaps Bill Adams really did win 
 the Battle of Waterloo. Who shall say? 
 
 If that is a suggestion of the spirit in which the 
 Navy enjoys fighting side by side with their comrades 
 of the Army, the Army is not a whit behind in appre- 
 ciating the chance of a scrap under the White Ensign. 
 
 There was a certain Army officer back in England 
 on leave from the Front. And being a man of 
 proper enterprise he secured permission to pay a 
 visit to the Grand Fleet for the usual four days' 
 spell. Arrived at Scapa he was assigned (as was 
 usual) to one of the battleships. 
 
 He hadn't been on board an hour when the 
 Commander-in-Chief made the signal to ' raise 
 steam immediately for 18 knots, and report when 
 ready." That meant another parade in the 
 North Sea. Every man on shore was brought on 
 board his ship, and all turned to their ordinary 
 routine jobs for " proceeding as requisite." 
 
 ' But," said the Army man, when it was ex- 
 plained to him, "I'll have to be put ashore." 
 
 ' Sorry," replied the captain, " I'm afraid we 
 can't." 
 
 ' Good lord," said the Army, " you must. I 
 can't go out with you. I'll be hauled on the mat 
 for over-staying leave." 
 
 ' Sorry," returned the captain, beginning to 
 think that the Army was getting " cold feet," " but 
 we can't let you have a boat." 
 
 ' Is there no way of getting me ashore ? " asked 
 the Army in despair.
 
 CO-OPERATION 83 
 
 " Afraid not." 
 
 " Not a raft or anything ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Thank God!" ejaculated the Army with intense 
 
 fervour. 
 
 And so that Army officer went to sea on the 
 battleship, and found himself in for— the Battle of 
 Jutland. And he hasn't done crowing about it 
 yet ; nor will he so long as he lives. Just think 
 of such amazing luck ! And the Battle of Jutland 
 thrown in. 
 
 I believe it is a fact that no more than three 
 Army Officers had that luck of going to sea with 
 the brand Fleet. 
 
 Now, those two little yarns are not really a 
 digression from this theme of " Co-operation." 
 For they indicate, I think, how very real is the bond 
 which unites the two Services. Given that tie of 
 sterling friendship based upon mutual respect and 
 admiration all things are possible. Similarly, every- 
 thing that tends to strengthen that bond, whether 
 it is inter-Services sport and games, singing competi- 
 tions of glee and unison songs,* and any such that 
 brings the Services into friendly rivalry, these are 
 worthy of organisation and should receive the heart- 
 iest support from the Admiralty and Army Council. 
 
 Returning then to actual military operations 
 
 of an " amphibious " character, and noting how 
 
 infrequent, comparatively speaking, they are in 
 
 history and the elements which make for their success, 
 
 * Witness the work of the " Naval and Military Musical Union *' 
 since 1908.
 
 84 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 there will be little surprise at their rarity in the late 
 war. 
 
 Five examples I can recall. And I propose to 
 do no more than make very brief reference to them, 
 seeing that the actual details will certainly be pub- 
 lished elsewhere, if they have not already been given. 
 
 First, in point of time, came the most valuable 
 assistance from the Navy off the Belgian Coast in 
 October, 1914. As I have told elsewhere* there 
 appeared to the sorely tried remnant of the Belgian 
 Army, fighting to save the last remaining little 
 corner of their country, the heartening sight of 
 British warships steaming close inshore, enfilading 
 the German right with heavy guns. It was a support, 
 too, for the French marines at Dixmude and so for 
 the whole of the Allied left flank. 
 
 From that date down to the end of the war 
 those monitors and their attendant craft never failed 
 in their support, and the last phase was reached 
 with the announcement to the public, in October, 
 1918, that " the Vice- Admiral commanding the 
 Dover Patrol has landed at Ostend." 
 
 Incessantly, by night and day, there was cruising 
 in those waters a fleet of some eighty ships of every 
 class, from light cruisers to tiny motor patrol launches. 
 And the ships were manned not by a personnel of 
 long-service ratings of the Royal Navy but mainly 
 by Naval Reserve officers and men, deep-sea fisher- 
 men, and landsmen who had heard the ' Call of 
 the sea." 
 
 " These men," wrote Vice- Admiral Bacon, then 
 commanding the Dover patrol, " these men under fire 
 * " The Marne— and After," page 192.
 
 CO-OPERATION 85 
 
 have exhibited a coolness well worthy of the personnel 
 of a Service inured by discipline. The results show 
 how deeply sea adaptability is ingrained in the sea- 
 faring race of these islands.'" (I cannot resist the 
 italics.) 
 
 Incidentally, Vice-Admiral Bacon has recorded 
 another fine instance of the splendour of the Royal 
 Navy's tradition. I quote the actual words, and 
 one may well guess the inspiration which it must 
 have had for the entire command. 
 
 "It is with regret that, among others, I have to 
 report the death of Lieutenant-Commander H. T. 
 Gartside-Tipping, R.N., of the Armed Yacht Sanda, 
 who was the oldest naval officer afloat. In spite of 
 his advanced age he rejoined, and with undemon- 
 strative patriotism served at sea as a Lieutenant- 
 Commander." 
 
 As usual with present day Naval Despatches one 
 must know how to read between the lines. So that 
 paragraph may be supplemented by remarking that 
 Lieutenant- Commander Gartside-Tipping had retired 
 from the Navy some forty years before the Great 
 War came ; that in 1914 he worried the Admiralty 
 day and night until they gave him a job afloat ; that 
 he served afloat with the Patrol for eighteen months ; 
 and that, at the last, when the Call came, he died as 
 he would have wished — on active service, on the deck 
 of his own ship, and with his face to the enemy — 
 
 With many an old brave captain we shall never know, 
 Who walked the decks under the colours when the winds did blow, 
 And made the planks red with his blood before they carried him 
 below, 
 
 Like an old Sailor of the Queen's 
 
 And the Queen's old Sailor.
 
 86 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 And Lieutenant-Commander Gartside-Tipping was 
 67 years of age when he died. 
 
 Now it is rather a curious fact of military history 
 that it has been very frequently the threat of a 
 6 combined operation " rather than the operation 
 itself which has caused the more damage to an 
 enemy. It was, in fact, the threat only of such an 
 amphibious attack that caused Napoleon in 1809 
 to write the words which I have set at the head 
 of this section, and to take what one can only term 
 panic measures to counteract it. 
 
 As Sir Julian Corbett has pointed out,* " So long 
 as British intervention took an amphibious form they 
 (the great Continental masters of war) knew its dis- 
 turbing effect upon a European situation was always 
 out of all proportion to the intrinsic strength em- 
 ployed or the positive results it could give ... Its 
 value lay in containing force greater than its own." 
 
 If that should be the effect in a European war 
 it must be even greater when dealing with Eastern 
 or African races. But in the several examples of 
 combined operations outside Europe which we must 
 note there has been not only the threat but a very 
 real and successful performance. (Save in the 
 Dardanelles campaign.) 
 
 I wonder, for instance, how many people realise 
 that it was the British Navy which was in great 
 measure responsible for the capture of Baghdad 
 in March, 1917.f 
 
 * " Some Principles of Maritime Strategy," Julian Corbett, 
 page 64. 
 
 f Unless we pull ourselves together and insist upon proper 
 recognition being paid in our history books to the work of the
 
 GO-OPERATION 87 
 
 General Maude, however, did not forget the 
 work of the Navy when he came to speak of the 
 magnificent gallantry of the Forces under his com- 
 mand. Great leader of men as he was, great soldier 
 and great statesman, he realised thoroughly the 
 meaning of Sea Power and how to utilise it in perfect 
 combination with his land forces. 
 
 ' For the success achieved," he has written in his 
 summary of operations, " the fighting spirit of the 
 troops has been mainly responsible, but the dash 
 and gallantry of individuals and units have been 
 welded into a powerful weapon by that absolute 
 sympathy which has existed between both Services." 
 
 Elsewhere in General Maude's Despatch you 
 may find some of the details of the Navy's work 
 and how they rendered " brilliant and substantial 
 services." But again one must needs read between 
 the lines, always remembering the fact by way of 
 solid basis that the campaign in Mesopotamia would 
 not have been possible at all had there not been an 
 undefeated British Grand Fleet in the North Sea. 
 
 The work, then, on the river Tigris was carried out 
 for the most part by that section of the Royal Navy 
 which is termed The Indian Marine. The officers 
 are British, other ranks and ratings arc natives. 
 And rarely, if ever, in military history can there 
 have been such perfect co-operation between Fleet 
 and Army. To say that they fought physically side 
 by side is to tell just the exact truth. 
 
 The gunboats themselves formed a part of the 
 
 Navy our children will, 1 suppose, remain as ignorant as the present 
 generation of the incalculable services which the Navy has rendered 
 side by side with our Armies in the Great War.
 
 88 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 land force, for they actually chased the Turkish 
 cavalry across the desert — with their guns. (Who 
 said that the Horse Marines were a myth ?) They 
 acted as storeships and as floating forts ; and when 
 they were not worrying the enemy on the land they 
 set to against his river craft and recaptured several 
 gunboats of ours taken during the earlier campaign. 
 
 The capture of Baghdad remains one of the 
 greatest of all the great feats of arms in the War. 
 It is difficult for those " who only England know ' 
 to realise the meaning of such a victory, and the 
 tremendous moral effect which it had throughout 
 the Eastern world, from Constantinople to Peking. 
 British prestige had ebbed very low indeed after 
 the disasters of the previous years. The failure at 
 Gallipoli and the fall of Kut had echoed through 
 the bazaars of Delhi and Calcutta and the market- 
 places of Soochow and Honan ; and some men 
 chuckled with delight, while others spoke uneasily 
 amongst themselves. 
 
 But when the tale was told how the British 
 Raj had still tens of thousands of soldiers to com- 
 mand ; how his legendary warships had come and 
 fought down every obstacle of transport ; and how 
 at last his avenging sword had flashed from end 
 to end of the great rivers and swept conquering 
 through the very gates of the holy capital — then 
 indeed was the star of the Allies once again in the 
 ascendant and their Cause held to be the righteous 
 one. 
 
 A third example of combined operations is 
 found in the blockade of the Arabian coast of the
 
 GO-OPERATION 89 
 
 Red Sea in 1916. And here again the capture of 
 Damascus was largely due to the White Ensign 
 flying paramount in those waters. 
 
 To anyone who knows what the Red Sea is 
 like in the month of June it is unnecessary to remark 
 upon the strain of doing anything at all in that 
 terrible, burning heat. The feat of endurance called 
 for in serving a ship which lies motionless for days 
 at a stretch in shallow water off the coast can dimly 
 be guessed at. 
 
 All in a hot and copper sky 
 
 The bloody Sun, at noon, 
 Right up above the mast did stand 
 
 No bigger than the Moon. 
 
 But the Navy " carried on " as usual, co-oper- 
 ating this time with friendly Arabs. And a rare 
 job it was, with the overcoming of religious pre- 
 judices, and of difficulties in " spotting " accurately 
 for the guns, owing to sand and mirage. 
 
 It is to be hoped that a kinema record was 
 possible of the closing scene when Jiddah, the port 
 of Mecca, surrendered to the Allies. You can pic- 
 ture the landing of the Senior Naval Officer, and 
 other officers of the R.N.R., pushing their way 
 through a chattering, gesticulating crowd of Moslems 
 of every race to the Council Chamber (!), where 
 they were honourably received with an Address of 
 Welcome, and sherbet in gilded mugs. 
 
 By the way, it would seem that Physical Geo- 
 graphy is a much neglected science in at least one 
 department of the War Office, for they actually 
 sent out to Egypt a shipload of sand for the filling 
 of sandbags in the trenches. And the cargo was
 
 90 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 unloaded too. There is, however, no confirmation 
 of the report that the Board of Admiralty sent six 
 tanks of sea-water to the Fleet at Gallipoli for dis- 
 tillation purposes. 
 
 The operations of Navy and Army in Africa 
 demand, and should certainly receive, a volume to 
 themselves. There can be few more fascinating 
 stories. And what a splendid " adventure ' book 
 for boys it would make. Now, Mr. John Buchan, 
 will you tell it for us ? 
 
 Tell us how two little motor-launches fought 
 a great ten-minutes' fight on Lake Tanganyika 
 and beat and captured an enemy gunboat. Tell 
 us how they blocked a river with a collier ship and 
 marooned the German Konigsberg, sinking the collier 
 across the fairway under a hail of machine-gun bullets ; 
 and how they pounded the German to pieces, hidden 
 as she was in the middle of a jungle. And the siege 
 of Garua, far away in the heart of the Cameroons, 
 how they carried a great naval gun to the attack, six 
 hundred odd miles of river transport. Of the coast 
 fighting of H.M.S. Dwarf and Cumberland, and the 
 spies, and the clockwork infernal machines. Yes, 
 please, Mr. Buchan ! 
 
 Last of my examples, and most important of 
 all, is the attack on the Dardanelles. I have no 
 intention of going into the details of that " Immortal 
 Gamble," as a naval friend of mine has most aptly 
 called it, and only refer to it by way of a reminder 
 under this heading of the Navy's work. The rights 
 and wrongs of it, questions of strategy and tactics,
 
 CO-OPERATION 91 
 
 its effect upon the Western Front, and sundry 
 other points, have been fully discussed, and will, 
 I suppose, continue to be discussed for many years 
 to come.* 
 
 The Navy did all that was humanly possible, 
 and more. The strategy was unsound. The ships, 
 for instance, operated against the forts for a whole 
 month before the land forces were set to work. 
 But when the armies were set to land, remember 
 that every soldier was carried ashore " on the back 
 of a sailor." So also at the eventual evacuation was 
 every soldier carried back inboard " on the back 
 of a sailor." And, incidentally, that evacuation 
 was carried out without the loss of a single life. 
 That is one way the Navy has of doing its job. 
 
 One thing, however, despite all else, remains an 
 eternal certainty : the amazing, unsurpassable gal- 
 lantry and heroism of the men who fought there. 
 
 And of all those who fought there are none of 
 whom the country should be more proud than the 
 midshipmen of the Royal Navy. Youngsters of thir- 
 teen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years of age, most 
 of them, many went straight from Dartmouth to 
 the Dardanelles on active service. They were fight- 
 ing and dying for England at an age when, nor- 
 mally, they should have been just entering a public 
 school. 
 
 If we take such pride in the gallant service and 
 
 death of a Gartside-Tipping, what can we say of 
 
 * For an admirable precis of the arguments, pro and con ; of 
 precedents and lessons from history ; and for the story of the 
 operations I know nothing better than John Buchan's masterly 
 " History of the War." The story of the Dardanelles begins in 
 vol. vi.
 
 92 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the manner in which those boys upheld the tradition 
 of their Service ? 
 
 Recall, if you will, all that you have heard or 
 read of the Hell in which our men landed at Beach Y 
 and Beach V ; look again at the pictures of it in 
 the Press, close your eyes and give your imagination 
 full rein, and then remember that through that 
 awful storm of bursting shell our lads were put 
 ashore in boats which were under the command 
 of midshipmen. And so, too, were the wounded 
 and dying carried back inboard under the tender 
 charge of those same midshipmen. 
 
 A mother of one of them has recorded a conversa- 
 tion which she had some time afterwards with her 
 son. I venture to reproduce her own words, to 
 show the spirit in which those incredible deeds of 
 gallantry were performed.* 
 
 " One day " (she says) " he was on duty 
 from ten in the morning until half-past one at 
 night. 
 
 " ' What did you do for food ? ' I asked, perhaps 
 foolishly. 
 
 " ' Oh, they threw me down a lump of cheese 
 and a ship's biscuit, somewhere about midday, 
 when I happened to be alongside.' 
 
 " ' And was that all you had in all those hours ? 
 Surely they might have seen you had at least some- 
 thing to eat ! ' 
 
 ' ' Eat ! ' he exclaimed scornfully, and then, 
 very patiently : ' Don't you see, Mother, it was a 
 question of men's lives ? Some were bleeding to 
 
 * Reproduced from " From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles " 
 (W. Heinemann).
 
 CO-OPERATION 93 
 
 death ; every second counted. How could we think 
 of eating ? ' " 
 
 I have no words in which to write of their hero- 
 ism. It is something which can never be told. 
 We may speak of it only with awe and reverence. 
 But this I would say about those gallant young 
 officers. 
 
 I have lived with them, I have been in action 
 with them, I have seen them at work and at play, 
 we have poured whiskies-and-sodas together down 
 the gun-room piano to buck it up, we have 
 shouted choruses together, and I have talked to 
 them sometimes (Heaven forgive me !) like a " Dutch 
 uncle," and — here is the verdict : 
 
 You may search the world through and through, 
 but nowhere will you find lads of stouter courage, 
 more merry of heart, of more perfect and gentle 
 manners, of finer sportsmanship, of truer comrade- 
 ship, than His Majesty's midshipmen. God bless 
 'em ! 
 
 And, for the Lord's sake, don't call them 
 " middies."
 
 COMBAT 
 
 The Nelson Tradition 
 
 " And should the enemy close I have no fears as to the result." — 
 
 Nelson. 
 ( The Trafalgar Memorandum.) 
 
 Since the days when England first created a 
 fighting Navy, her seamen have been guided by 
 the maxim that " the first function of the British 
 fleet is to seek out and destroy that of the enemy." 
 It is a maxim which is typical of the Race. 
 
 Thus, when the Great War came, our people 
 with similar instinct came to expect a kind of glorified 
 fleet action once a week until every ship of the Ger- 
 man Navy was lying at the bottom of the ocean. 
 They knew that Britain was by far the stronger at 
 sea, but as the days lengthened into weeks and 
 the weeks into months, and still there was " nothing 
 doing," save losses of our own ships, folk became 
 anxious, then irritable, and finally began to demand 
 with no uncertain voice to know why they had 
 paid all that money for a Navy which didn't do 
 any work. 
 
 The man who put that maxim into words was 
 storing up trouble. Public opinion is a big thing, 
 and when it is unenlightened it is apt to create a 
 deal of mischief. Fortunately, the heart of our 
 people was sound, and they stuck it out. But if 
 there had been real trouble and Mr. and Mrs. John 
 
 94
 
 COMBAT 95 
 
 Citizen had demanded immediate action and some 
 big, showy offensive on the part of the Navy, the 
 Authorities and Admiralty would have had no one 
 to blame but themselves. If they will keep the 
 public in blinkers, they deserve all they get. 
 
 It's an old story. Edward III. faced it six hun- 
 dred years ago. He tried to get supplies for his 
 fleet and couldn't, because the people, or the Liberal 
 and Little Navy Party of those days, didn't 
 understand what the Navy was doing, and so didn't 
 see why they should pay up. And history has re- 
 peated itself a score of times since that date ; 
 always with the same pernicious results. 
 
 The fact is that, despite our inborn instinct for 
 the sea and sea-warfare, there are one or two ele- 
 mentary principles which must be grasped before 
 we can rightly understand the duties of the British, 
 and Royal Navy and how they are performed. 
 Land warfare is comparatively simple and wellnigh 
 everyone can understand the general ideas of it. 
 Not so with the Fleet. And that is where illustra- 
 tions from history are so valuable. 
 
 ' That is all right," I can hear you remark, 
 " but we are not reading this for a history book. 
 Get on with the yarns about our men to-day." 
 
 I agree. But it is only because I would have 
 everyone understand better these little sea-pictures 
 of the Great War, and so appreciate more fully the 
 splendid work of our Mariners, that I venture to 
 recall the past. A man may enjoy up to a point 
 a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, 
 or Elgar's Violin Concerto played by a master, 
 but his enjoyment and appreciation are increased
 
 96 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 a hundredfold if he knows something about harmony 
 and orchestration, musical form and technique — 
 knows, in short, how to listen to music. 
 
 The main difference between land and sea war- 
 fare lies in this. On land, given reasonable and 
 obvious conditions, an army can always attack, or 
 rather can come in contact with an enemy. If the 
 enemy refuses you can follow him up and worry at 
 him. 
 
 On sea if the enemy fleet refuses to fight and retires 
 into his harbour behind forts or natural protection 
 you cannot get at him. If he won't fight you cannot 
 force him to. You may possibly tempt him out 
 by some trick ; or you may. for instance, worry 
 his commerce to such an extent that he will feel 
 compelled to come out to protect it. But that 
 is all. 
 
 Certainly there have been exceptions. Hawke 
 and Quiberon Bay was one. Drake and Essex burn- 
 ing the Spanish ships in Cadiz. Famous " cutting- 
 out " expeditions like that of the recapture of 
 the Hermione from a Spanish harbour by Captain 
 Hamilton in 1799. And many another. But they 
 all serve but to emphasise the real principle that 
 sea- warfare is very limited in its extent. 
 
 On the other hand one may recall Nelson outside 
 Toulon for two weary years trying to get the French 
 Fleet to come out and fight. Or again, off Boulogne 
 and Flushing when Napoleon was massing his army 
 of invasion against England. No one, needless to 
 remark, was more anxious to get at the enemy ships 
 than was Nelson, but, as he said about it, ' we
 
 COMBAT 97 
 
 cannot do impossibilities, and I am as little used to 
 find out the impossible as most folks." 
 
 In the Russo-Japanese War in wellnigh every 
 respect the Japanese were the superior of the Russians 
 and most certainly in sea-power. But try as they 
 might they could not get at and destroy the Russian 
 ships lying snug within Port Arthur. 
 
 And here one may cite another sound principle 
 of sea-warfare — too little realised — that ships are more 
 or less of no use against land-forts, unless backed 
 up by a land army. It isn't their job. The bitter 
 experience of the first months at the Dardanelles 
 and the subsequent result is sufficient illustration. 
 
 Yet " offence ' : rather than " defence ' is the 
 inspiration of the British Fleet. It has always been 
 so. When Edward III. won the Battle of Sluys 
 (1340) stern offence in the Narrow Seas was our naval 
 policy. But the people even in those days clamoured 
 to have the fighting -ships near our own coasts because 
 they constantly dreaded an invasion. (I seem to 
 remember a somewhat similar agitation when Scar- 
 borough and Hartlepool were bombarded by a few 
 " tip and run " German ships. Also when London 
 was first bombed from the air.) But the Navy is 
 wise. It just " carries on." 
 
 If a thing is humanly possible the British Navy 
 will do it. And only those who have lived with 
 the seamen of th< Grand Fleet can realise how they 
 fretted through the weary watching and waiting 
 of 1914-1918, longing as men have never longed 
 before for the chance which was denied them. Even 
 at the very last, when they saw with incredulous 
 gaze the German ships steaming to their miserable 
 
 H
 
 98 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 end, they hoped against hope that someone would 
 fire off a gun by accident and let them get to work. 
 But the enemy passed to their anchorage and all 
 that the British seamen could do was to spit over 
 the side in boundless contempt. 
 
 " Attack " is the very breath of their being. 
 And never was there a more preposterous notion 
 than the one that the Grand Fleet sat inside Scapa 
 Flow for year after year, waiting for the Huns to 
 come out, and growing a nice crop of barnacles in 
 the process. That is what the German and our own 
 enemy press tried to make the Public believe ; and 
 what a vast number of our people did believe. I have 
 encountered this firmly-rooted idea in every part of 
 the country, right down to the moment of writing. 
 
 Down at Harwich there lay the Striking Force 
 of the Royal Navy. The first ships which would come 
 into action. It was composed of half-a-dozen light 
 cruisers ; destroyers (nominally about fifty , but the 
 Dover Patrol would keep on borrowing) ; some 
 submarines and the usual attendant aircraft. The 
 force was under the command of a man whose name 
 was unknown to 999 of 1,000 in this country until 
 the episode of the surrender of the German sub- 
 marines brought him prominently before the public. 
 
 Reginald Yorke Tyrwhitt is his name, Rear- 
 Admiral. And — well, as the Navy is not my Service 
 I am going to risk displeasure and say it. I think 
 of Admiral Tyrwhitt as one of the finest fighting 
 seamen Britain has ever produced. The Francis 
 Drake of the Navy to-day. 
 
 One of his captains told me that since August.
 
 / 
 
 Photo : Tunn 6 s (*.». 
 REAR- ADMIRAL SIR REGINALD TYRVVHITT
 
 COMBAT 99 
 
 '14, Admiral Tyrwhitt had been blown up in, or 
 shelled out of six different flagships. That shows 
 the kind of man he is. It is, too, a pleasing com- 
 ment on the " barnacle " idea. 
 
 You may picture him any morning during the 
 War steaming out to sea (for the Force was ready day 
 and night for instant action), sometimes his one 
 little cruiser, sometimes with her consorts. Any 
 day over towards Heligoland and the enemy coast. 
 And as he steams out you may see the signal made 
 " Good-bye, boys ; see you later." Over to the 
 minefields of Heligoland, for a round of golf before 
 lunch. At least I honestly believe that the Admiral 
 thought of it like that. 
 
 Sometimes he would be in luck and there would 
 
 be a healthy little scrap. And H.M.S. (whichever 
 
 of the six it might be) would steam back to port 
 with a bit of a limp and a few holes in her funnels, 
 and a score, maybe, of disconsolate Fritzes on board 
 trying to wring the North Sea out of their clothes. 
 
 One day the Admiral was just bringing his four 
 light cruisers back into port after twenty-four hours 
 of " drawing blank." A sea-plane dipped to him 
 and signalled that she had just sighted fourteen 
 battleships to the northward, steaming across the 
 North Sea east to west. 
 
 A wireless was promptly flashed from the flag- 
 ship to the Admiralty : 
 
 From Commanding Harwich Force, to Ad- 
 miralty, London. 
 14 battleships reported, latitude so and 
 so, longitude so and so, steaming due 
 W. Am going north to investigate." 
 
 t(
 
 ioo THE SEAFARERS 
 
 And off the four little cruisers went as hard as 
 they could pelt. 
 
 Now it chanced that the Grand Fleet was also 
 out that day on one of its regular parades down 
 the North Sea. The fourteen battleships were 
 our own. 
 
 And the Grand Fleet operators took in that 
 message which had been flashed to the Admiralty. 
 And the operators sent the message along to the 
 various captains of His Majesty's ships. The captains 
 summoned the commanders and chuckled mightily 
 over the decoding of it. The commander took 
 " Guns " aside and whispered the secret. " Guns ' 
 burst into the ward-room with " They're out ! ' 
 (no need to specify who). The doctor-man collared 
 a passing " snotty," and the " snotty " told the 
 master-at-arms— and in two minutes it was all over 
 the ship. 
 
 For another ten minutes there was eager sus- 
 pense in the batteries, and then — the hoax was 
 out. And when the sailormen heard how Admiral 
 Tyrwhitt with his four little light cruisers was on 
 his way " to investigate " the fourteen battleships 
 there went up to heaven one mighty shout of 
 Homeric laughter that the very ships rolled in 
 sympathy. 
 
 But between you and me, and quite in confidence, 
 I should not be surprised to learn that there was in 
 the eyes of some on board a little suspicious moisture 
 at the thought of the Admiral's daring. Just a 
 little touch of pride in the sea tradition which sent 
 him upon his quest in face of such hopeless odds. 
 For the battleships could have blown the cruisers
 
 COMBAT 101 
 
 out of the water before ever the cruiser look-outs 
 might have sighted them.* 
 
 And yet it was all in the day's work. Just a 
 trifling extension of the regular routine of the striking- 
 force. But such is Admiral Tyrwhitt. And with 
 a commander like that you may guess how his officers 
 and men backed him up. Heligoland or Hell were 
 all one if Admiral Tyrwhitt' s flag led the way. 
 
 But I would straighten out if I may that 
 ' barnacle " inaction idea. And to give some idea of 
 one side of the Grand Fleet's work of " offence," 
 at a time when it was supposed to be lying in Scapa 
 Flow, and when the German ships were supposed 
 to be hunting for it, here is a little sketch of a two 
 days' operation of which I can speak once again as 
 an " eyewitness." It is merely typical of a score 
 more similar parades. 
 
 It was on a day early in November, 1917, that 
 the Admiralty instructions reached the Commander- 
 in-Chief at Scapa. There followed the usual con- 
 ference of captains, and at 5 o'clock p.m. two squad- 
 rons of battleships (nine ships) steamed majestically 
 out of the harbour. -f A squadron of battle-cruisers 
 had also gone out, but that was not known until later, 
 when the Fleet was at sea. Also the Striking Force 
 had a word or two to say as you shall hear. The 
 ' general idea," as communicated to the captains 
 by the Commander-in-Chief, was something like 
 
 * But see also post, page 143. 
 
 f I would sketch fuller details and an impressionist picture of 
 the sailing of the Grand Fleet, but this 1ms already been done, and 
 most vividly, hy two other writers of the sea : " Bartimeus " and 
 liennet Copplestone.
 
 102 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 this. It should be noted how very precise is the 
 programme as to times and positions : 
 
 " (1.) We have recently laid a new minefield 
 at Y round about the Horn Reefs in order to 
 catch enemy ships coming out by Sylt Island. Several 
 submarines have been caught there in consequence, 
 so now they come out round the north of Denmark. 
 
 " (2.) At 6.0 a.m., November 2, a Light Cruiser 
 Squadron and destroyer flotillas will rendezvous at 
 A and will steam on triangular courses (dotted 
 lines on plan) until 7.45 a.m. They will destroy a 
 German submarine decoy-ship lying at F, and at 
 8.30 a.m. they will attack and destroy a flotilla of 
 enemy patrol craft and an attending auxiliary cruiser 
 which will come out from the Sound bound for the 
 North Sea. 
 
 " (3.) At 6.30 a.m. the Battle Cruiser Squadron 
 (four ships) — the Lion, the Tiger, the Princess Royal, 
 and another — will have reached B, to the north of 
 Jutland Bank. They will remain cruising in support 
 of the light forces in the Kattegat until 4.0 p.m. 
 
 " (4.) At 8.0 a.m. the two Battleship Squadrons 
 (nine ships) — including the King George V. (flagship), 
 the Orion, the Monarch, the Thunderer, the Con- 
 queror — will have reached C. They will remain 
 cruising in support of the battle-cruisers until 5.0 p.m. 
 
 " (5.) At N there are lying four German battle- 
 ships of the Nassau class. It is hoped that these 
 may be tempted out to cut off the retirement of 
 our light forces through the Skager Rak, being 
 unaware of the presence of our heavy ships. 
 
 " (6.) The remaining German battleships are 
 in the Baltic, or laid up.
 
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 104 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 " (7.) Our battle-cruisers and battleships will be 
 back at Scapa at 4.0 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. respectively 
 on November 3." 
 
 Such was the plan of operations lasting just 
 fifty-two hours. It was carried out to the smallest 
 detail and all ships were back at their bases exactly 
 on time. Now we will see how it all befell. What 
 happened to the decoy-ship (a kind of German 
 " mystery ' : ship) I never heard. But I like to 
 imagine a couple of our destroyers hailing her in 
 the darkness and, with no reply, carrying her by 
 boarding in the good old-fashioned way. For gun- 
 fire or the explosion of a torpedo would probably 
 have given the alarm to the other ships. 
 
 In the darkest hour before a November dawn 
 there came stealing through the narrow strait that 
 cuts between the North Zealand shore and Sweden 
 a dim procession of ships. Well in advance of the 
 line, threshing steadily along, steamed an old ocean- 
 going tramp. In her wake, huddled together a little, 
 there followed one, two, three, four — ten smallish 
 steamers that might have been deep-sea fishing 
 boats. 
 
 An old tramp ship ! But come to look at her 
 more closely and there seems something a trifle odd 
 about her. Her lines are rather more delicate, more 
 slender than you would expect in, say, a wheat- 
 carrying ship or a collier. She flies the " house " 
 flag of some shipping firm — looks as though she 
 might be a Dane ; probably is. 
 
 And yet a neutral should not be carrying a 
 6-inch gun forrard, and — there's another one aft.
 
 COMBAT 105 
 
 And, one could swear to that being a machine-gun 
 of sorts perched up amidships. 
 
 A sea mist lies thick and heavy over the water, 
 blotting out the coast line on either beam. 
 
 Out in the Kattegat, a few miles south of the 
 little island of Laso, a British cruiser moves slowly 
 through the water, making perhaps 10 knots. Astern 
 of her is a second. But you cannot make her out 
 in the darkness ; and yet she keeps perfect station 
 on her leader. A third and a fourth follow. The 
 captain on the bridge of the leading ship gulps down 
 a cup of boiling coffee and munches at a biscuit. 
 To him enters the commander. A brief report : 
 then — 
 
 " Anything doing, sir ? " asks the commander. 
 
 " Nothing," answers the skipper. " We shall 
 see just about as much as we're seeing now." And 
 he points forrard where the slim bows melt into a 
 grey nothingness. 
 
 " What exactly are we after ? " asks the com- 
 mander, buttoning his " lammy " coat more tightly 
 round his throat. 
 
 " A raider, mostly," says the skipper. " She's 
 due out of the Sound about 8.0 this morning, chock- 
 a-block with prize crews — a young Emden over again 
 — and under the usual neutral colours. She carries 
 three 6-inch, they say." 
 
 " How those Admiralty chaps get ' the office ' 
 about it beats me," remarks the commander. " It's 
 mighty smart of our Intelligence to grab the news 
 
 at all, but how they get it across to our side " 
 
 A shrug of the shoulders completed the sentence. 
 
 ' There are ten armed patrols, too, on the way.
 
 106 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 They'll need a bit of mopping up in this fog," says 
 the skipper. 
 
 ' Destroyers' work as usual, I suppose," the 
 commander grumbles. " We never get a look in." 
 
 The vague greyness of the air became more 
 visible as daylight tried to struggle through. The 
 cruisers churned steadily on. A dim smudge of 
 black, another and another, raced suddenly across 
 the leader's bows. 
 
 " They'll get it in the neck one of these days," 
 said the commander, " and serve 'em right too, 
 coming across like that. It's young Worthington. 
 Never looks where he's going." 
 
 " Never did such a thing yourself, I suppose," 
 remarked the skipper with a chuckle ; for the com- 
 mander's skill and daring as " owner " of a destroyer 
 had been a pass-word in the Force. 
 
 The connecting link of destroyers made south 
 at 30 knots. Twenty miles or so away more black 
 smudges flitted restlessly to and fro on ceaseless 
 patrol ; men at " action stations," hands on gun- 
 levers and lanyards, ready to the instant. 
 
 On the northern edge of the Jutland Bank reef 
 four British battle-cruisers patrolled majestically, 
 screens of more destroyers to south and east of them ; 
 watching, waiting. 
 
 A hundred-and-fifty miles to the westward again, 
 far out in the North Sea, nine mighty battleships 
 steamed slowly on a zigzag course the while they 
 watched with interest and amusement their faithful 
 destroyers settling accounts with an enemy sub- 
 marine or two. 
 
 Over the Kattegat the woolly vapour swirls in
 
 COMBAT 107 
 
 heavy folds of raw dankness. The last hour of the 
 waiting creeps slowly by. 
 
 She is now clear of The Sound is our innocent, 
 lamb-like neutral. The "Marie, of Flensburg," they 
 call her, but men have known her by another name. 
 Quietly unsuspecting (who would harm a peace- 
 loving Dane ?), eagerly hopeful of fat prizes to be 
 gathered from the Atlantic trade-routes, she follows 
 her steady course to the north. And behind her 
 huddle along the ten faithful attendant spirits whom 
 she will shortly leave behind to deal with the fool- 
 hardy submarines of the hated Englander when he 
 madly ventures into the sacred waters of the Father- 
 land. 
 
 The captain of the good ship Marie looks at 
 his watch. It marks 8.25. Time for the second 
 breakfast. He turns. One foot off the bridge, 
 when — 
 
 A sharp, barking report, and the whistle of a 
 shell a few yards in front of the Marie's bows. 
 
 A long, lean shape flashes out from the mist 
 close flush with the water, and a voice hailing, 
 " Heave to ! What ship is that ? " 
 
 The Marie captain stands stock-still in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 A second hail on the other quarter from another 
 black smudge. " Heave to ! What ship is that ? " 
 
 Men come running along the Marie's dick. 
 There is a wild babble of shouts and oaths. Out 
 from the mist, more faintly now — " Heave to ! ' 
 A second shell crosses the bows. 
 
 The captain rasps out a string of guttural oat lis 
 and commands mingled. Gun crews rush forrard
 
 108 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 and aft to uncover the guns. A little ball climbs 
 up the mast, clings for a moment at the head, and 
 breaks out — into the German ensign. 
 
 In one mighty burst as though from a single 
 control six British destroyers open fire. Like a 
 drunken man the Marie staggers and reels to the 
 shock. Before a minute has gone, or ever she can fire 
 a single gun, a score of shells have burst within her, 
 and her decks, bridge, and concealed batteries 
 are riddled through and through by a hail of 
 machine-gun bullets. 
 
 The destroyers race by, circle and return, and 
 never for an instant does the storm abate. Nor 
 from the Marie can men see anything of their 
 assailants save the flashes of their guns and smudges 
 in the mist. 
 
 Within five minutes she was blazing fiercely in 
 every quarter. Her guns were swept overboard, or 
 lay heaps of tangled debris on the deck. From below 
 men poured up the hatchways and ran shrieking 
 about, fighting the flames with naked hands. 
 
 Swiftly the destroyers close in. Now it is point- 
 blank range — and showers of sparks, burning wood, 
 and scraps of molten metal rain upwards, down, 
 into the sea, and on to the destroyers' decks as the 
 shells crash through the Marie's hull, now glowing 
 fiercely. 
 
 A great explosion aft, and men are pouring over 
 the side, panic-stricken, going headlong into the 
 sea. The German colours come fluttering and torn 
 dragged down the mast, and, as she strikes her flag, 
 the Marie gives one shuddering heave — and is gone. 
 
 Less than ten minutes from the opening shot
 
 COMBAT 109 
 
 saw her end. Thirty of her men were killed, thirty- 
 were saved by the destroyers, and a handful who 
 had got away on a lifeboat eventually reached the 
 Danish coast. 
 
 The main piece of the work was finished but 
 there remained the ten armed patrol ships. 
 
 At the first alarm these had separated, fleeing 
 hither and thither like frightened sheep, making 
 back to The Sound. But more destroyers had closed 
 that gap ; and so the hunt began through the mist. 
 
 " If ten ships out of eleven were taken I would 
 never call it well enough done if we were able to get 
 at the eleventh." So said Nelson once in rebuke 
 of one of his admirals. And so said the Senior 
 Officer of the British destroyers that November 
 morning. 
 
 One by one they rounded up those patrol ships. 
 As they were discovered here and there in the mist 
 so were they attacked and fought. And as they 
 were fought so were they as surely destroyed. The 
 round-up was complete. Not one escaped. 
 
 By 9.30 a.m. the light cruisers and destroyers 
 had concentrated once again and were on the way 
 homeward without a single casualty. Oh yes, I 
 remember one man sprained his ankle. Late that 
 evening German destroyers and sea-planes were 
 reported as " hurrying north." 
 
 At 4.0 p.m. the Lion and her three consorts turned 
 about and steamed for home. The faithful destroyers 
 were culled in from hunting U-boats, for all the 
 world as you call your dog to heel from nosing for 
 rats down a stream, and at 5.0 p.m. the King George 
 V. and her eight consorts took their homeward
 
 no THE SEAFARERS 
 
 course. Twenty-four hours' steaming, and they 
 entered Scapa Flow. 
 
 By 5.30 p.m. on November 3, all ships were back 
 again at their bases " according to plan." 
 
 " Don't call me till 9.0 to-morrow," said the 
 captain of the big ship. He had spent the fifty-two 
 hours on the bridge without a single break. 
 
 " What about a gentle gin and vermouth," said 
 the commander of the same as he emerged from the 
 secluded safety of the bowels of the ship.* 
 
 ' Thought you said there were some Hun battle- 
 ships about," said " Pay " to " Guns." f 
 
 "Another dud stunt," groused leading- stoker 
 Chapman, " and us sweating blood down there for 
 nothing." 
 
 But what the "snotties" % said about it is not fit 
 for publication. 
 
 The episode calls for little comment, the conduct 
 of the whole affair speaks for itself. The merest 
 glance at the map reveals the daring of it all. 
 "England's frontiers are high-water mark on the 
 enemy's coasts." And yet it was but of a piece with 
 the regular routine of the British Navy. That is 
 the real point to be borne in mind. 
 
 Five days out of every seven in the early half 
 of the War was the Grand Fleet out cruising to 
 and fro in the North Sea. Patrolling by the enemy 
 coasts, offering the most tempting baits, hoping and 
 
 * The commander of a battleship in action is supposed to 
 remain in the safest possible place ready to take command in case 
 the captain becomes a casualty. 
 
 t Paymaster and Gunnery-Commander. 
 
 X Midshipmen.
 
 COMBAT 
 
 in 
 
 praying always that the gage of battle would be 
 picked up. But no. If the enemy won't come out 
 you cannot make him do so. 
 
 As Admiral Beatty put it one day. " It's like 
 one man sitting in a coal-hole, and another man 
 outside with a meat-chopper waiting to smash him 
 on the head directly he puts it out." 
 
 Nor would it be a particularly happy encounter 
 for any enemy to meet the Grand Fleet out at its 
 strength. For I wonder how many persons could 
 guess off-hand the area of sea covered by the Fleet 
 steaming in cruising formation. Here is an idea : — 
 
 10 Miles 
 (across) 
 
 j\ 
 
 in ~ 
 
 _l h- 
 - Q. 
 
 8? 
 
 tn i 
 
 =! °- 
 
 Q 
 O Z 
 
 o - 
 
 V 
 
 10 Miles 
 (across 1 
 
 V 
 — > 
 
 or an area of about 1,000 square miles. 
 
 One point, though, about that Kattegat episode 
 is worth especial notice. How did our Admiralty 
 know so precisely the enemy's plans and the where- 
 abouts of the various ships ? 
 
 Frankly, I haven't the faintest notion. I have 
 questioned a large number of senior officers on the
 
 ii2 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 subject, but the reply has always been the same, 
 " No idea." Nor was that merely the proper re- 
 ticence of the naval officer. They really did not 
 know how our Secret Service garnered its news nor, 
 most startling of all, how the news was transmitted 
 from Germany. It was a mystery to all, save the 
 brilliant officer who was the head of the Intelligence 
 Service at the Admiralty.* Some day it is to be 
 hoped that he will add many more to the fascinating 
 " s Py " yarns he has already published. 
 
 People talk of the extraordinary efficiency of 
 the German Secret Service, and it was remarkably 
 efficient, up to a point. But, having seen a good 
 deal of both German and British systems I feel 
 convinced that ours was by far the superior of the 
 two. And the superiority lay in the fact that the 
 British Service, having gathered any special in- 
 formation, brought imagination and power of deduc- 
 tion to bear upon the facts ; an intelligent antici- 
 pation of enemy movements. The German Service, 
 with the usual German passion for detail, carefully 
 secured and noted the most minute points of in- 
 formation (e.g., all the blacksmiths' forges and wells, 
 etc., etc., in the Eastern Counties), and then pigeon- 
 holed them. The big things, like the sailing of the 
 original Expeditionary Force and Admiral Sturdee's 
 expedition to the Falkland Islands, were completely 
 missed. And everyone knows how hopelessly the 
 enemy was at fault in the matter of psychology. 
 
 Returning, then, to the policy of offence and 
 attack it will be noted that I speak almost always 
 * Rear-Admiral Sir W. R. Hall, K.C.M.G., R.N.
 
 COMBAT 113 
 
 of the actual operations of squadrons and ships 
 rather than of the strategy evolved and dictated by 
 My Lords Commissioners at the Admiralty. I do 
 not pretend to the least competence in discussing 
 such a weighty matter as that. 
 
 The average regimental officer never fails in 
 heaping ridicule upon the men and methods of the 
 War Office as an institution and authority. The 
 executive naval officer does just the same with the 
 Admiralty. It seems foolish, but the fact remains, and 
 it is almost universal. The general idea was summed 
 up in a remark a certain distinguished Rear- Admiral 
 made to me in 1917 : " Directly an officer goes to 
 the Admiralty he seems at once to become a blither- 
 ing idiot." 
 
 That, of course, is absurd ; for my informant 
 would have been the last to apply such a term to, 
 say, Admiral Jellicoe, or Admiral Hall. But I merely 
 quote it to suggest how the executive always ap- 
 pears to regard the administrative.* And great is 
 the glee when the latter is scored off in any way. 
 
 And that reminds me of a rather quaint incident 
 in which a Divisional Head-Quarter Staff figured a 
 little while back. It has nothing to do with the 
 Navy so it should not properly be included here. 
 Anyway, I'll tell it for my own enjoyment ; for I am, 
 or was, only a mere regimental officer myself. 
 
 * When Admiral Jellicoe became First Sea Lord he had as 
 colleagues live other Sea Lords from the Grand Fleet, and a sixth 
 had also returned from active service. Never was there a Board 
 of Admiralty in which so much recent sea experience was to be 
 found, or in which the members were so young in years. I make 
 this remark in view of the Press and other attacks at the time that 
 the Hoard was composed mainly of doddering old fossils. 
 I
 
 ii 4 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 One of our smaller but always gallant Allies 
 desired to honour a certain British division which 
 had been doing good work on their frontiers. So 
 they intimated to the General Head-Quarters that 
 they were conferring a specified number of decora- 
 tions of the Order of the Yellow Cobra (or whatever 
 it was) in its several grades. The senior grade for 
 the General, and so on down to the rank and file. 
 
 " Thank you very much," said General Head- 
 Quarters. And the Staff proceeded to allot the 
 decorations according to the prevailing idea of order 
 of merit, viz., Grades 1, 2, amongst the red-tabbed, 
 brass-hatted ones ; grade 3 to the regimental officers ; 
 grade 4 to the N.C.O.s ; and grade 5 fetched up 
 with a private. 
 
 In due course the decorations themselves arrived 
 from the Allied Government. And then to the 
 utter consternation of the Staff it was discovered 
 that Grade 5 was the senior grade of the Order. 
 
 So the lucky private received a glorious insignia 
 blazing with brilliants which carried with it the 
 privilege of special trains and the turning out of 
 guards of honour. And the General received the 
 one which was reserved for station-masters for 
 shunting engines properly. 
 
 After that little digression we will hark back 
 once again. And it will be as well to begin a new 
 page.
 
 Mainly about Jutland Bank 
 
 " Something must be left to chance ; nothing is sure in a Sea 
 fight beyond all others. Shot will carry away the Masts and Yards 
 of friends as well as foes .... But in case Signals can neither be 
 seen nor perfectly understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he 
 places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy." 
 
 — Nelson. 
 ( The Trafalgar Memorandum.) 
 
 " Seek out and destroy the enemy fleet " is an 
 admirable maxim if it be regarded as a moral in- 
 spiration. But like many another "wise saw" it 
 is often not only impossible of realisation but also 
 even inadvisable to put it into practice. 
 
 To take one imaginary instance. Suppose one 
 day during the spring of 1915 a strong destroyer 
 attack had been made by Germany against the 
 Grand Fleet in its undefended harbour at Scapa. 
 That at the same time two squadrons of German 
 battleships or battle-cruisers had crept up the Nor- 
 wegian coast and slipped through into the Atlantic 
 on to the trade routes. What would have been the 
 position had the Grand Fleet (or what was left of 
 it) gone pell-mell after the enemy into the Atlantic 
 to seek and destroy them, and left the East Coast 
 open to invasion — the main point of the enemy's 
 scheme ? 
 
 Naturally such a contingency had been fully 
 provided for on our side; and (here arc several pre- 
 cedents in our history which might well apply, 
 
 "5
 
 n6 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 making proper allowances for modern innovations 
 like wireless, mines and submarines, the need for 
 coaling bases, etc., and for the British preponderance 
 of strength over the German. For instance, during 
 the Napoleonic wars, in 1804, Admiral Cornwallis 
 gave to his second-in-command an order which well 
 illustrates the seasoned views of the Naval Command 
 of those days : — 
 
 " If the French put to sea without any of your 
 vessels seeing them, do not follow them, unless you 
 are absolutely sure of the course they have taken. 
 If you leave the entrance of the Channel without 
 protection, the enemy might profit by it, and assist 
 the invasion which threatens His Majesty's dominions, 
 the protection of which is your principal object." * 
 
 As a matter of fact at that very time Napoleon 
 had 35,000 men ready for landing in Ireland or 
 Scotland as soon as the way was clear. Five of his 
 men-of-war, with some frigates, put out to sea in a 
 dense fog, to act partly as decoys but, unluckily 
 for them, the weather suddenly cleared, they were 
 sighted and promptly chased back into port. 
 
 But such a move by Germany as I have sug- 
 gested might very well have been made in the early 
 days of the war. And what an unenlightened public 
 would have said, even had it been no more than 
 moderately successful, I do not care to contemplate. 
 If only Germany had taken that maxim to heart and 
 acted upon it, then I am afraid that we should have 
 had a very bad time of it for a spell. (For the 
 
 * I am indebted for the reference to Sir Julian Gorbett's " Prin- 
 ciples of Maritime Strategy."
 
 COMBAT 117 
 
 moment, you see I am suggesting the other side of 
 the picture.) In the first volume of this little War 
 trilogy* I have pointed out how Germany lost her 
 greatest chance of the campaign in not attacking 
 by sea in August, 1914 ; but it is not, I think, gener- 
 ally realised what havoc she could have played at 
 Scapa Flow had she been so minded. 
 
 For Scapa Flow, at least during the first year, 
 was absolutely undefended. If Rear-Admiral Sir 
 Reginald Tyrwhitt had been in command of the 
 German destroyer flotillas Britain would have lost 
 half her battleships within the first four months. 
 
 They tell in the Navy the story how two German 
 spies, disguised as shepherds, spent some months 
 in the Orkneys after the outbreak of war to make 
 plans of the defences of Scapa Flow. After diligent 
 search they got back to Berlin with the report, 
 " But there are no defences." 
 
 " Oho ! ' said the Wilhelmstrasse Secret Service 
 Head-Quarters. " They have been getting at you, 
 have those cursed Englanders. This means a firing- 
 party for you before breakfast." 
 
 So they took those two agents out and shot 
 them. 
 
 The next week the Wilhelmstrasse sent other 
 two to the Orkneys. And the second two, after 
 diligent search, returned to Berlin. But these men 
 were wiser in their generation, remembering what 
 had befallen their brethren. And they produced 
 to the gratified gaze of their superior officers a series 
 of beautifully executed blue prints, drawings and 
 tracings of wondrous concealed gun emplacements, 
 * " The Retreat from Monv," page 29.
 
 n8 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 fortifications, harbour booms, and other devices. 
 ' Good boys," said the Wilhelmstrasse, " here 
 is an Iron Cross apiece for you. You have nobly 
 earned it. The Fatherland is proud of you." 
 But the first two were right. 
 
 Yes, Germany had some astonishing chances at 
 sea in those early days. Had the enemy Navy ex- 
 hibited a very small degree of enterprise, an ordinary 
 amount of courage, the story told would be a very 
 different one, and we should most certainly have 
 lost heavily.* We must needs return to the root 
 of the matter. It is not the ships, nor the guns, 
 nor the instruments which count, it is the men who 
 man and serve them. " If the enemy should close 
 I have no fears as to the result." 
 
 However, Germany, though very strong at sea, 
 was the weaker power. And as is the almost in- 
 variable policy of the weaker power she elected to 
 remain in port and adopt the system of " worrying " 
 tactics. 
 
 And, after the first few months, there were 
 thousands of Allied merchant ships passing upon 
 the High Seas ; not one of Germany's. Thousands 
 of soldiers crossing the ocean daily ; not one of 
 Germany's. Some seven thousand odd miles of 
 British coast line open to attack ; of Germany — a 
 glance at the map will show. If battle was joined 
 with the German ships then, as was inevitable, the 
 action was fought with Germany naming the con- 
 ditions of time and place. And those conditions, 
 
 * Remember how the cruisers, the Aboukir, Hague, and Cressy ) 
 were sunk within a half-hour by a single enemy submarine.
 
 COMBAT 119 
 
 naturally enough, were wholly to Germany's ad- 
 vantage ; on the eastern side of the North Sea, in 
 mine-strewn, shallow waters, close against enemy 
 harbours.* 
 
 But, and this should never be forgotten, the 
 Royal Navy was content always to accept those 
 conditions and to fight whenever and wherever the 
 enemy could be brought to fight. " Content," did 
 I say ? Well, hardly that. For the Navy wanted 
 to secure a final decision. And that was never 
 possible when Germany called the terms of the fight. 
 
 " Next time," a naval officer said to me in 
 September, 1918, " we are going to see that the 
 Huns fight over on our side. No more rotten finishes 
 like Jutland for us." 
 
 And one recalls several spirited actions fought 
 under enemy terms. The fight in the Heligoland 
 Bight and the glory of H.M.S. Arethusa ; the grim 
 chase of January 24, '15, after the fleeing enemy 
 and the sinking of the Blucher ; the destruction of 
 four enemy destroyers by H.M.S. Undaunted, and 
 three British destroyers on October 17, '14. 
 
 But after a while even such trifles as these were 
 denied the Royal Navy, and after Jutland Bank 
 all that seemed possible was to watch and wait as 
 a cat crouches before a mouse-hole. 
 
 A great Fleet action has ever been a compara- 
 tively rare thing all through history. The number 
 of really decisive Fleet actions you may count on the 
 fingers of the two hands. Victories, I mean, by 
 
 * I believe it was Francis Drake who once remarked that with 
 the advantage of lime and place the victory was already half won.
 
 120 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 which the political object in view was definitely and 
 finally won. Even the defeat of the Spanish Armada 
 was not, in this respect, decisive. And though 
 Nelson's seamen and ships at Trafalgar were the 
 victors of Waterloo yet the great land victory, and 
 the final overthrow of Napoleon, were actually 
 secured ten years later, by which time France had 
 another fleet. 
 
 The Battle of Jutland Bank, the only Fleet action 
 of the late war, is now seen to have been far more 
 decisive and important a victory than was realised 
 even six months after the event. We know now 
 not only from German sources but from personal 
 observation what a smashing defeat it was for 
 Germany. Such a defeat that many of the big 
 ships were later on actually scrapped to build sub- 
 marines from the material. 
 
 " Another hour of daylight would have finished 
 it," said a German naval gunnery officer recently. 
 " The way we were utterly crushed from the moment 
 your battle-fleet came into action took the heart 
 out of our men. Our final escape was partly due to 
 skilful handling, but more to the good luck which 
 had been with us almost from the first." * 
 
 " It took the heart out of our men." The 
 " human element " again. There is the secret, and 
 the most important feature of the battle. The 
 Germans are not seamen. It is a nation of lands- 
 men with nothing of the sea instinct and tradition 
 in them. When Cromwell's soldiers took to the 
 sea they fought and adventured as to the sea- 
 
 * I am indebted to a report in The Times of January 14th, 
 1919, for this interesting corroboration.
 
 COMBAT 121 
 
 manner born, for they were of a race of islanders 
 one and all imbued with the sea instinct. 
 
 At the beginning of the Jutland Battle the Ger- 
 man gunnery was excellent. This is universally 
 admitted. But when our own guns got to work 
 upon the enemy ships the German gunnery went all 
 to pieces. Many explained this by suggesting that 
 the German range-finding and control instruments 
 were better than ours, but also of a more delicate 
 character. Thus they were unable to withstand 
 the prolonged shocks of shell impact. 
 
 But the real explanation is given by the officer 
 just quoted. The moral of the German sailors was 
 broken.* It was broken in the first and only Fleet 
 action, and it never recovered. Officers tried to 
 trick the crews into putting to sea again, but they 
 always refused. The mutiny of November, 1918, 
 was the climax. 
 
 The surrender of the German battleships and 
 their imprisonment at Scapa has revealed some 
 other interesting details about the German ideas of 
 sea-service. Most comical of all is the fact that the 
 German ships were not built for living in. The 
 sailors were accustomed to live in great barracks 
 on shore. So when they have at last been compelled 
 to live on board at Scapa their days and nights have 
 been one long round of wails, curses and grousing. 
 But what a delicious piece of poetic justice ! 
 
 * Being but human I cannot resist the " I told you so." But 
 readers of this book who have also listened to the Recital will 
 recall that since July, 191G, I have steadily urged this as the 
 dominating factor.
 
 122 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 As I write, the German ships have been there 
 
 for some six weeks only. Our men lived on board 
 
 in comfort, though rather overcrowded, for four and 
 
 a half years. I wonder what the German sailor 
 
 would have said had he served in the ships of Nelson's 
 
 time. 
 
 " Four year out from home she was, and ne'er a week in port," 
 
 as Henry Newbolt sings of " The Old Superb." 
 
 Also the Germans are compelled to live in the 
 horrible filth which, apparently, is the normal con- 
 dition of any of their warships. The British sailor- 
 man has learned now that a very ordinary sense of 
 smell would have served one of our look-out men 
 quite as usefully as good eyesight. But anyone with 
 the least experience of German manners and customs 
 knows how beastly, depraved and disgusting are 
 their habits. 
 
 Also (but this was well known before the war) 
 the German big ships are built so that they may 
 bring the heaviest concentration of gun-fire right 
 astern. ' In other words,' as George Robey would 
 say, they are designed for running away. 
 
 Again, what a comment upon German ideas of 
 sea-warfare ! No wonder their moral snapped as it 
 did. Really, one is compelled to raise one's hat to 
 William Hohenzollern for having created a Navy at 
 all under such conditions. 
 
 The story of Jutland Bank naturally demands 
 the best part of a volume to itself, and I shall not 
 attempt even an outline sketch of it here. There 
 are, however, one or two points about the action 
 to which I would invite attention, taking a few
 
 COMBAT 123 
 
 passages from Admiral Jellicoe's official Despatch* 
 by way of text. 
 
 Now, naval Official Despatches in these days 
 are not easy reading. They strike the layman as 
 being too technical and therefore he does not read 
 them. They lack the " human " touch. The Navy 
 replies that they are intended solely for My Lords of 
 the Admiralty, as an official narrative of events. 
 For the moment, then, we will let the matter pass,| 
 trying once again to read between the lines. 
 
 At the outset please note the opening of the 
 despatch : 
 
 " The ships of the Grand Fleet, in pursuance of the general 
 policy of periodical sweeps through the North Sea, had left its 
 bases on the previous day, in accordance with instructions issued 
 by me." 
 
 There is given the lie direct to all who maintain 
 the " barnacle " notion of the Grand Fleet's masterly 
 inactivity. " The general policy of periodical sweeps 
 through the North Sea." 
 
 When battle was joined Admiral Beatty ordered 
 away a sea-plane to observe and report upon the 
 enemy strength. Here is the passage of the despatch : 
 
 " By 3.8 P.M. a sea-plane . . . was well under way ; her first 
 reports of the enemy were received . . . about 3.30 p.m. Owing 
 to clouds it was necessary to ily very low, and in order to identify 
 four enemy light cruisers the sea-plane had to fly at a height of 
 900 feet within 3,000 yards of them, the light cruisers opening fire 
 
 * Supplement to the London Gazelle, July 6, 1916. 
 
 t In the " Author's Note " at the end of the volume I pro- 
 pose to deal more fully with the question of naval publicity 
 vis-d-vis the general public. In the meantime, however, I would 
 invite a perusal of Admiral Collingwood's despatch on the Bailie 
 of Trafalgar, printed in the appendix, lie, at any rate, was not 
 ashamed to write with emotion.
 
 i2 4 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 on her with every 'gun that would bear. This in no way interfered 
 with the clarity of their reports, and both Flight-Lieutenant Rut- 
 land and Assistant-Paymaster Trewin are to be congratulated on 
 their achievement, which indicates that sea-planes under such 
 circumstances are of distinct value." 
 
 Well, I should say so ! Just imagine the episode. 
 That little sea- plane with her two men in her flying 
 at no more than 300 yards above the sea, and within 
 3,000 yards (no distance for naval guns) of four 
 enemy warships which opened fire on her with every 
 gun that would bear. " But this in no way interfered 
 with the clearness of their reports." All in the day's 
 work, you see. 
 
 One can only tackle a Naval Despatch properly 
 by taking it sentence by sentence and concentrating 
 hard upon the picture suggested ; trying to visualise 
 the conditions. It is a difficult job, though. 
 
 Then take this little piece of work on the part 
 
 of the destroyers : 
 
 " Twelve destroyers (named) having been ordered to attack 
 the enemy with torpedoes when opportunity offered moved out 
 simultaneously with a similar movement on the part of the enemy 
 destroyers. The attack was carried out in the most gallant manner, 
 and with great determination. Before arriving at a favourable 
 position to fire torpedoes they intercepted an enemy force con- 
 sisting of a light cruiser and fifteen destroyers. A fierce engage- 
 ment resulted at close quarters, with the result that the enemy 
 were forced to retire on their battle-cruisers, having lost two 
 destroyers sunk, and having their torpedo attack frustrated. 
 Our destroyers sustained no loss." 
 
 Now, what about that ? It needs no great 
 effort to visualise that picture. 12 British de- 
 stroyers versus 15 German, and a light cruiser 
 thrown in to make up the weight. And then the 
 enemy couldn't pull it off. They lost a couple of 
 destroyers ; still one to the good, + the light cruiser.
 
 COMBAT 125 
 
 But they decided instead to turn tail and get under 
 shelter where they could lick their sores in momentary 
 peace. Again I say, what about it ? Do you not 
 thrill to the thought that you belong to the same 
 race as the men of the 9th, 10th, and 13th Flotillas 
 of H.M. Destroyers ? 
 
 But throughout the battle and throughout the 
 war has the story been the same with the destroyers.* 
 " They surpassed the very highest expectations that 
 I had formed of them" said Admiral Jellicoe. No 
 higher praise can be given. " Should the enemy 
 close I have no fears as to the result." Never in 
 his day was the superb faith of Nelson more superbly 
 justified. And can you not see the figure of Nelson 
 standing by the side of his successor upon the bridge 
 of the Iron Duke and ordering the making of the 
 good old Navy signal, " Manoeuvre well executed " ? 
 
 Twice only in the Despatch is there a break-away 
 from the cold formalism of an official narrative. 
 The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron, commanded by 
 Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace L. A. Hood, was 
 ordered to reinforce Admiral Beatty. The latter 
 officer reported : 
 
 " I ordered them to take station ahead, 'which was carried out 
 magnificently ; Rear-Admiral Hood bringing his squadron into 
 action ahead In a most inspiring manner, worthy 01 his great 
 naval ancestors."! 
 
 * Rudyard Kipling's " Sea Warfare " contains some splendid 
 yarns about the destroyers at Jutland. They help one admirably 
 to read between the lines. 
 
 t Compare Nelson's remark at Trafalgar as Collingwood's flag- 
 ship the Royal Sovereign bore down upon the centre of the enemy's 
 line and broke it : " Sec how that noble fellow, Collingwood, 
 carries his ship into action 1 "
 
 126 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 There is no need to add to that. But no kinema 
 picture can ever convey even a vague idea of a 
 scene which I always think of as the most thrilling 
 achievement of man one may ever witness ; a scene 
 which brings the tears to the eyes, so tense is it 
 with emotion. A squadron of battleships taking 
 station in line ahead. The effect of it at Jutland 
 under the leadership of that fine seaman can be 
 dimly imagined from the comment which it evoked 
 from Admiral Beatty. 
 
 One could well take many another passage for 
 brief comment, but I will pass to the conclusion of 
 the narrative. And the concluding paragraph is, 
 I suggest, perhaps the most significant and remark- 
 able of the entire Despatch. To appreciate its real 
 significance the reader must try his hardest to picture 
 something of that mighty sea-fight. 
 
 Imagine how Admiral Beatty gave battle to 
 a force far superior in members ; how he sustained 
 heavy losses, but hung on like grim death to hold 
 the enemy fleet until his Commander-in-Chief could 
 bring the main fleet into action. Imagine Admiral 
 Jellicoe bringing the Grand Fleet down from the 
 north at top speed, every ship going " all out," 
 the " black squad " and engineers below working 
 as though the devil were behind them (instead of 
 in front), every ship beating its own record of speed 
 (and it's a big strain on plates and rivets going at 
 top notch). Imagine a little of that tremendous 
 action when the Grand Fleet got to work, getting 
 some hard knocks but giving back as good as they 
 received, the weather getting dirtier and the seas 
 bigger every half-hour. And then, after a day and
 
 COMBAT 127 
 
 a night of such almost incredible effort of battle 
 and chase, when at last there were no more enemy 
 ships in sight, Admiral Jellicoe reports : 
 
 " At 1.15 p.m. (on June 1) . . . course was shaped for our 
 bases which were reached on Friday, 2nd June . . . The Fleet 
 fuelled and replenished with ammunition, and at 9.30 p.m. on 
 2nd June was reported ready for further action." 
 
 " In other words," those ships steamed back home 
 (a twenty-four hours' journey), refuelled with oil, 
 coaled ship, refilled all their ammunition bunkers, 
 got all their sick and wounded on shore, made 
 good all their thousand and one " minor defects ' 
 (as the Navy loves to call them), and they were 
 ready to begin the whole business, battle and every- 
 thing, all over again inside of eight hours. 
 
 And if that's not efficiency, I'd like to know 
 what is. 
 
 Now, as before, we will take another picture 
 to hang by the side of that one. 
 
 It may be recalled that after the battle the 
 almighty, all-highest, omniscient, God-given Kaiser 
 promulgated to an eagerly-waiting world the news 
 of the glorious victory which had been won by 
 his all-powerful, invincible High-Seas Fleet. He 
 told how at last the " nimbus of sea-supremacy ' 
 had departed from the English Fleet (how the Grand 
 Fleet rocked with delight !), and how — but you 
 will know the usual kind of nonsense 
 
 At the end of the proclamation, however, the 
 all-highest was constrained to add a little postscript 
 — just tossed in by way of an afterthought. And 
 the postscript was t<> the effect that " for the present 
 the German Fleet must remain in Kiel Harbour."
 
 128 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Now our old friend Punch had a word or two 
 to say on the subject, and I cannot do better than 
 quote him. About ten days after Jutland Punch 
 came out with a cartoon. And the picture, as I 
 remember it, showed, on the left, the tops of the 
 masts and funnels of the German ships peeping 
 up above the battlements of Kiel. Around the 
 fortress ran heavy lines of barbed wire, and out- 
 side the gate stood a typical German sentry with 
 fixed bayonet. 
 
 And down the road on the right there came a 
 typical Herr Professor and a typical Frau Pro- 
 fessor, his wife — with dog and sausage attachment 
 — and they went up to the German sentry and said 
 plaintively : 
 
 " But can't we see our victorious High Seas 
 Fleet ? " 
 
 " No ! " snapped the sentry. " Nobody can ! ' 
 
 British Fleet — Ready again in eight hours. 
 German Fleet — Not ready in two and a half years. 
 
 And here is a little comment from a German 
 paper, the Tdgliche Rundschau, of December 24, 1918, 
 which, with exquisite artlessness, provides the finish- 
 ing touch. The commander of a surrendered German 
 destroyer tells his experiences at Scapa Flow : 
 
 " An English battleship," he writes, " lies not 
 far from us. We see the English sailors on board 
 parading from 9 to 12. We did not do that even in 
 times of deepest peace. Our men are astonished.' ' * 
 
 No wonder Admiral Beatty spoke with such 
 scathing contempt of the German Navy, so voicing 
 * The italics are, of course, not in the original.
 
 COMBAT 129 
 
 the opinion of every officer and man under his 
 command.* 
 
 Last of all comes the tribute of appreciation 
 and praise which the Commander-in-Chief paid to 
 the officers and men under his command — that 
 " band of brothers." I will not reproduce it here, 
 save for two sentences, but read it, I beg, for your- 
 self. For a copy of the Despatch should occupy 
 an honoured place in every home of the Empire. 
 Here are just two or three lines to serve once again 
 for a couple of pictures : 
 
 " Officers and men were cool and determined, with a cheeriness 
 that would have carried them through anything. The heroism 
 of the wounded was the admiration of all. 1 cannot adequately 
 
 express the pride with which the spirit of the Fleet filled me." 
 
 » 
 
 " The heroism of the wounded." How I wish 
 I could sketch anything of a picture of the scene 
 in the sick-bay or the distributing stations below 
 deck of a battleship in a modern naval action. 
 Far too little is said of the splendid work performed 
 by the Naval Medical Service afloat and ashore. 
 Who of the general public have ever even heard 
 the names of Sir James Porter, Sir Arthur May, 
 Fleet-Surgeon D. W. Hewitt, Fleet-Surgeon R. C. 
 Munday — men to whom the Senior Service and 
 the nation owe a very deep debt of gratitude ? 
 
 Imagine, then, if you can, a distributing station 
 on board amid the reek and roar of battle. The 
 forrard station has been broken in by a shell and 
 all the work is diverted to the all station already 
 overburdened. A floating fortress of steel which 
 shivers and rocks under the incessanl hail of shell — 
 •The Admiral's speech is reproduced in the Appendix. 
 J
 
 i 3 o THE SEAFARERS 
 
 some that pour down from the heavens, others that 
 tear great rents through the sides of gun turrets 
 or hull. The air-pressure smashes down great 
 doors and bulkheads, and bulges inwards or out- 
 wards massive steel plates as though they were 
 cardboard. Dense clouds of smoke and poisonous 
 gas-fumes roll down the hatchways, choking, suffo- 
 eating. The horror of darkness where the electric- 
 light cables are cut ; but the stifling glow of molten 
 metal where the steel burns. The water pouring 
 in through holes in the ship's side — and through 
 it all the ship's surgeons do their work. 
 
 Along gangways, down from the batteries, bridges 
 and tops passes the dim procession of mangled 
 humanity. Borne tenderly by comrades, stumbling 
 blindly, groping, gasping, they stagger this way and 
 that. Here a man tears madly at his gas-mask 
 for air — where no air is. Another beats with scarred 
 hands at his legs blazing with oil. And, in the 
 station, fifty more ghastly forms lying here and there ; 
 and over a makeshift operating table a young 
 surgeon bends, cleaning and cutting by the light 
 of a tiny electric torch. (Two months ago he 
 walked a London hospital.) 
 
 And clear through the thunderous din a voice 
 hails : 
 
 " We've sunk another of the b s." 
 
 And I see those figures dimly through the smoke ; 
 I see them raise themselves ; I see the poor form 
 on the table prop himself upon his elbow. I see 
 those men, those — Britons. And, drowning the crash 
 of the bursting shell, I hear roll out a mighty British 
 cheer, because " we've sunk another of the s."
 
 COMBAT 131 
 
 " Why do they cheer ? " asked the dying Nelson, 
 as the shouts of the Victory s men came to him as 
 he lay. 
 
 " They cheer," he was told, " because another 
 ship has struck." 
 
 " And at every hurrah a visible expression of joy 
 gleamed in the eyes and marked the countenance 
 of the dying hero." * 
 
 "A cheeriness which would have carried them through 
 anything." 
 
 And the stories illustrating that cheeriness and 
 astonishing sense of detachment on the part of 
 ollicers and men are endless. As it was with our 
 soldiers in the Flanders trenches, so also was it in 
 the Senior Service. 
 
 There is, for instance, the story of an incident 
 which has long since passed into a legend in the 
 Grand Fleet, but it may possibly be new to some 
 who read this. It is the story of how a couple of 
 stokers got a breath of fresh air in the middle of 
 the Jutland battle. Remember that here was the 
 greatest sea-fight known in history, picturing to 
 yourselves all that you may imagine of the hideous 
 din, the smoke, flame, and smell. 
 
 And right in the middle of the action, a couple 
 of the "black squad' thrust their grimy, stream- 
 ing heads up through a hatchway just to sec how 
 things were going and to get a ' breather.' They 
 had evidently started some animated discussion 
 down below in the stokehold, for I hey were carry- 
 ing it on up above as they looked out. And a petty 
 
 * Soulhey's, " Life of Nelson."
 
 132 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 officer who was by at the moment overheard a 
 fragment of the conversation. Said one to the 
 other with great firmness : 
 
 " But wot I says is, 'e ought to have married the 
 girl." * 
 
 Always, it seems, is this cheeriness of spirit in 
 battle to be found amongst British stock. And 
 one recalls, out of many similar incidents, the story 
 of the great fight between the Brunswick and the 
 French Vengeur, when Lord Howe won his famous 
 victory of " the Glorious First of June." 
 
 For hour after hour the fierce duel had lasted, 
 the ships lying so close together that the Brunswick 
 could only raise the lids of the lower deck port-holes 
 by blowing them off with gun-fire. 
 
 The figure-head of the Brunswick was an effigy 
 of the famous Duke of that name ; and in the course 
 of the action his hat was shot off. Such disrespect 
 could not be tolerated ; so the sailormen sent a 
 solemn deputation to Captain Harvey and requested 
 the loan of his gold-laced hat with which to cover 
 his Grace's head. The request was granted, the 
 hat was nailed on, and the fight was continued. 
 
 And there we will leave the Despatch. But 
 there is one officer of whom that record of gallantry 
 and skill and heroism makes no mention. The 
 Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir John Rushworth 
 Jellicocj" 
 
 In an earlier volume I ventured to pay a poor 
 tribute to another great man of action, General 
 
 * But history, alas ! does not tell us why. 
 t Now, of course, Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa.
 
 COMBAT 133 
 
 Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.* I offered it with great 
 diffidence, for I wrote as a regimental officer under 
 his command. But I wrote also as one who had 
 had the privilege of working with the General out- 
 side active service. It is in similar fashion that 
 I write of Admiral Jellicoe. 
 
 In sympathetic terms Admiral Jellicoe spoke of 
 Sir David Beatty's fine work at Jutland : 
 
 " I can fully sympathise with his (Sir David's) feelings when 
 the evening mist and fading light robbed the Fleet of that complete 
 victory for which he had manoeuvred, and for which the vessels 
 in company with him had striven so hard." 
 
 But what must have been the feelings of the 
 Commander-in-Chief ? 
 
 Of the executive naval officer and seaman I 
 do not presume to speak. Only his peers may 
 do that. Certainly not a civilian. History will 
 tell how Admiral Jellicoe served his country while 
 he filled his great office. 
 
 But as a comrade, as a man, as an unselfish, 
 modest, gallant and courteous English gentleman 
 Admiral Jellicoe had the affectionate admiration, 
 the love of every officer and man Avho was privileged 
 to serve under liis command. 
 
 The country, too, must not forget that it was 
 Admiral Jellicoe, ;is First Sea Lord, who perfected 
 Hie plans for dealing with the submarine menace. 
 Taking up I he heavy burden of the senior Naval 
 Administrator under conditions which were as cruel 
 ;i> any such officer has ever had to face, meeting 
 demands such as no Board of Admiralty has ever 
 before had to meet, Admiral Jellicoe and his col- 
 * " The Retreat from Mons," page 2:52.
 
 134 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 leagues grappled with the problem and defeated 
 it. The Admiral left office before the menace was 
 actually overcome, but his were the hands that 
 fashioned the weapon. 
 
 But the Grand Fleet itself is the bravest testimony 
 to the Admiral's genius. The knitting together of 
 Britain's ships into the most superb fighting force 
 that the world has ever seen. The ships will pass, 
 but the memory of it and of their first Commander- 
 in-Chief never. 
 
 Admiral Jellicoe has lived and worked, as a 
 Naval Officer must, outside the fierce limelight of 
 publicity and popular hero-worship. Nor would 
 he have had it otherwise. Others may gather to 
 themselves the rewards of his high endeavour : 
 but if ever a man, and a great seaman, might, in his 
 passing, echo with perfect truth the immortal last 
 words of the dying Nelson, " Thank God, I have 
 done my duty ! " that man is Admiral Lord Jellicoe.
 
 Light Craft, and Single Ship Actions 
 
 "Though we are but eleven to eighteen or twenty, we won't part 
 without a battle." — Nelson, at the West Indies. 
 
 But this has been a war in which, for the most 
 part, the big ships have had, perforce, to stand 
 clear and give sea-room to their smaller sisters. 
 And what extraordinary fights some of those smaller 
 craft have put up. And what a catalogue it would 
 be if only a complete list, day by day, from August, 
 '14, could be compiled. But the half will certainly 
 pass unrecorded. 
 
 Here is an old merchant tramp, with never a 
 gun or rifle aboard of her„ smashing and sinking an 
 enemy submarine. There is a destroyer capturing 
 an enemy air-craft. A British submarine puts to 
 flight a troop of Turkish cavalry and oversets by 
 shell fire half a dozen motor-lorries of ammunition : 
 and by way of revenge, it would seem, we have a 
 motor-lorry sinking a submarine by falling on top 
 of her.* Then there is the sea-plane which took 
 a ship prisoner and shepherded her safely into port 
 —oh ! and scores more of such queer topsy-turvy 
 happenings. 
 
 But if you were to ask any officer or man of 
 the Fleet who, in his opinion, are the men and the 
 ships that have done the big work of the war I 
 
 * Have you not beard that little story of poetic justice ? It 
 
 shall be told later uti. 
 
 135
 
 136 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 will wager that always you will receive the same 
 answer. 
 
 And the answer is, " Hats off to the destroyers ! " 
 
 I have already tried to suggest something of 
 the character of their work and how it has been 
 carried out. But again we want a whole volume 
 on the subject alone. It was Rear- Admiral Tyrwhitt 
 who was amongst the first of naval officers to 
 appreciate the great possibilities for T.B.D.'s in 
 war. That was during the eighteen months or so 
 before the outbreak in '14, at a time when Reginald 
 Tyrwhitt was Captain in command of the Second 
 Destroyer Flotilla. I believe, though, that he had 
 a hard tussle before he was able to get his views 
 and ideas adopted. But now, what a record of 
 service is- theirs — those little grey ships. 
 
 If the Navy had possessed three, four times the 
 number of destroyers that have been ours yet there 
 would not have been enough for the work. A T.B.D. 
 would return to her base after a long spell of. North 
 Sea gales : she finds no time to re-fuel and re-victual 
 — let alone win any rest or a few hours' shore-leave 
 for the men — before she is ordered out again. 
 
 Imagine what it must be like up north of the 
 Shetlands in mid-winter, with the cardboard sides 
 thickness of a destroyer between you and the fiercest 
 storms and heaviest seas of any waters on the face 
 of the globe. 
 
 Imagine clambering on to the tiny bridge in 
 oilskins which are soaked through to your skin 
 inside of five minutes ; when you've no more chance 
 of getting a dry stitch on you for another ten days
 
 COMBAT 137 
 
 than you have of dropping that night into the Goat 
 Club * for a gin and bitters. 
 
 Imagine those mighty seas twenty and thirty 
 feet high crashing across the bows and the spray 
 turning to ice as it falls ; when you will not get 
 any warm food or drink inside you from one week's 
 end to another. And you " carry on '" dead tired, 
 dog weary, frost-bitten toes and fingers — you carry 
 on because it's your job. That is what those men of 
 the destroyers and their gallant commanders have 
 been doing. 
 
 And I have seen one of those destroyers limping 
 back into port looking for all the world like a battered 
 kerosene tin. 
 
 " Any complaints ? ' you hail the " owner," 
 half jokingly. 
 
 " Complaints ! I should think so ! " comes the 
 reply. " The blighters went and put a shell first 
 go off straight into the galley and we haven't been 
 able to get a mouthful of hot grub for nearly a 
 w< ek." 
 
 Not a word, you observe, about the makeshift 
 collision mats which prevent the engine-room from 
 receiving more than its fair share of the Pentland 
 Firth. Or the breaking in of the foremost bulk- 
 head. Or the carrying overboard by shell lire of 
 most of her guns. No mention of the smashed 
 steering-gear and wireless aerials, and the 9 knots 
 which is all the steam they can raise. No. The 
 same dear old complaint which the sailorman has 
 made since Cain and Abel paddled a coracle down 
 
 * A pleasant little nook not a hundred miles from Piccadilly 
 Circus, and not quite unknown to R.N. Ollicers.
 
 138 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the Hiddekel (before their little difference of opinion), 
 " What about the grub ? " 
 
 As Pepys naively remarked two hundred and 
 fifty years ago, — " To make any abatement from 
 the Seamen in the quantity or agreeableness of the 
 victuals is to provoke them in the tenderest point." 
 
 For your sailorman is a good trencherman as 
 may readily be imagined. And a shortage in the 
 victualling department hits him more hardly in the 
 " tenderest point " than it might you or me. 
 
 A burly A.B. drifted into an eating-house in 
 the Farringdon Road and asked what there was 
 for dinner. 
 
 " There's roast pork," said the girl, " and roast 
 beef, boiled leg o' mutton, sausage-and-mash, and 
 faggots." 
 
 " Ay," said the A.B., " that'll do fine— and a 
 cup of coffee." 
 
 There is no manner of work which ever comes 
 amiss to one of His Majesty's T.B.D.'s, from acting 
 as escort to a great battleship down to running an 
 errand and carrying a letter. As pretty a sight as 
 you may wish to see is that of a couple of destroyers 
 slipping quietly into station, on either beam of, 
 say, H.M.S. Revenge, as she leaves the Firth of Forth 
 for the hidden dangers of the North Sea. 
 
 Just as the big ship clears a certain point at 
 the entrance, out come the two little destroyers, 
 detached from the Flotilla. "It's all right, you 
 poor old thing ; we're here ; we'll see you through 
 safely," — you can imagine the little ships saying 
 to their big sister. And you look out from your
 
 COMBAT 139 
 
 port-hole early the next morning, and sure enough, 
 there they are. In just the same position as when 
 you turned in the night before. And there they 
 will remain, steaming quietly along until the big 
 sister is back again within the gateways of the 
 Forth. 
 
 Mine-laying — that might fall under " Communi- 
 cations " or " Combat." Anyway it is work which 
 has fallen to the destroyers as being especially 
 hazardous. And from the men of the destroyers 
 the Authorities have been at pains to select the very 
 finest in the Service. No easy task that of selection, 
 one would imagine. 
 
 At the darkest hours of the night, inside the 
 enemy's protecting minefields, close up against 
 the enemy coast, blocking his channels, have the 
 -destroyers laid their mines. And the work had to 
 be done often in a thick fog, in waters most difficult 
 ■of navigation, within range of enemy guns, and 
 under the very noses of his patrols. Steering a 
 course without navigation lights through unseen 
 enemy mines sown broadcast, where a few yards out 
 on either beam would bring you on top of one — 
 with an end to a gallant ship, and a few score gallant 
 lives. 
 
 lint needless to say the competition to share 
 in the work has been as keen as it was to share in 
 the almost certain death of the Zeebruggc affair. 
 During the last eight months of the war the destroyers 
 placed n<> fewer than 12,000 mines in this fashion 
 inside the Heligoland Bight. And the result was 
 a bag of over one hundred enemy ships. 
 
 Patrol work and escort duty, examining ships
 
 140 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 on the trade routes under all conditions and in all 
 weathers ; hunting U-boats ; saving hundreds of 
 lives from torpedoed passenger ships and merchant- 
 men ; and, if the Call should come, paying the price 
 of Admiralty cheerfully as becomes the British 
 sailor — do you remember those two destroyers driven 
 ashore on the north of Scotland in a howling gale 
 and a raffing snowstorm, with two souls saved out 
 of two hundred ? But if you talk to a destroyer 
 commander about it he will merely shrug his shoulders 
 and remark, " Oh, well, we do see most of the fun 
 that's going, anyway." 
 
 Fun ! Well, there must be a deal of truth in 
 the remark or there would not be such a competition 
 to secure a job in the Flotillas. Every midshipman 
 you meet seems to live only for the day when he 
 may be a proud " owner ' of a destroyer. And 
 there is always a free fight for any vacancy on board 
 of one. You feel the stirring call in your blood, 
 there's not a doubt of it. I have felt it many a 
 time myself when I have been out with them — and 
 they are jolly uncomfortable. 
 
 Day in, day out, week after week, and month 
 after month, have the destroyers " carried on." 
 And whenever the chance comes for a fight, ready 
 on the instant for it, under any conditions and against 
 any odds — and, mon Dieu ! but the men of H.M. 
 destroyers know the way to fight. 
 
 Who will ever forget the story * of how the Broke 
 (Commander Evans) and the Sivift (Commander 
 
 * In the Recital I always tell this story, but as my good friend 
 '* Bartimeus " has published it in one of his volumes I will not 
 reproduce it here.
 
 COMBAT 141 
 
 Peck) tackled a flotilla of six enemy destroyers in 
 the Dover Straits that April night ? Fought and 
 smashed them, leaving three only alive to escape 
 in the darkness. The yarn of those glorious five 
 minutes is one of the most splendid in all our island 
 story. 
 
 When the tradition of the Royal Navy is so real 
 and vital a thing in each and every unit of the Fleet 
 it were invidious to discriminate. One may only 
 say, then, that H.M. Destroyers have had most of 
 the opportunities, and that they have seized them, 
 and made more than the most of them. Admiral 
 Jellicoe has said the last word. The Royal Navy, 
 their comrades-in-arms, are proud of them. The 
 sailorman asks nothing more.- 
 
 £> 
 
 And speaking of the destroyers and the manner 
 in which they have upheld the Navy tradition, one 
 recalls instinctively the words of Nelson which I 
 have quoted at the head of this chapter — " We will 
 not part without a battle." 
 
 In those words, more than in any other saying 
 that I can discover, is summed up the fighting spirit 
 of the Royal Navy, and its demand for offensive 
 action rather than passive defence. 
 
 Rut there lies within them a deeper meaning 
 than you would at first suspect. It is, too, some- 
 thing of a paradox. Go straight for the enemy 
 no matter the odds, is, as I have already told, the 
 inspiration of the Navy's action. It is the very 
 spirit of the offensive. Yet that does not. mean 
 thai you musl needs fighl the enemy whenever 
 and \vhcre\ er you may encounter him. There is
 
 142 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the apparent contradiction. And once again we 
 may turn to Nelson for the explanation. 
 
 " Yet do not imagine," he said, " that I am 
 one of those hot-brained people who fight at an 
 immense disadvantage without an adequate object." 
 
 In the last four words lies the key. Nelson, at 
 the time he uttered them, was fully bent upon stopping 
 the career of Villeneuve, the French Admiral. He. 
 knew that the French had perhaps twenty sail of 
 the line to his own eleven, " and therefore," he said, 
 " do not be surprised if I do not fall on them imme- 
 diately." 
 
 But the " adequate object ' was clear enough, 
 and so Nelson was resolved " not to part " without 
 a fight. He might lose his eleven ships in the action, 
 but he would not lose them without so crippling 
 the French that they could do no further mischief 
 for some little time. Or, as Nelson put it, ' By 
 the time the enemy has beat our fleet soundly, they 
 will do us no harm this year." That was the object, 
 and it was " adequate." 
 
 But, again, Nelson did not intend to fight, just 
 for the fun of it, against heavy odds. If he was 
 indeed compelled so to fight then he would do it in 
 the " spirit of the offensive." But, given the chance, 
 he preferred to wait until the conditions of time and 
 place, wind and weather, should relieve the odds 
 somewhat. And that is what he actually did. 
 
 The Broke and the Swift engaged as they did 
 because they must needs fight then or lose the enemy 
 altogether. Had Commander Peck been given the 
 choice I surmise that he would have preferred less 
 heavy odds. But, finding his enemy, and knowing
 
 COMBAT 143 
 
 instinctively that it was then or never, he acted in 
 the spirit of the offensive and with the happiest 
 results. 
 
 Admiral Tyrwhitt, in taking his four cruisers 
 north to ''investigate' the matter of the fourteen 
 battleships, did not, I imagine, propose to steam 
 blindly into action against them. He was going 
 to employ his light force as light cruisers should be 
 used against battleships, to keep in touch with the 
 enemy and report. To imagine otherwise is as 
 good as saying that the Admiral did not know 
 his job. Had he, in doing his duty, found it ne- 
 cessary to fight then one may be sure that he 
 too would have fought as the spirit of the Navy 
 dictates. 
 
 Nelson did not invent the doctrine which lie- 
 set forth in the sentences of his I have quoted. For 
 the general principle that offence is the best, the- 
 only real policy had been recognised and practised 
 by our seafarers centuries before. Drake, for in- 
 stance, used a very similar argument when urging 
 the Naval Authorities to allow him to attack the 
 Armada before it should leave its home base.* But 
 it was left lor Nelson, with his consummate genius 
 for sea-warfare, to visualise the principle in all its 
 forms, to crystallise it into a perfect whole, and so 
 to give it to the world under I lie stamp of his unique 
 authority and personality. " The Nelson touch," 
 as his captains enthusiastically acclaimed it. 
 
 * Nor again did Nelsou origin ite the fatuous " breaking of the 
 enemy's line of battle" which was the main feature of Trafalgar. 
 
 The idea was Admiral Rodney's, and by adopting it he won the 
 victory of " TU-.. Saints'' twenty odd years before
 
 144 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Haunted throughout the war by the depreda- 
 tions of German U-boats our people have rather 
 overlooked the fact that we too include submarines 
 in our Navy. Yet our submarine service is one 
 which might well adopt the famous motto of the 
 Royal Scots Greys, " Second to None." It is true 
 that we have heard but little news of their sinking 
 enemy ships upon the high seas, but then the reason 
 has been an excellent one — there have been no Ger- 
 man ships on the high seas to sink. All, or most 
 of the work has been done within enemy waters 
 and enemy minefields. 
 
 But, my masters, what do ye lack ? Is it a 
 talc of high adventure and discovery in the frozen 
 Arctic Seas ? I have a ballad which shall nip your 
 fingers and shrivel your nose with the cold as you 
 listen. A song of a winter night that holds for 
 four eternal months, when the sun never rises, and 
 the noonday brings but a dim twilight. When the 
 pack-ice forms in the harbour, breaks and drifts 
 to sea, and the snow lies three feet deep on the 
 shore. When the cold is so intense that it hurts 
 to put the head out to breathe ; and to fall overboard 
 means instantaneous death. 
 
 (One can fully sympathise with the member of 
 a submarine's crew, who, on being told very bluntly 
 by his superior officer to " go to hell," replied with 
 equal emphasis, " Do you think I'd stay here if I 
 could?") 
 
 Or a song of an Arctic summer's day all too brief, 
 when the land is hidden 'neath a carpet of azalea 
 and harebells, and bees and butterflies hover from 
 flower to flower. When a sapphire sea reflects the
 
 COMBAT 145 
 
 shimmering blue of a cloudless sky, and the skuas 
 and wild geese, the eider duck, snow-bunting and 
 Arctic hare make merry sport. When a man may 
 sit upon the hull of the submarine as she lies awash 
 and battle vaguely, hopelessly with the brown fog 
 of mosquitoes which almost blot out the lines of 
 the conning-tower amidships. 
 
 Through Arctic summer and Arctic winter have 
 the submarines of ours " carried on." 
 
 Is it a tale of gallant bearing and incredible 
 romance such as Jules Verne would hardly have 
 dared to invent ? Here I have the ballad of the 
 ' E 11," of Lieutenant-Commander M. E. Nasmith, 
 R.N., her " owner," and of her cheery crew. It is 
 a song of the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, 
 of waters stagnant with mines, blocking the fair- 
 ways, of German and Turkish destroyers racing 
 hither and thither, of land forts bristling witli guns 
 and torpedo tubes, of enemy troopships and armed 
 dhows passing and repassing. 
 
 It is a song of the " E 11 " as she found a way 
 beneath the mines, diving blindly with instinct at 
 her helm to con her. It tells how she rose unnoticed 
 before the very gates of the Turkish capital, sank a 
 Turkish warship by the entrance, and, to celebrate 
 the occasion, " piped all hands to bathe ' -in enemy 
 waters. Mow with ;i damaged periscope she fought 
 this ship and that, chasing one on shore, boarding 
 another; engaged a body of enemy cavalry; fouled 
 a mine and carried it on her body unable to wriggle 
 clear until she reached friendly waters, when a neat 
 nosc-divc and baek-somcrsault combined shook it 
 off. A song of a fortnight's cruise and a piece of 
 
 K
 
 146 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 work so performed that the Turks swore that " 11 
 was not her designa 
 submarines engaged. 
 
 was not her designating figure but the number of 
 
 Ayr ! "lis a goodly tally, these songs of His 
 Majesty's Submarines. Stories that shall be told, 
 songs that shall be sung in castle and hall, cottage 
 and ale-house, for many a year to come. Songs of 
 unhesitating self-sacrifice for comrades like that of 
 the heroic death of Lieutenant-Commander Goodhart ; 
 of weary vigil and unceasing watch in the Baltic ; of 
 fights with enemy aeroplanes ; of duels with enemy 
 submarines. 
 
 The ; " logs " that the commanders have sent in 
 to My Lords of the Admiralty make extraordinary 
 reading. They should be published just as they 
 stand, for they need no comment save from an 
 occasional footnote to explain sea and Navy ex- 
 pressions and words. 
 
 Here, for instance, are three little entries from 
 the log of the submarine which sank the German 
 cruiser Hela. They tell of just one quarter of an 
 hour's work ; but to the making of it there went 
 ten days of toil and discomfort in enemy waters, 
 ten days of battling with nor' -westerly gales, rain 
 squalls, heavy seas and fogs, of brut stanchions and 
 plates, of narrow escapes from enemy mines and 
 
 7.15 a.m. — Sighted Heligoland, distant 5 miles on port; also 
 cruiser approximately \\ to 2 miles off, and wisps of smoke in 
 various directions. Attacked cruiser. Position 000 yards abeam 
 cruiser (two funnels). Submarine very lively diving. Fired both 
 bo -,y torpedoes at starboard Bide. 
 
 7.29 a.m. — Heard single loud explosion.
 
 COMBAT 147 
 
 7.32 a.m.— Rose to 28 feet. Observed cruiser between waves. 
 Appeared to have stopped and listed to starboard. Dived 70 feet 
 to pick up trim. 
 
 And for the following thirty hours or so the 
 submarine had to pay the penalty of her daring 
 by bumping about on the bed of the sea while enemy 
 destroyers buzzed angrily about overhead looking 
 for her. 
 
 To a soldier and a landsman the real wonder of 
 a submarine's achievement lies in this, that the 
 commander and his little ship's company must always 
 be playing a lone hand, working in the deadly 
 monotony of isolation far from their comrades. It 
 is easy enough to fight a field battery in the open, 
 or to go " over the top in a bunch with your men 
 behind and around you. Even in a destroyer you 
 
 '■•rally have a sister ship within hail. 
 
 But to remain for perhaps a month or more on 
 (inl shut up in " the heart of an eight-day clock," 
 seeing nothing of the world save an occasional 
 bird's-eye view of ;>■ waste of waters glimpsed through 
 Mi- I e of -i periscope; lying submerged for maybe 
 fort) I hours a! a stretch in peril every minute 
 
 of a sudden and horrible death dealt by an unknown, 
 hand ; living on tinned air and tinned food; 
 crowded together with barely the room to stand 
 uprighl one marvels indeed thai any man anion; I 
 them has an atom of nerve left when if comes to 
 i he acl ual fight ins. 
 
 I niil ! had made my first trip in a submarine 
 I had no conception how wonderful their achieve- 
 ments reall) were. A a matter of fact, I had never
 
 148 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 seriously thought about it. Most people derive their 
 ideas (as I did) of life and work in a submarine from 
 Verne's romance, " Twenty Thousand Leagues under 
 the Sea." One pictures the ship sinking gracefully 
 through the water until she comes peacefully to 
 rest on the bottom. You imagine yourself sitting 
 at a plate-glass window gazing at the marvels of 
 ocean life illumined by powerful searchlights, forests 
 of coral and sea plants, great fish swimming through 
 the branches. Or you open a little door in the ship's 
 side, and, equipped with breathing apparatus and 
 some curious kind of rifle, step out upon the ocean's 
 bed and sally forth upon a shooting expedition. 
 
 Some day, doubtless, men will experience such 
 delights, but not just yet. For do people understand 
 that once a submarine has submerged, periscope 
 too, she is absolutely blind ? There is not even a 
 port-hole from which you may watch the fish swim- 
 ming by. And if there were it would be too dark 
 to see them. 
 
 If you grasp that fact you may begin to realise 
 how astonishing was the feat of the submarine which 
 dived underneath five rows of mines in the Darda- 
 nelles — to take one incident out of hundreds. How 
 it was done I do not pretend to guess, any more 
 than I shall ever be able to understand how you 
 may stand in Piccadilly Circus and talk to a friend 
 on Broadway, New York City, by a telephone with- 
 out wires. 
 
 One is sorely tempted to write more fully of 
 these remarkable ships and of their crews. To tell 
 of the great " K " boats, some 340 feet long, carrying 
 funnels, and built for service with the linc-of-ualllc
 
 COMBAT 149 
 
 ships. Of the submersible monitors with guns sueh 
 as only the biggest ships had carried. But one must 
 hasten on. 
 
 Even in the Navy the submarines, their types 
 and their exploits, have been veiled in a mist of 
 secrecy. The veil is now being raised, and the 
 stories are being told. But the figures of our losses 
 in submarines tell only too sadly how these ships 
 and their companies have paid the price of Admiralty. 
 Let me set them down : 
 
 Lost by enemy action ... 39 
 Interned ..... 3 
 Blown up by their crews in Russian 
 harbours when crews were with- 
 drawn ..... 7 
 Accidents (on trial, etc.) . . 4 
 Wrecked ..... 1 
 Lost by collision .... 5 
 
 Total . 59 
 
 It is a heavy total, and 39 lost by enemy action 
 shows very clearly the hazardous work upon which 
 they have been engaged. Against that figure and 
 for comparison we may set the number 203. And 
 that is the number of German submarines with 
 which the Mariners of England have well and truly 
 deal! during the four years odd of war. 203 killed, 
 sunk or captured; l.'5."> more actually surrendered 
 under the terms of the Armistice; 50 more at the 
 time of writing are still l<> be brought in. 
 
 But once again 1 would emphasise this. British
 
 150 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 submarines have had perforce to do their work 
 mainly within enemy waters, righting under the 
 terms laid down by the enemy. German sub- 
 marines have carried their pirate flag across the 
 sea highways of the world. Of enemy methods and 
 of the hunting of the enemy I will say a little under 
 my final heading, " Communications." 
 
 Now if there is one kind of yarn more than 
 another that your healthy Briton enjoys it is a 
 story of a good sporting fight against odds. Not a 
 big fleet action — Mr. John Citizen cannot grasp that 
   — nor a big land battle. Trafalgar and Waterloo 
 were very satisfactory, and all that kind of thing, 
 but the scale of fighting is " a bit beyond me." 
 But when it comes to, say, the Defence of Rorke's 
 Drift ; or the Guards at Landrecies ; or Sir Edward 
 Pellew with his forty-four-gun frigate tackling the 
 French Droiis-de-V Hoimne with her seventy-four 
 guns; or the Chesapeake and the Shannon, or " L ' 
 Battery at Nery — why then, " just wait till this 
 pipe draws properly " and he (and Mrs. John 
 Citizen, too) will listen mouse-quiet for a couple of 
 hours. 
 
 Our sea story for a thousand years is crowded 
 with such episodes. Indeed it is curious how often 
 the mariners of England have had to fight against 
 odds, in big battles and in small. Everyone knows 
 how insignificant seemed the English Fleet, in 
 numbers and size of ships, in the campaign of the 
 Spanish Armada. Hubert de Burgh, in one of the 
 first of our sea battles,* fought a French fleet of 
 
 * See ante, page 61.
 
 COMBAT 151 
 
 over ninety ships with but forty English. And 
 in the last great sea-fight of sailing ships, Trafalgar, 
 Nelson had twenty-seven sail of the line to Ville- 
 neuve's thirty-three. 
 
 Of clean fighting, ship against ship, during the 
 Great War, there have been very few instances. Of 
 amazing fights in self-defence by merchantmen 
 against would-be murderers, and of the hunt and 
 the kill of those same — there have been hundreds. 
 But, for the moment, we are considering " the straight 
 game." 
 
 The last fight of the Emden, for instance, when 
 the German ship met her fate in a ship of the 
 despised Australian Navy, H.M.A.S. Sydney. But 
 it was an unequal duel, for the German had no chance 
 against her far more powerful antagonist. Hence 
 the British public, only too eager to find any gallantry 
 and sportsmanship in the enemy, openly sympathised 
 with his defeat and warmly approved the humane 
 and courteous treatment meted out to Captain von 
 Miiller and his men.* 
 
 Another fight against hopeless odds was the 
 gallant defence put up by the Clan Mactavish, a 
 chantman, against the German commerce-raider 
 the Moewe. The German ship carried seven guns 
 and a couple of torpedo tubes against one little gun 
 carried by the ISiitish ship. This happened in 
 January, L916, and one is happy to record that the 
 behaviour of the German officers was scrupulously 
 correel . 
 
 * Thiii any public commenl should have been made upon this, 
 the usual British habil ol courtesj to a vanquished enemy, in- 
 dicates how rare were the occasions in the War for the display of 
 these little amenities of honourable combat.
 
 152 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when the Clan 
 Mactavish, proceeding under easy steam, sighted 
 two strange ships in company. After a brief inter- 
 change of signals one of the strangers, closing rapidly 
 at the time, signalled the curt order : 
 
 ' Stop immediately. We are a German cruiser. 
 Don't use wireless." 
 
 The skipper of the Clan Mactavish, with the 
 traditional instinct of the fighting seafarer, acted 
 very promptly. He rang down for full speed, 
 called to the wireless operator to send out the S.O.S. 
 and to the gunner to stand by. 
 
 The Moewe as promptly opened fire, and the 
 range was about 500 yards. The fight was over 
 almost as soon as it had begun. The first shell from 
 the German burst inside the steward's cabin and 
 wrecked it ; the second on the foredeck ; others 
 within the water-line and the engine-room put the 
 Clan Mactavish out of all control and stopped her. 
 The Clan Mactavish was only able to get in five rounds 
 to the eleven of the Moewe before the end came. 
 
 The German sent an armed party aboard, the 
 British master and crew were transferred to the 
 raider, and the Clan Mactavish was sunk. 
 
 What was in the mind of the British skipper 
 when he decided to fight we do not know. Doubtless 
 he thought no more about it than did Commander 
 Fox of the Mary Rose. It was just the old " back 
 to the wall " spirit, and so was one more page added 
 to the golden book of the Merchant Seamen. The 
 Royal Navy, ever quick in their appreciation of their 
 sea-comrades, telegraphed a message of sympathy 
 through Admiral Jellicoe :
 
 COMBAT 153 
 
 ' The magnificent fight shown by the Clan 
 Mactavish fills us in the Grand Fleet with admira- 
 tion. We sympathise deeply with those who have 
 lost relatives as a result of the action." 
 
 But the duel between the Car mania and the 
 Cap Trafalgar was another kind of story. Here the 
 two ships were evenly matched, with a slight ad- 
 vantage to the German in guns. The Carmania 
 opened the ball by firing a shot across the German's 
 bows by way of a summons to surrender. The Cap 
 Trafalgar replied with a broadside. Then the two 
 went at it hammer and tongs. 
 
 Just as the fight began the first officer of the 
 Carmania went to the master to put forward a 
 request from the crew. 
 
 " What is it ? " said the skipper. 
 ' The men's respectful compliments, sir," said 
 the officer, "and they've got the cutlasses nice 
 and handy if you'll be so good as to lay us along- 
 side" 
 
 * Give the men my compliments," said the 
 skipper, ' but I'm sorry I cannot oblige them this 
 time. Tell them to keep the guns going, and I'll 
 do the rest." 
 
 Ami the skipper was ;is good as his word. By 
 splendid seamanship Ik- kept the Carmania alter- 
 nately bows ;iik1 stern dm to the enemy, so as to offer 
 ill-- smallest possible targel to the German guns, 
 
 the while his join crews poured in a steads' stream 
 of shell. 
 
 In twenty minutes that fighl was over. Within 
 half an hour the (dj) Trafalgar had gone down in
 
 154 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 a riot of flame and the Carmanias boats were out 
 picking up the survivors. 
 
 But I guess the Carmanias skipper was a proud 
 man when he learned what his crew wanted of him. 
 And what a story there would have been to tell had 
 he granted their request ! 
 
 But for a piece of splendid pluck and clean fight- 
 ing against big odds give me every time the story 
 of the Gowan Lea and Joseph Watt, the skipper of 
 her. It is not a submarine yarn, and so it shall 
 come here. 
 
 The Gowan Lea was just a little trawler ship, 
 sort of penny steamer kind that you see on the 
 Thames. She carried the usual crew of six men and 
 a boy, and a little gun up in the bows — a little pop- 
 gun that shoots peas. 
 
 Now the Gowan Lea was down in the Adriatic 
 helping to clear up some of the mess that the Huns 
 had left behind in the shape of mines. And one 
 fine morning up over the horizon there came an 
 Austrian light cruiser. And she steamed in and 
 called to the Gowan Lea to surrender. 
 
 But Joseph Watt on the tiny bridge, he called up 
 on deck his little crew — his crew of six men and a 
 boy — and he hauled the Jack up to the mast, and 
 he called for three cheers for the King, and he sent 
 one of the hands up forrard to the little gun in the 
 bows — the little popgun that shoots peas — and he 
 opened fire on the enemy. 
 
 The Austrian opened fire ; the shells went back- 
 ward and forward ; the deck-hand up forrard had one 
 of his legs shattered by a shell — but they fought on.
 
 COMBAT 155 
 
 And the Austrian cruiser, whether she thought 
 that the Gowan Lea was a submarine in disguise or 
 a ' mystery ' ship I don't know, but she turned 
 tail ami fled. And Joseph Watt had the joy of 
 bringing his ship out of action as victor with his 
 colours flying ; and he got the Victoria Cross for 
 it, and richly he deserved it. 
 
 Joseph Watt was the man who used to bring 
 you your kippers for breakfast before the War. 
 Kippers. That's his job. " Fed up " though he 
 was with the mine-sweeping business, anxious to 
 get back to his haddocks, yet he " carried on," 
 like the rest. And we may go down on our knees 
 and thank God for it. 
 
 Now, to round off this " rude, brief recitative," 
 it must be told how watch and ward was kept in 
 the North Sea by the " Mock Turtle " Squadron of 
 battleships. Did I say that there had been no 
 Fleet action save "Jutland Bank"? Oh, but I 
 forgot. We must really count in the " Mock Turtles." 
 
 A mighty squadron they were, to all outward 
 appearance. Great gaunt battleships with their 
 inch guns peering through armoured turrets. 
 Anti-aircrafi guns, quick-firers, towering bridges 
 high up. Majestically they rode at anchor. Majes- 
 tically they ploughed through the seas, line ahead 
 or line abreast, close ordered, rank on rank. Emblems 
 of ih'- glory and mighl of our Sea-Empire, so they 
 watched and waited before the enemy coasts. 
 
 See the conscious pride with which the great 
 
 flagship leads the van. Mark the discipline of her 
 
 hip's company a1 the call of " action stations." A
 
 156 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 trifle heavy of gait, some of the men ; somewhat 
 broad of bulk, not moving quite so briskly as, per- 
 haps, they used to do. Inclined to puff and blow 
 a bit when they have to do a little running about. 
 Still, what of that ; be sure that the guns will be 
 served none the less readily. 
 
 Guns ! — well, now I'll tell you a little secret. 
 Quite in confidence, of course. Sure no one is listen- 
 ing ? Well, the only guns on the flagship are two 
 little rifles which a couple of sportsmen brought 
 aboard to shoot sea birds with. Fact, I assure 
 you. 
 
 But those two 13-inch forrard ! Well, to tell 
 you the honest truth they came out of a saw- mill 
 only last week. They're just painted wood. 
 
 In short, the whole squadron is one glorious fake. 
 A lot of old unseaworthy merchant tramps saved 
 from the scrap-heap. All except the flagship. And 
 the flagship, biggest joke of all, is or rather was a 
 well-known German liner. 
 
 So those old wooden dummies sailed the seas. 
 Up and down before Heligoland they steamed, fairly 
 putting the fear of God into the Huns. How the 
 German Secret Service must have cursed some of 
 their agents for misleading them over the strength 
 of the British battle-fleet. 
 
 And the Fleet action ? It was the Dogger Bank 
 affair in January, '15. The " Mock Turtles " were 
 away up in the north and the enemy scouts reported 
 the fact. The coast seemed clear and out came 
 the Germans for a game of " tip and run." Un- 
 luckily, though, for them Sir David Beatty and his 
 " Cat ' squadron were watching the mouse-hole
 
 COMBAT 157 
 
 (it was not a pre-arranged affair as far as I am 
 aware) and the " Cat ,: ' squadron pounced, with the 
 result which all the world knows. So the " Mock 
 Turtles ' may fairly claim some credit for their 
 share in the action. In fact My Lords admitted 
 as much. 
 
 It was odd, though, that the " Mock Turtles " 
 managed for so long to evade the unwelcome atten- 
 tions of enemy submarines. There were a few alarms 
 but nothing happened. It would have been very 
 galling, one imagines, to have been attacked with 
 no reply possible save a few rounds from the rook- 
 rifles. But probably the ships' companies would 
 have been rolling about on the deck doubled up with 
 laughter all the while. 
 
 Admiral Jellicoc went along one day to inspect 
 the squadron. Boarding the flagship he glanced 
 round. His practised eye noted a small skiff slung 
 somewhere amidships. 
 
 'What ship do you represent?' the Admiral 
 asked the skipper. 
 
 The Ajax, sir,*' replied the skipper. 
 
 "Then thai boat does not belong there," re- 
 marked the Admiral. 
 
 The meresl trifle, perhaps, but it suggests once 
 
 mi how the Royal Navy attends to detail. 
 
 Two of the 'Mock Turtles' did good service 
 in the Mediterranean, and there one of them met 
 her end. She was torpedoed by a submarine as 
 she   corted ' some merchanl tramps. And even 
 when the submarine commander saw the great 
 L8-inch guns floating about on the water he didn't 
 
 that he had wasted 11,000 worth of torpedo
 
 158 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 on a dummy. The commander was taken prisoner 
 shortly afterwards, and the Navy tells with glee 
 how they found him gibbering with unholy laughter, 
 vowing that never again would he touch Scotch 
 whisky. 
 
 But that is probably just a little of the " Navy 
 touch," added for the benefit of the poor, unso- 
 phisticated landsman.
 
 CONVOY 
 
 " If anyone wishes to know the history of this war I will tell 
 them it is our maritime superiority gives me the power of maintaining 
 my army while the enemy are unable to do so." 
 
 — Wellington (in Spain, 1813). 
 
 Of all the many phases of the work of the Navy 
 in the Great War there is nothing in which public 
 indifference has been more marked than in the 
 matter of transport and convoy of our troops. It 
 is certainly curious that it should be so for there 
 can be few households in the Kingdom which have 
 not sent a son or brother into the Army. Yet this, 
 the most astonishing feat which has ever been per- 
 formed by a Naval Power, has been taken for granted 
 as a piece of ordinary, simple routine work. 
 
 The Navy, if it ever gives a thought to that 
 display of indifference, doubtless takes it as a com- 
 plimenl and goes calmly on its way. JSut, for my 
 own part, I cannot but feel that it has passed beyond 
 the limits of a joke In common justice to our sca- 
 
 farers, if for i ther reason, it is the duty of the 
 
 Authority I of the Press to sec to it thai our 
 
 pie are fully informed upon this point at least. 
 
 I fully admil the difficulties for I am faced with 
 them here. Figures and statistics are tiresome, 
 stubborn things, and very dull reading. Besides 
 no one can possibly grasp lh<' meaning of the enor- 
 mous figures with which the country has deal! during 
 
 159
 
 160 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the War. It is no manner of use telling Mr. John 
 Citizen that we have been spending seven million 
 pounds sterling per day. He will merely blink in 
 vague wonder and inquire when haddocks are going 
 to be cheaper ; " Is. 6d. each is an awful price." 
 
 Well, let us try to gather up a few facts in this 
 matter of " Convoy." And under this heading I 
 am concerned solely with the maritime transport 
 of our troops (and of some of our Allies) and the 
 maintenance of our Armies in the field. 
 
 At the outset, in August, '14, we were concerned 
 only with a single sphere of operations — Belgium 
 and France. To this, West Africa was added almost 
 at once. Then one by one were added the others 
 until, in 1918, we were actually at work in no fewer 
 than seven theatres of war : 
 
 France, Palestine, 
 
 Italy, Salonika, 
 
 N. Russia, Africa, 
 
 Mesopotamia. 
 
 Each of those theatres was provided with a 
 stock company which had to be kept fully equipped 
 in personnel and equipment to carry on the " con- 
 tinuous performance." No forty-seven hour week 
 for them, and ten minutes allowed off before lunch 
 for washing your hands. 
 
 Some figures I must give ; it is inevitable. You 
 will not grasp them any more than I do, but they 
 must go down. Here then is the number of men 
 of ours transported by sea between August, '14, and 
 November 30, 1918 : — 
 
 23,705,814
 
 CONVOY 161 
 
 A number representing rather more than half 
 the total population of the United Kingdom in 
 1914 ; and more than double that of the population 
 of England and Wales at the close of the Napoleonic 
 Wars. 
 
 Of those twenty-three million odd we have lost 
 upon the high seas no more than 5,000. Of the 
 5,000 some 3,000 were lost by enemy action, in- 
 cluding 550 in hospital ships, and the remainder by 
 the ordinary perils of the sea. 
 
 Thai is th<' number of personnel, effective and 
 non-effective, carried by military sea transport 
 under the sure shield of the British Navy and by 
 the Mariners of England. 
 
 That seems to mc worth talking about if only 
 one can get the meaning of these figures home. 
 
 And yet that figure of the personnel represents 
 but a fraction of the total transport. Nor has 
 this transport anything whatever to do with the 
 convoy of our merchant ships. Take just one more 
 number, thai of the horse transport. 
 
 The British Navy has transported by sea 
 2,^40,495 horses and mules between the same dates. 
 
 And have you ever seen them embarking and 
 disembarking just fifty horses in one ship ? Let 
 alone mules. (I wish I could turn on a kinema 
 
 film of :i mule being taken on hoard. Thai would 
 
 bring home the job of tackling a few thousand of 
 Hi.- beasts.) 
 
 \mu here is a little point for comparison. The 
 •<)|d ContemptibL lined up at Mons, and opened 
 the War for Britain, just about 78,000 strong. In 
 
 i.
 
 162 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 March, 1918, when, you will remember, the Ger- 
 mans made their last big effort to win the Channel 
 ports, and when everyone at home was gripping the 
 arms of his chair at the news of our losses, the 
 British Navy took its coat off, rolled up its sleeves 
 and buckled to. 
 
 Within ten days the Navy carried across to France 
 close upon 250,000 men and their equipment, zvithout 
 the loss of a single man, horse, or gun. 
 
 As a feat of organisation and transport alone 
 it is staggering enough. But when you add in all 
 the defence measures necessary against a cunning 
 and unscrupulous enemy, and the wholly success- 
 ful foiling of submarine attacks — I know no word 
 to describe it. The Admiralty, in their official 
 report, called it " stupendous," so we will leave 
 it at that. 
 
 And here one or two points about methods of 
 submarine attack will not be out of place, for they 
 may serve to show some of the difficulties involved. 
 I will take the case of the transport full of American 
 troops which was torpedoed off the south of Ireland 
 in the spring of 1918. 
 
 The ship was under the escort of destroyers, a 
 light cruiser and aircraft ; every possible precaution 
 was taken. At about 4.30 in the afternoon the 
 captain received the warning that enemy submarines 
 were about. You may imagine that if everyone 
 was on the look-out before that the closest watch 
 was kept after the message came through. Nothing 
 happened. Suddenly, about 7.0, without another 
 word of warning, there was a crashing explosion
 
 CONVOY 163 
 
 from a torpedo, and the transport began to go down. 
 No one saw either submarine or torpedo. 
 
 An ordinary submarine can submerge com- 
 pletely within thirty or forty seconds, at the worst 
 within two minutes. She can remain submerged 
 without ever coming to the surface for forty-eight 
 hours ; and she can steam 100 miles under water 
 without coming up. Her speed on the surface 
 averages 14-18 knots; submerged, 8-10 knots. 
 
 Apart from any guns she may have on board a 
 submarine will carry perhaps 20 torpedoes. Now 
 a torpedo has a range of about five miles, and a 
 speed of anything up to 40 knots. (Some of our 
 most valuable cargoes are carried in ships which 
 only make about 7 knots.) And — this is the par- 
 ticular point to bear in mind — a submarine need 
 not come to the surface to fire her torpedoes. 
 
 Now imagine that you arc standing within a 
 submarine by the side of the commander, the eye- 
 piece of the periscope before him. Above the water 
 there projects a few inches of the periscope, which 
 is about as big round as a smallish flower-pot. If 
 it is visible at all from a ship it can look no larger 
 than a match in the waste of waters. 
 
 Through the periscope the commander sights a 
 ship. lie takes a bearing ; submerges the periscope. 
 In. say, ten minutes up goes the periscope and 
 another bearing on the ship is taken. (We are 
 imagining a perfectly simple ease where the ship 
 keeps t<» a direct course.) Down comes the peri- 
 
 pe. 
 
 In. say, fifteen minutes the commander will 
 remark, - " H'm ! 1 think we'll do thai ship in now ! "
 
 i6 4 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 He gives his order. Off goes the torpedo. Up goes 
 the ship. 
 
 Now, if those few facts be borne in mind the 
 wonder will be, not that so many of our mer- 
 chant ships have been sunk but that any have ever 
 escaped. 
 
 And apropos of the American transport the 
 British Navy has this, too, to its credit : 2,080,000 
 (two million and eighty thousand) American soldiers 
 came to France. The men, their baggage, their 
 guns, horses, food, and all the impedimenta of so 
 mighty a modern army. 
 
 All those men and their gear had to be trans- 
 ported across 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean. Seas 
 in which enemy submarines were " all out " to sink 
 every transport possible ; for it was Germany's last 
 chance. She had to stop those transports, or, 
 colossal egoist though she is, she knew her end was 
 certain. 
 
 The Americans came. Of their two million odd 
 considerably over one million were carried across 
 in British ships. And British warships furnished 
 15 per cent of the total escort. 
 
 Of those 2,080,000 American soldiers only 747 
 were lost on the high seas. 
 
 And, be it noted, the British Navy had sundry 
 other jobs in hand at the same time. 
 
 To my great regret I saw only too little of the 
 American ships and sailormen in our Home waters, 
 so I cannot say much from first-hand. But Admiral 
 Bcatty has many times voiced the professional 
 opinion of the Grand Fleet, and that opinion was
 
 CONVOY 165 
 
 a high one. Certain it is, though, that Great Britain 
 owes a very real, a very great debt of gratitude to 
 Admiral Sims and Admiral Rodman of the United 
 States Navy. 
 
 The task of co-operation between the two Navies 
 was a most difficult one. American Navy ways are 
 not Royal Navy ways. The British sailorman is 
 jealous (and rightly so) of the great tradition of his 
 calling. For he has acquired it through the storm 
 and stress of a thousand years. 
 
 But it was a great and a notable example that 
 Admiral Sims and Admiral Rodman set ; and their 
 countrymen, being sailors, saw that it was good, 
 put aside their differences, and started in to learn 
 our ways. And only the officers and men of the 
 Royal Navy can appreciate how hard the task 
 was. Other pens than mine will, I hope, pay the 
 tribute that is the due of those two gallant officers 
 and most courteous gentlemen. 
 
 Well, yes, I must admit there was a certain 
 amount of professional jealousy knocking about 
 between the American sailorman and his British 
 comrade They are quaint chaps, those American 
 sailors. 1 have seen a good deal of them on the 
 Pacific coasl in pre-war days, and even then — well, 
 they maintained a very strong opinion about the 
 might of " God's own country." 
 
 I »ut one of them met his Waterloo on a day at 
 Le Havre. And it was thuswisc. 
 
 Say, Jack," said the American sailorman to 
 a British bluejacket as they forgathered over a 
 friendly glass, " is thai the British Fleet out there ? " 
 And he pointed out of the window across the
 
 166 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 harbour where a few T.B.D.s, submarines and a light 
 cruiser or two rode at anchor. 
 
 " Lord, no ! ' snorted the bluejacket. " A few 
 light craft, patrol ships and things." 
 
 " Well," said the American, " I guess we've got 
 any little old steam-tug our side would tow the 
 whole of the British Fleet into Noo York harbour." 
 And he smiled with relish. 
 
 " H'm ! " said Jack. " Maybe. Very likely. 
 But " — very slowly — " it 'ud take a damned sight 
 cleverer man than Christopher Columbus to discover 
 America afterwards." 
 
 So now back to England once again. 
 
 In all this land of ours there is no spot ' ' that 
 is for ever England " more hallowed by memories of 
 home than is Dover. To the wanderer those fair 
 white cliffs give England's last farewell as he sets 
 forth upon his journey, her radiant welcoming as 
 he returns. 
 
 From our earliest history the Dover Straits and 
 the Narrow Seas have been the cockpit of England's 
 sea warfare. They have witnessed our victories, 
 our defeats, and our humiliation. To tell the story 
 of Dover and the Kentish and Sussex shore is 
 almost to tell the story of England. 
 
 Now once again has the Moving Finger written. 
 Nor may we, if we would, blot out a single word of 
 the writing ; for the tears of pride and of sorrow that 
 we let fall for the gallant dead sleeping beneath 
 those seas they will but illumine in flaming gold the 
 dear names of those our loved ones. 
 
 For the story of the Dover Patrol tells how once
 
 
 VICE-ADMIRAL SIR ROGER KEYES
 
 CONVOY 167 
 
 again the mariners of England kept the Narrow 
 Seas secure against an enemy. Tells, too, how our 
 honourable and chivalrous foes of yesterday have 
 been our comrades in arms to-day. How the fisher- 
 folk of splendid Breton stock have fought side by 
 side with their brothers of our southern and eastern 
 shores ; shared with them the toil and the danger, 
 reaped with them the harvest of fame and honour. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Royal Navy, I pray you stand 
 aside for the moment ! Yours, I grant you, has 
 been the direction of the operations. Yours the 
 gallant Commanders — Rear- Admiral Sir Horace Hood, 
 Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, Vice-Admiral Sir 
 Roger Keyes. Yours the submarines, the destroyers, 
 but — what of the rest ? I know you for the good 
 sportsmen you are ; you will not grudge the poor 
 tribute one may pay to, shall I say, the rank and 
 file? 
 
 For it was the deep-sea fishermen and the lands- 
 men of the sea-breed, the third and fourth estates 
 of the British Navy, who kept the Narrow Seas 
 tluough the years of the Great War. The fisher- 
 men in their drifters and trawlers, 256 little vessels 
 all told ; the landsmen in their tiny motor-launches, 
 25 of them. Naval Reserve men, too, as I have 
 already told,* on the monitors and other ships. 
 All of them serving, " with a zeal and enthusiasm 
 which could not have been surpassed," f day and 
 night without ceasing for four and a half years, all 
 weathers, winter and summer, snow, sleet, fog, and 
 sunshine. 
 
 * Ante, page <s I. 
 
 t Vice-Admiral Bacon in his first despatch.
 
 168 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Not that I would for a moment detract from 
 the never-ending task of the destroyers, for to them 
 fell the duties of offence against enemy submarines 
 and enemy destroyers (when they ventured out). 
 But even this task was shared by the cheery little 
 drifters, the Abigails of the Fleet. 
 
 How Blake and Rodney and Hawke would have 
 rubbed their eyes in amazement could they have 
 revisited in these days the waters that they knew 
 so well. I picture old Lord Howe in his great 
 100-gun line-of-battle ship setting a course down 
 Channel. Before ever he reaches the first barrier 
 a cheeky motor-launch frisks across his bows and 
 hails my Lord to heave to. And the Admiral gazes 
 down in stupefaction at the tiny Lilliputian whom 
 he could haul up through a port-hole and drop into 
 his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 " What ship is that ? " roars my Lord, ever the 
 polite gentleman. 
 
 ' His Majesty's ship Mammoth,'''' comes back the 
 answer. " And I must request you to haul across 
 and follow me at two cables' length or you'll be 
 blown up." 
 
 ' And what is your office, sir, may I ask ? ' 
 calls my Lord. 
 
 ' Down Channel patrol for the present," says 
 the Mammoth, " stage manager of the Palaceum 
 Theatre of Varieties in civil life." 
 
 ' Good Ged ! ' gasps my Lord as he staggers 
 back into his cabin for a bottle of port. " A sailor 
 of sixty years and an Admiral to boot to be ordered 
 across on His Majesty's seas by a rascally play- 
 actor ! "
 
 CONVOY 169 
 
 Never before have the good Dover folk looked 
 upon such an astonishing medley of shipping. Great 
 flat-bellied monitors ; crazy old battleships painted 
 all colours of the rainbow that you may never tell 
 what course they are steering ; latest types of 
 destroyers which can race the London-Plymouth 
 express ; squat-bowed fishing-steamers ; exquisite 
 yachts of American millionaires and English duch- 
 esses, with their marble baths full of good Welsh 
 steam coal and their staterooms littered with pickled 
 salmon tins ; a slim motor-launch that has won 
 races in New Jersey, now vain as a peacock in her 
 drab grey paint and a torpedo tube that fires real 
 live torpedoes ; old merchant tramps and graceful 
 liners, all hacked about and camouflaged out of all 
 knowledge — these and half a score more. 
 
 And they're all out for the Dover Patrol, up 
 and down Channel after the Hun like hounds after 
 a fox. Shepherding a meat ship from Australia 
 through the mazes of a minefield ; steering a great 
 troopship through a thick sea-fog — 125,100 ships 
 has the Dover Patrol passed through its gates 
 since August, 1914, and only 73 of them have been 
 lost— 73 ships out of 125,100. 
 
 Over 7,000 men a day were we sending back- 
 wards and forwards to France. Over 30,000 tons 
 ol* stores were imported each day into France for 
 our Armies. 52,000,000 tons of stores altogether 
 were transported under British convoy. 
 
 Think of the millions of letters that went to 
 cheer our men on the Western Front. You, dear 
 lady, in your little villa in Dulwich, when you packed 
 that plum-pudding so carefully, that little parcel
 
 170 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 of peppermints and meat extract wrapped round 
 by a woolly scarf moistened by your precious mid- 
 night tears — did you give a passing thought to those 
 old Grimsby trawler-men who, at the peril of their 
 lives, saw to it that your loving gift was carried safely ? 
 You, my lass, in your cottage just outside grimy 
 Accrington — when you added the last little note 
 from your " lad " to that packet which you cherish 
 so dearly ; that packet of soiled and stained half- 
 sheets and meagre Service postcards now fastened 
 round by a slip of dainty ribbon — did you ever 
 wonder how they came to reach you ? Do you 
 remember that last little note arriving — that night 
 when you had almost given up all hope ? Let me 
 tell you how it came. 
 
 It was at Boulogne that they shipped the mail- 
 bags aboard the steamer. A dreadful night of wind 
 and sleet coming down from the nor' -east. The 
 captain misdoubted if he'd be able to start at all. 
 You've seen something of big seas at Blackpool 
 in the autumn — " high tides " — when the waves 
 sweep over the esplanade and drive half-way up 
 those narrow streets. Imagine those waves out in 
 the open seas, and the force of them driving down 
 the narrow Channel. 
 
 Right across from France to England there run 
 the great barriers of mines and netting, held in 
 place at regular intervals by those little trawlers 
 and buoys. They open gateways to let the ship- 
 ping through. The trawlers, with their handful 
 of men aboard, must needs steam against wind 
 and tide to keep the anchors from dragging. Can
 
 CONVOY 171 
 
 you see those men aboard lashed hour after hour 
 by the pitiless wind and icy rain (for there's just 
 a little deck-house or so for protection) ; striving 
 to peer through the inky darkness, watching and 
 guarding lest some enemy craft should break through ? 
 
 The mail steamer has put out to sea. She's got 
 a hundred or so men aboard coining back to Blighty 
 for their hard-won four days' leave. Every man 
 wears a life-belt, for an unseen death may strike 
 hard at any moment. 
 
 Into the Channel she cuts her way, and the 
 great seas come smashing across her beam, flooding 
 the decks with a freezing torrent of water. Not a 
 light is shown. Thick blackness without and within. 
 
 And the trawler-men in their sodden, leaden 
 oilskins and hats toil unceasingly, praying for the 
 dawn, hauling upon cables that burn the hand with 
 their links of frozen steel. A drifter patrol passes 
 and gives a cheery hail. A rocket flashes skyward 
 somewhere near, and breaks into orange stars. 
 
 Suddenly a beam of brilliant light stabs through 
 the darkness, falls full upon a trawler, blinding the 
 look-out men. From two sides a queer, muffled, 
 barking snap of guns, and three high-explosive shells 
 burst full within a tiny trawler. 
 
 Down the line flash after flash, and great crashes 
 echo sullenly through the storm. German de- 
 stroyers are out slashing and killing in a Berserk 
 fury. A switch-on of the searchlight, a salvo of shell, 
 11 shuddering heave from the fisher-craft as the shells 
 strike home, and the enemy destroyers are lost in 
 the darkness, leaving behind a trail of flame, a score 
 of mangled bodies a bloody shambles of death.
 
 172 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Here and there a miniature dinghy is launched 
 into the tossing waves, paddled clear by a handful 
 of survivors as the seas swim over their ship, quench- 
 ing the fires as she sinks. 
 
 Three trawlers will put out no more from the 
 quay-side. Two score fisher-lads have gone to their 
 last long rest. Three score, maybe, wives and 
 womenfolk will turn in anguish away from the little 
 port when the rest of the fleet comes home, but — 
 the mail-steamer warped safely alongside the Folke- 
 stone pier ; three more trawlers took the empty 
 stations in the Patrol ; and you, little lass from 
 Accrington ; you got your letter all right, didn't 
 you ? 
 
 And you, old comrade of mine. Do you remem- 
 ber that bitter night in January, 1915, down by 
 Messines ? Up to your thighs you were in frozen 
 mud. No " Ritz Hotel ' dugouts in those days, 
 were there, old man ? You just had to stick it 
 somehow. And, by God, you did too. Do you 
 remember the corporal plumping down the trench 
 with a big jar ? Just a good tot each. The real 
 old Navy brand it was. Do you remember how 
 that tot put a new heart into you ? It saved the 
 life of your next number, anyway. 
 
 I don't believe we thought much about it in 
 those days— where it came from, I mean. Or the 
 " fags," or the grub generally. But the good old 
 Navy not only gave us that topping rum of theirs, 
 but it jolly well saw that we got it all right. So 
 wc won't forget the carrier when he comes along 
 for his Christmas-box. By gum, he deserves it 1
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 " Communications dominate War." — Admiral Mahan. 
 
 You may skip this short chapter if you like ; it is 
 rather dry. 
 
 Decided to go on with it ? Very well. 
 
 In those three words quoted above has the dis- 
 tinguished American naval writer summed up the 
 axiom which lies at the root of all military strategy, 
 whether by land or sea. And the subject naturally 
 resolves itself for consideration under four simple 
 heads : — 
 
 1. For Great Britain : — 
 
 (a) The maintenance of her military com- 
 
 munications. 
 
 (b) The maintenance of her commerce and 
 
 trade. 
 
 2. Against Germany : — 
 
 (a) The cutting of enemy military com- 
 
 munications. 
 
 (b) The stoppage of enemy commerce. 
 
 In short, preserving intact our own lines of com- 
 munication and cutting those of the enemy. 1 (a) 
 was considered in outline in the previous chapter, 
 and 2 (a.) under the heading tv Combat." But 
 before^ passing on to the two remaining divisions a 
 
 173
 
 174 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 further reference to the military aspect may suitably 
 be made. 
 
 Germany, like Great Britain, possessed at the 
 outbreak of War overseas colonies * and territory. 
 To preserve those colonies as parts of the respective 
 empires each Power must necessarily be in a position 
 to support them effectively if attacked. And that 
 effective support could only be possible if the par- 
 ticular Power held the command of the sea, and of 
 the lines of sea communications, viz. the trade 
 routes and oversea bases. 
 
 As regards the position of Australia and New 
 Zealand, Lord Kitchener's Memorandum of 1910 
 to the Governments of those countries is note- 
 worthy. 
 
 " It is an axiom," he wrote, " held by the British 
 Government that the Empire's existence depends 
 primarily upon the maintenance of adequate and 
 efficient naval forces. As long as this condition 
 is fulfilled and as long as British superiority at sea 
 is assured, then it is an accepted principle that no 
 British dominion can be successfully and perman- 
 ently conquered by an organised invasion from over- 
 sea." f 
 
 As we know Great Britain secured the command 
 of the sea at the very beginning of the war, not by 
 the annihilation of the enemy fleet but by the mere 
 
 * Of course Australia and Canada and South Africa and New 
 Zealand should not be termed " colonies." I only use the word 
 in the general sense of overseas more or less dependent countries. 
 
 f Lord Kitchener went on to advise the provision of local 
 military forces to deal with a possible invasion as the command 
 of the sea by Great Britain might not at the outset be wholly 
 secured.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 175 
 
 threat of such destruction. The main German fleet 
 was thenceforward contained in its own harbours 
 and rendered impotent so far as all real issues of 
 the war were concerned. A military blockade was 
 established upon the conditions of the maxim already 
 quoted,* and his exits to the Atlantic Ocean were 
 sealed at the Straits of Dover in the south, and 
 between Norway and the Orkneys in the north. 
 
 Now the British Navy never did care very much 
 about blockades ; the idea of shutting the enemy 
 up is entirely foreign to the tradition of " attack." 
 So having shut him up the next thing to do was to 
 try to get him out. Thus the blockade was of such 
 a character as to give him plenty of room for air and 
 exercise. f He appeared to wish for neither the one 
 nor the other. 
 
 And here a most important point should be 
 noted. However the enemy fleet may be dealt 
 with it is practically impossible ever to prevent 
 him from making raids, or to prevent isolated 
 attacks upon shipping. That fact has been evidenced 
 over and over again in our naval history. For 
 instance, after the victory of Trafalgar, French 
 privateers snapped up our merchant-ships by dozens, 
 even in the Channel. Lord Hawke's victory at 
 Quiberon Bay was decisive, but that did not prevent 
 the enemy, almost immediately afterwards, from 
 capturing transports within actual sight of the 
 English coast. II' only our people had been properly 
 
 * That the enemy's communications should he cut at a point 
 as close as possihlc to liis Ikisc. 
 
 I Just as Nelson tried to tempt Villeneuvc out of Cadiz in 18U5-
 
 i 7 6 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 enlightened upon that point much trouble and un- 
 just criticism might have been avoided. 
 
 As neither our continuous transport of troops 
 to France nor the destruction of German commerce 
 could tempt the enemy out, and all other methods 
 failing, a stalemate followed. But the enemy 
 communications were cut at their main base, and 
 the principal object was achieved. German colonies 
 were lost to her, and our own communications re- 
 mained intact, save for isolated raids which could 
 not affect the main issues. 
 
 Thus, whatever happened to our advantage in 
 the way of military success in any part of the world 
 — the conquest of Palestine, of German Africa, the 
 downfall of Turkey, the finale on the Western 
 Front — that success was won only because the 
 Grand Fleet in the North Sea had done, and continued 
 to do, its ivork. 
 
 Similarly it was because the line was not cut 
 at another base that we experienced all that trouble 
 with Zeebrugge and Ostend, the jumping-off places 
 for enemy submarines and aircraft. Why it was 
 not cut is not my present concern, I only make the 
 point by way of illustration. But this much should 
 be said. Admiral Jellicoe always fully recognised 
 the grave danger of those enemy bases and the need 
 for dealing with the enemy submarines, not in the 
 open seas but within their ports. He worked un- 
 ceasingly to that end so long as he retained office 
 at the Admiralty. 
 
 It would be interesting to learn how Germany 
 proposed to send aid to, or otherwise protect, her
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 177 
 
 colonies in the war which she was preparing. Pre- 
 sumably the all-wise Kaiser had some brilliant ideas 
 on the subject. For Germany possessed no over- 
 seas bases, with which to link up her communica- 
 tions. She tried to secure Madeira in 1905 by 
 bullying Portugal, but luckily Great Britain stood 
 by her old ally and Germany was compelled to 
 climb down. With Madeira and the Azores in 
 German hands as submarine bases the position oi' 
 Great Britain and of America would have been a 
 serious one. 
 
 For such bases upon the sea-routes are all- 
 important in modern warfare. In the old days a 
 sailing-ship could keep the seas for months at a 
 time. Nelson, for instance, used to see to it that 
 his ships carried supplies to last for four or five 
 months. Nowadays a battleship must needs put 
 in for fuel every few days or else arrange for taking 
 it in from another vessel. And you may not over- 
 load a battleship with fuel or she will lose much of 
 her fighting trim ; as Rozhdestvensky, the Russian 
 admiral, found to his cost when he gave battle to 
 the Japanese in the Tsushima Straits. 
 
 With this brief outline of the general principle 
 of sea-communications from the military side of 
 the war — and recalling the illustrations given in 
 I devious chapters — we may now turn to the com- 
 mercial aspect : how the Grand Fleet strangled 
 German commerce, and how our Seafarers main- 
 tained our own. 
 
 With a great maritime nation such as ours, and 
 with a public opinion upon all sea matters so deli- 
 
 M
 
 178 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 cately poised, it is certain that we must rank the 
 question of our commerce protection as at least 
 equal in importance to that of " seeking out and 
 destroying the enemy fleet." 
 
 The platitude that Britain lives only by means 
 of the sea is none the less true because it is well- 
 worn. And yet it was only because our people 
 rarely if ever remembered it that they constantly 
 demanded to know what the Navy was doing. And 
 they rarely remembered it simply because the 
 efficiency of the Navy made them forget. And 
 also because, once again, no organised attempt was 
 made to enlighten them. With the inevitable result. 
 
 During the first two years or so of the War Great 
 Britain depended for nearly 70 per cent, of her 
 food-stuffs upon countries oversea. And that food 
 was brought to our shores by the merchant seamen, 
 sometimes under the escort of the Royal Navy, 
 more frequently without that escort. Although it 
 was only because the Grand Fleet was paramount 
 in the North Sea that those imports were possible 
 at all. 
 
 During those two years, during the whole of the 
 War it is just the exact truth to say that we never 
 once felt the pinch. 
 
 That remark even now may raise a smile. A 
 couple of years ago it generally evoked some ironical 
 laughter from my audiences. But it needed but a 
 few minutes to convince them when a description 
 of the sufferings of other countries was given. 
 
 Of course we went short of luxuries ; which we 
 soon discovered we could well do without. But 
 I cannot recall any essential foods for which we had
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 179 
 
 to accept " substitutes," save butter, and, in place 
 of that, margarine (which I detest) is well known 
 to be of good nutritive value. 
 
 In Germany, every essential, including articles 
 of clothing, came to be a " substitute." And I 
 always enjoy with grim satisfaction recalling the 
 remark of a certain once-fat German. On being 
 told that very soon they would have to come down 
 to eating rats as Paris did in 1870 he replied : ' I 
 don't mind eating rats so much, but what I dread 
 is the time when we shall have to eat rat-substitute." 
 
 In short, the grace which was said after dinner 
 by the little daughter of Admiral Halsey, when he 
 was home one day for a " drop o' leaf," should have 
 been repeated in every home in the country : 
 
 " For what we have received, to the Lord and 
 the British Navy, we're truly thankful." 
 
 But, first, how did we deal with Germany ? 
 We will give that a chapter to itself.
 
 The Blockade of Germany 
 
 " Talk about your so-called atrocities which our men are said to 
 have committed in Belgium," they said to me, " it would be nothing 
 in comparison with what our men would do in England, and we 
 women want to be there too." 
 
   — Gustav Roeder, of the New York World, upon the State 
 of Mind of German Women. April, 1915. 
 
 It was the mines which began it. What the Inter- 
 national rules say about them I am not quite sure, 
 but it is quite certain that a Power may not strew 
 them about haphazard on the ocean highways with 
 the chance of their destroying innocent, neutral 
 ships. 
 
 And that is what Germany did to the north of 
 the Irish Sea within the first two or three months 
 of the war. I well remember the astonishment and 
 disgust with which we read the news out in France ; 
 and we were quite busy enough, too, with the First 
 Battle of Ypres. Whatever ghastly horrors Germany 
 might commit on land it was quite seriously imagined 
 that, with the universal comradeship of the sea, she 
 would play the straight game on the ocean. How 
 ludicrous appears now our resentment at that first 
 symptom of the bloody catalogue of crime which 
 was to follow. 
 
 Well, those mines gave to the British Navy the 
 first hint of the increasingly stern measures which 
 would have to be adopted with the enemy if we 
 would protect ourselves. In those early days the 
 
 1 80
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 181 
 
 leading principles of the law of contraband and 
 enemy trading were faithfully observed by Great 
 Britain, and to her detriment. And the principles 
 may be briefly summed up in this way. 
 
 Enemy ships and cargoes therein were liable to 
 capture and confiscation. A ship might be sunk 
 outright only after every provision had been made for 
 the crew and passengers, if it was impossible to take 
 the ship into port, and in self defence. 
 
 Neutral ships were free to enter and leave enemy 
 ports. If they carried enemy cargoes still they 
 were free unless that cargo was a " contraband of 
 war." And " contraband of war ' was any stuffs 
 which would be of direct use to the enemy's fighting 
 forces. If it was stuff which was primarily of use 
 to the civilian population but which could also be 
 of use to the fighting forces then it was termed 
 " conditional contraband." And if " conditional 
 contraband ' in a neutral ship was bound for an 
 enemy port it was liable to capture. 
 
 Either form of contraband which, though invoiced 
 to a neutral port, could be proved to be destined 
 for the enemy was liable to capture. Food for the 
 enemy's civil population was not contraband. If 
 it were intended for the fighting forces then it was 
 contraband. But how was anyone to decide for 
 whom the food was intended ? So the benefit of 
 the doubt was usually given — in the early days. 
 
 As the war went on it became obvious that 
 there is hardly any commodity in existence which, 
 in one way or another, may not be of some practical 
 use to the fighting forces. Cotton, for instance, 
 which one naturally associates with sheets and
 
 182 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 tablecloths, is an important ingredient in munitions. 
 Copper also. Thus, endless difficulties were created. 
 And although the general principles of contraband 
 law are clear enough there have always arisen an 
 infinite number of questions and debates about their 
 proper construction. So, at the outset, our blockade 
 of Germany (such as it was) was bound to evoke 
 complaints from neutrals, especially America. 
 
 The first trouble, I believe, arose about the 
 copper. Germany wanted copper for her shells 
 very badly. She had no ships of her own available. 
 Therefore it had to come in neutrals. But the 
 neutral ships booked the cargoes to their own neutral 
 ports. How were we to prove that the cargo was 
 destined for Germany ? Well, so far as possible, 
 Great Britain took the risk — and the copper. 
 America protested before 1914 was out. 
 
 On January 26, 1915, Germany took a step 
 which, ipso facto, did away with all distinction 
 between her civil population and fighting forces in 
 the matter of foodstuffs. She announced that all 
 foodstuffs in Germany would be taken over by the 
 Government. 
 
 Then we knew where we were. Food became 
 contraband of war. Great Britain might not have 
 declared it so had it not been for the infamous prac- 
 tices of the enemy upon the high seas, practices 
 which daily were becoming more and more unbridled. 
 
 On February 18 Germany announced a blockade 
 of the British Isles, and the north and west coasts 
 of France. That " all enemy ships found in that 
 area will be destroyed and neutral vessels may be
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 183 
 
 exposed to danger." Otherwise, an announcement 
 that ships would be torpedoed at sight because the 
 attacks could only be made by submarines. 
 
 On March 1, 1915, Great Britain replied with 
 a Declaration which is historic. I quote here the 
 concluding paragraph, for therein is set forth 
 the principle of detention, not destruction, which the 
 Allies thenceforth followed, and of which, in a 
 moment, I will give an illustration. 
 
 ' The British and French Governments will 
 therefore hold themselves free to detain and take 
 into port ships carrying goods of presumed enemy 
 destination, ownership or origin. It is not in- 
 tended to confiscate such vessels or cargoes unless 
 they would otherwise be liable to condemnation." 
 
 At the outbreak of war Germany had 915 ships 
 on the high seas in different parts of the world. Of 
 that number within about a fortnight only 158 
 had returned to their ports ; the remainder had 
 been captured or had taken refuge in neutral ports. 
 
 The Atlantic Ocean contains about 30,000,000 
 square miles. Within a fortnight of the outbreak 
 not a single German merchant-ship was sailing within 
 those waters. 
 
 The Pacific Ocean is about 70,000,000. Not a 
 single German merchant-ship. The Indian Ocean 
 is about 30,000,000 square miles. Not a German 
 merchant-ship. In the North Sea of about 250,000 
 square miles, not a German merchant-ship. 
 
 A useful Navy, that of the British ! 
 
 But the ships of the neutral Powers were very 
 much alive, and they were " all out " running con-
 
 1 84 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 traband of war. It was a very paying game if the 
 stuff could be got through. 
 
 Across the north of the mist-shrouded Isles of 
 Shetland runs the great ocean highway between 
 America and Scandinavia. And across that high- 
 way in never-ending patrol lay the famous Tenth 
 Cruiser Squadron ; Rear- Admiral Sir Dudley De 
 Chair commanded it for the first two years of the 
 war. 
 
 Famous ? Aye, famous even in the Royal Navy, 
 where great deeds are matters of everyday routine. 
 No glory of battle was theirs save that of the ceaseless 
 warfare against the arctic seas. No stern fight 
 against an armed enemy, save that furnished in an 
 occasional pleasant half-hour with an enemy sub- 
 marine. Nothing to provide stirring " copy ' for 
 the newspapers. Nothing to make a man grip his 
 neighbour by the arm with " hullo ! the Navy's 
 actually doing some work at last." No. Just 
 slogging at it day and night. Just helping to beat 
 the Hun. Just — carrying on. 
 
 I have told of the destroyers and how they fared 
 in those far northern seas. They were of the Tenth 
 Squadron. I have spoken with many of their 
 commanders ; I have looked into their eyes and 
 read in their depths something of the story which 
 their lips would never utter. I have had the 
 honour of sharing a trifle of the discomfort which 
 was theirs for weary months on end. One such 
 expedition I recall when the little vessel pitched and 
 rolled off the northern coast, drove her tiny bows 
 through the headlong seas, made rough weather. 
 After an eternity of years (as it seemed) she got back
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 185 
 
 into port and I made so bold as to ask the " owner ' 
 what sort of a cruise he called it. " Damned dirty," 
 he replied. And I, the poor, but would-be brave 
 landsman was strangely comforted. For I knew 
 then that it must have been awful, and I had 
 managed to stick it. 
 
 And yet that was but typical of all the tedious 
 weeks as they passed into months, and the months 
 into years. The summer, six poor weeks, is all 
 too short in those northern latitudes ; and the winter 
 is very, very long. And through it all the ships 
 of the Squadron went about their business. For 
 theirs was the duty of examining every ship that 
 passed upon the highway. And if a ship is run- 
 ning contraband of war she is not very likely to 
 come up and knock at the door and ask to be 
 searched. 
 
 A rare game of hide-and-seek some of them made 
 of it up there amongst the ice-floes ; and playing 
 " I spy ' in an Arctic fog with loose mines about 
 is most emphatically not an enjoyable pastime. 
 But the Seekers had to win every time or they knew 
 that it meant the killing and maiming of more of 
 our lads in France. And so they set their teeth 
 and — carried on. 
 
 Strung out across the seas, twenty miles or so 
 apart, were little isolated units of the squadron. 
 Destroyers, armed boarding vessels, and the ever- 
 ready and always-on-the-spot- when-there's-work-to- 
 be-done trawlers and drifters. No folk on earth, I am 
 sure, other than the hardy Scots fishermen and 
 their kin, could have done the work of the Arctic 
 Patrol in those old fishing- tramps. And yet — such
 
 186 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 is the amazing stamina of our race in seafaring — 
 I know a middle-aged barrister from the Temple 
 who kept the Orkney seas in a little motor- 
 launch. 
 
 Once the ship was sighted and our own watcher 
 in touch with her, the rest of the routine was simple. 
 At least, if you can call it simple trying to board 
 a vessel in a stormy sea with the possibility of a 
 big touch-and-go bomb being dropped on your 
 head, or the unmasking of guns and torpedo tubes, 
 while doing it. 
 
 " Where bound for ? What cargo ? Your 
 papers, please. All men on deck, please." And 
 then a strict search by men who have learned their 
 business in the light of a very wide experience. 
 You wouldn't believe, for instance, how innocent 
 rubber can be made to look ; nor what an amount 
 of petrol can pass muster as tinned apricots. Coal 
 bunkers have been known to contain other stuff 
 besides that useful commodity, and wooden par- 
 titions have frequently given out a curiously metallic 
 ring when struck by accident. 
 
 If the " all clear ' is given, the ship goes on 
 her way. If there is any suspicion — " Mr. Cran- 
 shaw, you will take this ship into port for further 
 search." And Mr. Cranshaw, with a tiny armed 
 party, " proceeds as requisite." 
 
 Very simple it all sounds. But multiply that 
 incident a few thousand times over a wide expanse 
 of those cruel seas, from Archangel to mid- Atlantic, 
 and you get a dim perception of the way in which 
 the blockade of Germany was effected. 8,586 ships 
 were thus intercepted.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 187 
 
 One cannot trace here the subsequent develop- 
 ments of the blockade of Germany. Nor indicate 
 how nearly our Sea Power was betrayed by the 
 infamous Declaration of London, and other factors. 
 As the pirates' progress continued, so did popular 
 opinion become more and more insistent for an ever 
 stricter tightening of the net. The public agitation 
 over the cotton question will be fresh in memory. 
 And the Government was compelled to acquiesce in 
 the demand. 
 
 The passing through to Germany in the early 
 days of copper, German reservists, and heaven knows 
 what besides, was, most emphatically, not the fault 
 of the Navy. 
 
 The " well-informed neutrals ' whose effusions 
 were constantly published in the Press had been 
 telling from the first months of the war how Ger- 
 many was feeling the pinch. But the years went 
 by, and still Germany continued to make ever 
 greater efforts. And so the public grew sceptical 
 about the repeated cry of " wolf." 
 
 And yet we know now that conditions with the 
 enemy did indeed go from bad to worse, until 
 the end was only a matter of time. The blockade 
 did its work. What Britain never realised was the 
 will to endure which Germany possessed, and the 
 means which the German Government adopted to 
 translate I hat will into action. 
 
 That our people did not feel the hardships which 
 were endured by the enemy was due wholly to our 
 Seafarers. It was from no lack ol* effort on Ger- 
 many's part. Had we been driven to face famine 
 and all its evils our people would, I know, have
 
 188 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 fought it through to the last crust. And at least 
 one influential enemy journal had no illusions about 
 that. 
 
 " We have been promised the starvation of 
 England so often," remarked the Arbeiter Zeitung 
 of Vienna in April, 1918, " that we have become 
 suspicious. If Calais fell, and the submarine war 
 became more effective in consequence, and the 
 English people had to live as we have been living 
 for three years, does it follow that England would 
 capitulate ? " 
 
 And the reply is in the negative. 
 
 Nor does one desire here to discuss the moral 
 aspect of the blockade, its rights and wrongs. In 
 this war we have come to see that no longer can 
 warfare remain a matter of contending armies and 
 navies. War is now made by entire nations. Every 
 man, woman, and child is in the firing line. Cer- 
 tainly in the future there will be no distinction 
 between combatants and civilians. That the civil 
 population did not suffer more in the Great War 
 was only because the engines of destruction were 
 not then sufficiently powerful to reach them. But 
 that time is past. In the next war entire peoples 
 will be immolated in a vast holocaust. And I 
 commend this little reminder to those authorities, 
 our own and our Allies', who are even already dis- 
 cussing the next war, the rectification of frontiers, 
 buffer States, and so on. There will be no frontiers. 
 
 Nor, in any case, why should a distinction be 
 made between land and sea warfare ? If an army 
 may, legitimately I suppose, besiege a city and
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 189 
 
 reduce the population to the direst straits of 
 famine and pestilence, why may not a navy besiege 
 an island or a country ? It is only a question of 
 degree. 
 
 Sieges in the old days would last for a year at 
 a time or longer, with the civil population suffer- 
 ing the most terrible privations. And if Germany 
 caused Paris to suffer as it did in 1870, it is mere 
 hypocrisy for Germans to talk as they did about 
 the hardships inflicted upon them by the British 
 blockade. 
 
 What would Germany have done to Great Britain 
 and the world had she beaten down the British 
 Navy and the Mariners of England ?
 
 The Bringers of Bread 
 
 " I sec more clearly than ever that all the growth of our wealth 
 arose from our connections with the British Empire ; England's 
 harbours, possessions and colonies stood wide open to our sailors 
 and traders. I have often been astonished at this magnanimity." 
 
   — Herr Ballin 
 (Germany's greatest shipping director). 
 
 Far away across the Seven Seas below the borders 
 of the world lie the great storehouses of Britain. 
 There in those distant lands do men and women, 
 some our kinsfolk, others of alien race, toil that 
 our people of the Island Kingdom may receive 
 their meats in due season. 
 
 Here and there, through the countries and states 
 of North America, are the mighty granaries for 
 our bread. Japan holds stores of rice for us. India, 
 our tea. New Zealand and Australia, our butter, 
 cheeses and meat. Brazil, our cocoa, coffee and 
 sugar. The Argentine, more meat. South Africa, 
 the wool for our clothing. Persia and the Levant 
 the dried fruits for our cakes and puddings. Even 
 our tiny outermost possession, the Falkland Isles, 
 holds store of whale-oil for us. These, and many 
 more. 
 
 And ever across the great highways of the Seven 
 Seas do the big ships and the little ships thrash 
 to and fro, from your lordly ocean liner to your 
 little merchant tramp. They call at this store- 
 house and at that, and so over the thousands of 
 
 190
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 191 
 
 miles they carry their precious freights that we may 
 live. 
 
 A great fleet, truly, that which served our needs. 
 Learned folk will tell you how, if ship and ship 
 were placed end to end, they would reach around 
 the globe — or some such fancy. That I do not 
 know. But this at least is sure. When war came 
 the ships of Britain's Mercantile Marine were in 
 number not far below all those of the next nine 
 shipping countries put together.* And of the men 
 who manned them more than one-third were 
 foreigners. f 
 
 Then came the War. And My Lords of the 
 Admiralty spoke with the Merchant Seamen, and 
 said : 
 
 " The Royal Navy of ships-that-fight has urgent 
 business in hand. We can do but little for you. 
 You must look after yourselves." 
 
 And the Merchant Seamen replied : " We have 
 done so before, and our fathers too, and their fathers 
 before them in times past. We can do so once 
 again." 
 
 And My Lords smiled approval. " Good ! " said 
 they. ' But there is another matter. The needs of 
 the Army and of our good Allies are great. They 
 will require many ships that the Royal Navy can- 
 not give them. We must take a loan from you ; 
 we must borrow nearly a half of your ships. $ Can 
 you oblige us ? " 
 
 * Britisli Mercantile Marine, 11,287 ships. Next nine Powers 
 (excluding Japanese sailing ships), 1 1,402 ships approx. 
 
 t British Seamen, 212,570 ; Foreign seamen, 79,487. 
 
 X On May 3rd, I916i Lord Curzon stated that over 43 per cent, 
 of our shipping had been recpuisitioned for this purpose.
 
 192 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 And the Merchant Seamen replied : " Though 
 the people must be fed, yet the Armies and the 
 Allies must fight that all may live. We will yield 
 the ships and still will we serve the people's need." 
 
 My Lords smiled once again. " Yet," said they, 
 
 ' is there another trifling matter of ships. The 
 
 people's needs are great, but the Armies too must 
 
 be fed. Shall we say a full total of a half or so 
 
 of your shipping ? " * 
 
 And the Merchant Seamen replied : " The Armies 
 must be fed that they may fight. If there is no 
 other way, then shall you take the full half of our 
 ships and still will we feed the people." 
 
 " But," said My Lords, " ships are not all : the 
 ships must be served, and there are troublous times 
 ahead when the Royal Navy-that-fights will need 
 ever more and more stout hearts to carry on this 
 war." f 
 
 And once again the Merchant Seamen made 
 answer : "If we may, all of us would gladly strike 
 a blow for this Cause. Yet must a few remain that 
 all may not starve. Take what you will, and for 
 us who are left we can but do our best." 
 
 And the Merchant Seamen went forth, a little 
 heavy of heart but smiling proudly, for the task 
 that had been set them was indeed a mighty one. 
 But how mighty a one they could not then know. 
 
 Over fifty per cent, of their shipping taken. 
 43 left to do the work of 100. Forty- three precious 
 ships, of which not one must be thrown away. 
 
 * A further 14 per cent. 
 
 t See ante, page 14, for figures of personnel.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 193 
 
 So thought, so determined three men of the sea, 
 men of British stock. And their names were Robert 
 Ferguson, the second mate, Thomas Welch, engineer, 
 and John Smith, fireman, all of the ocean-going tug 
 Vigilant. 
 
 A few days out from Newfoundland was the 
 Vigilant, bound for Ireland. Seventeen men aboard 
 to take her across. From the first day out the 
 weather had got steadily worse, until mid-Atlantic 
 found the little ship battling with one of the worst 
 early winter storms of late years. 
 
 With the coal running short, the crew working 
 day and night in lifebelts, and with but a poor chance 
 of saving the ship the skipper sent out the S.O.S. 
 signals. The wireless was picked up, and next 
 morning there hove alongside a Dutch-American 
 liner. The skipper called to his crew to " abandon 
 ship." 
 
 " I'm not coming," said Ferguson, and he made 
 his way below. 
 
 " Here, you," said Ferguson to the chief en- 
 gineer, " stay on board with me and work her 
 home ? " 
 
 " Ye' re a daft fule," said the chief, Cv and I'm 
 not pitching away my life for the fun o' it." 
 
 " You," said Ferguson to a " greaser," " you 
 said this morning you weren't a bar-room sailor. 
 Now show it. Stay along o' me." 
 
 And the " greaser," who was an Irishman, and 
 the fireman, who was an American, talked it over. 
 " We're with you," said they. 
 
 The skipper and his thirteen men clambered 
 aboard the Dutchman. And the passengers of the
 
 194 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 great ship lined up by the rail and gave the three 
 adventurers a hearty cheer as the Vigilant rolled 
 away to the trough of the sea. 
 
 And there were the three men left to work 
 a small ship over 800 miles of the storm-tossed 
 Atlantic. 
 
 Twelve dreadful hours of it with seas 30 feet 
 high climbing over them and a gale of 80 or so 
 miles an hour raging, when the rudder jammed. A 
 cruel hour of work upon that, and the ship's dynamo 
 was knocked out of gear. Three men to work the 
 ship and repair her ! 
 
 So Ferguson hove to the ship in the storm, and 
 somehow or other they mended both steering- 
 gear and dynamo. 
 
 Once again they battled forward. Day after 
 day they fought their way until, when all seemed 
 lost ; when, without food or drink save by snatches, 
 human will could do no more, a homeward-bound 
 ship sighted and closed the Vigilant. 
 
 ' Will I give ye a line ? ' hailed a cheery voice. 
 
 " No, thanks," said Ferguson. " She's our ship. 
 But we'll take a lead from you into Bantry." 
 
 So the newcomer led the way for a spell until 
 she was lost in the twilight. But the Vigilant held 
 on, for her men knew now that a few hours would 
 see them in. 
 
 And for those few more hours they set their 
 teeth and stuck it. And so at last the Vigilant, 
 torn and battered, but with her little ensign flaunting 
 at the mast-head, cleared Bantry Bay, and made 
 her port of Castletown. 
 
 John Ferguson and Thomas Welch and John
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 195 
 
 Smith had saved £20,000 worth of shipping for the 
 British Government. 
 
 " And why did you do it ? ' they asked in 
 England. 
 
 ' Well," said Ferguson, " she was a good ship 
 and a valuable one. Didn't seem good enough to 
 me that she should be smashed to pieces when she 
 might be bringing food to the kiddies at home, 
 or sweeping mines, or carrying munitions. It isn't 
 for me to say why she was wanted. I only knew 
 that every ship was needed." 
 
 But I should like to know what her former 
 skipper said about it. 
 
 Now in former days, as Herr Ballin has testified, 
 the ocean highways, the harbours, the very store- 
 houses of Britain, were all free to those of any nation 
 that would use them. By blood and tears and 
 treasure had Britain builded that freedom through- 
 out the centuries and now, having builded, she gave 
 that noble edifice to the world. 
 
 In every sea, aye even within her own coastal 
 waters was there that freedom. Germany, or any 
 other nation, might even anchor outside our Home 
 ports, embark passengers or cargo, and so evade 
 the harbour dues levied upon our own ships. Free 
 to all was our very coasting trade. These and a 
 score more of gifts. Fools were we ? Perhaps. 
 That other Powers, not only Germany, should 
 decline to follow the lead which Britain had given, 
 should even abuse those principles of freedom — this 
 was not allowed to concern us. We held upon our 
 way.
 
 196 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 And if any man would seek a definition in a few 
 words of what Britain means by the term " the 
 Freedom of the Seas " he will find it set forth, clear 
 that all may read, in the Liturgy of the English 
 Church. 
 
 Turn to the book of Common Prayer and to the 
 Office there to be used at Sea. Read the first Prayer 
 in that Office with its glorious Invocation, " O 
 Eternal Lord God who alone stretchest out the 
 Heavens." Read it, partly because it is a noble 
 piece of writing ; partly also because it is a Prayer 
 which is enjoined for use on every one of His Majesty's 
 ships on every morning throughout the year ; and 
 also because there you will find the definition. It 
 is a Prayer for the Officers and men of the Royal 
 Navy, and for the ships they serve : 
 
 " That they may be a safeguard unto our Sove- 
 reign Lord, King George, and his Dominions, and 
 a Security for all such as pass on the seas upon their 
 awful occasions." 
 
 That, I suggest, is what we in this country mean 
 by the Freedom of the Seas. What Germany means 
 by it the " dear old friend God of the Hohenzollerns ' 
 alone knows. 
 
 Or stay ! I will tell you one of the things Ger- 
 many means by it. 
 
 On a day of June, 1918, a Dutch fishing-smack, 
 with some ten or eleven Dutch fishermen on board of 
 her, was at work with her nets down within a North 
 Sea area which Germany, with exquisite considera- 
 tion, had guaranteed immune from U-boat attacks.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 197 
 
 A British destroyer passed within hail. " There's 
 a German U-boat at work around here," called the 
 commander, " you'd better look out." 
 
 " That's all right," replied the Dutch skipper, 
 " they won't touch us. We're only fishermen, and 
 neutrals. Besides, these waters are specially guaran- 
 teed." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said the commander, " have it 
 your own way. But don't say I didn't tell you." 
 And he steamed off. 
 
 Before the day was over a U-boat broke surface 
 a few hundred yards away, and, without a word 
 of warning, opened a heavy fire upon the fishing- 
 smack, and sank her. 
 
 The crew got away in a little boat, and the 
 U-boat continued to fire upon that. Three men 
 were killed outright, others were wounded. The 
 U-boat then submerged without a thought of offer- 
 ing help. 
 
 For twelve hours the little boat, with her dead 
 and wounded in her, drifted about, water streaming 
 in through the shell holes. Then she was picked up. 
 
 Holland, you observe, is by way of being a 
 neutral. One rather friendly to Germany, in fact. 
 
 Norway, too, is a neutral. But Germany, just 
 by way of showing her regard for the rights of a 
 neutral had, by the middle of 1917, already sunk 
 4J56 Norwegian ships, 382 of them by torpedo. 
 
 Denmark ? Oh yes. 114 ships of Denmark were 
 sunk in the same period. Sweden (a very friendly 
 neutral?) 101 ships. Within the first two-and-a-half 
 years of war Germany sank 847 neutral ships, and 
 murdered a few thousand of their seamen.
 
 198 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 So much for Germany's ideas about the Freedom 
 of the Seas. Is it likely that she was going to treat 
 our own merchant ships, the bringers of bread, more 
 leniently ? 
 
 Lord Fisher, while at the Admiralty in 1911, 
 wrote a memorandum in which he urged that when 
 Germany came to war with Britain she would attack 
 our merchant ships with submarines. The Govern- 
 ment laughed at him. If the Government refused 
 to believe in the inevitable war with Germany they 
 were not likely to listen to the further argument. 
 
 ' Trade is timid," wrote Admiral Sir Percy 
 Scott before the war, " it will not need more than 
 one or two ships sent to the bottom to hold up the 
 food supply of this country." 
 
 Ah ! I thought that little remark would make 
 you smile. You are remembering the hundreds of 
 our torpedoed seamen making port after six days 
 of hell in an open row-boat in the ice and snow of 
 mid-Atlantic. A little warm food and drink inside 
 them, a new rig- out of clothing and — " which is 
 the way to the nearest shipping office to sign on 
 for the next ship going out ? " 
 
 I know one old chap who has been torpedoed 
 five times. But he made it his boast that for 
 every time he was torpedoed he sent a German sub- 
 marine to the bottom. And he did it too. 
 
 Never once through the War was a merchant ship 
 of ours held up in port for want of men to man her. 
 
 " Still will we serve the people's need," said 
 the Merchant Seamen. And this is the way in 
 which they did so.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 199 
 
 The Anglo-Calif orni an was an unarmed merchant- 
 ship making for Queenstown on July 4th, 1915. 
 She had just sighted the Irish coast when a sub- 
 marine appeared and opened fire. Captain Parslow, 
 the skipper, was of the same breed as Brennell of 
 the Avocef, and he, too, had nothing with which to 
 fight save his splendid seamanship. 
 
 Round and round circled the submarine pouring 
 in shell after shell. So close was she that the enemv 
 crew could actually use their rifles. And as she 
 circled so did Parslow ever manoeuvre his ship to 
 offer the smallest target. 
 
 For four mortal hours did the men of the merchant 
 tramp fight the enemy with their naked fists. Then 
 one more shell burst upon the steamer's bridge and 
 Captain Parslow fell, terrible wounds in the head, 
 an arm and a leg completely severed. 
 
 " Take the wheel, young 'un," he gasped to his 
 son who was standing by, "I'm done." And so 
 the gallant spirit passed. 
 
 Young Parslow, hurled to the deck by the ex- 
 plosion, scrambled up again, staggered to the wheel. 
 
 On the instant another shell burst, wounded 
 him, shattered some of the wheel-spokes. But, 
 with the blood nearly blinding him, young Parslow 
 held grimly on. 
 
 Now the men tried to lower away some of the 
 boats, but the falls were all entangled. Hacking 
 and cutting at them more men fell beneath the pitiless 
 hail of lead. At last four boats were lowered and 
 got away. But ever young Parslow stuck to the 
 helm ; and by noon, with friendly ships hurrying 
 to his help, the submarine, baulked of her prey,
 
 200 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 dived sullenly beneath the water and vanished. 
 And Parslow brought his ship into Queenstown. 
 
 " Now this is all very well," said the Merchant 
 Seamen to My Lords at the Admiralty, " but — what 
 about it ? We can't go on like this. What are you 
 going to do for us ? " 
 
 " Why," said My Lords, " this have we done 
 already. We have banged, barred and bolted the 
 doors of the storehouses upon the enemy ; we have 
 swept the seas clear of enemy ships and cruisers for 
 you. It's only a matter of submarines, and there 
 can't be many of them. Anyway, we're doing our 
 best to hunt them down, and you'll have to carry 
 on somehow." 
 
 " Yes," said the Seamen, " but in the meantime 
 what do you advise ? " 
 
 So My Lords put their heads together, and 
 " Why not try steaming zigzag all over the place ? ' 
 said they. " They can't hit you then with a torpedo." 
 
 And the Seamen scratched their heads and went 
 away looking thoughtful. " But that's a rotten 
 game," they said, "we shall lose no end of time over 
 it. And besides, when we've got a course we like 
 to stick to it." 
 
 But they tried it, nevertheless, and with ex- 
 cellent results. For a submarine certainly cannot 
 hit under such conditions, save by a lucky chance. 
 Yet, since your merchant skipper is a conservative 
 old chap, many stuck to their courses and so were 
 caught. And the game went merrily on. But still 
 the people were fed. 
 
 The story of sinkings and murders became one
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 201 
 
 of sheer monotony. The Clan Macfarlane in the 
 Mediterranean, with a dozen men out of seventy-six 
 picked up in the last stage of emaciation after nine 
 days in open boats. The Coquette, where the master 
 and crew were driven into boats and subsequently 
 captured (some killed) by Arabs. The North Wales 
 and Rappahannock, " never heard of again." The 
 Kildare, shelled to pieces in the Mediterranean, boats 
 and all. Score upon score of ghastly narratives. 
 
 Then Captain Fryatt was captured, and, after a 
 mockery of a trial, murdered. A second merchant 
 captain looked to share the same fate. 
 
 " Look here," said the Merchant Seamen to My 
 Lords, " this is the limit. They've taken another 
 of our skippers, and are threatening to kill him, too. 
 They've announced that any of our chaps they may 
 catch will be treated as felons. And here you're 
 treating their prisoners like honoured guests. You've 
 damned well got to put your feet down — all of 'em." 
 
 So My Lords went off down Whitehall, inter- 
 viewed the gentlemen of the Foreign Office, and 
 told them very bluntly that there would be trouble 
 if they didn't do their obvious duty. 
 
 The F.O. listened to reason (it was made to), 
 and strong reprisals were threatened if a hair of 
 that merchant skipper's head was harmed. Ger- 
 many knuckled under, as Germany always does 
 when threatened with a taste of her own medicine. 
 " Might '* i^ the only argument with bullies like that. 
 
 "Now," said My Lords to the Seamen, "as you 
 have done very well for us, we're going to give you 
 a little present."
 
 202 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 " Thank you very much," said the Seamen, re- 
 membering how their firemen and A.B.s were get- 
 ting in 1914 the princely sum of £5 10s. a month, 
 and their skippers about as much as an American 
 fireman. " Thank you very much," they said. 
 " We can do with it." 
 
 " Yes," said My Lords. " We're going to give 
 you some nice little guns to fight the submarines 
 with." 
 
 "Aha!" laughed the Seamen. " Noiv you're 
 talking." 
 
 So they took their little guns on board, and 
 they steamed to and fro as pleased as so many 
 Punches. " Isn't it me ! ' they said, as they let 
 fly at the pirates. 
 
 As fine a ship as ever flew the flag of the Mer- 
 cantile Marine was making for a home port. About 
 four miles away, in the morning twilight, a sub- 
 marine was sighted. The enemy opened fire, and 
 the merchantman promptly replied. Down below 
 in the engine-room the men were piling up the steam 
 for a stern chase. The merchantman gradually 
 hauled away, firing hard as she increased the dis- 
 tance. The submarine disappeared. 
 
 A few hours afterwards, without further warn- 
 ing, a torpedo struck the ship abaft the engine-room. 
 Clouds of scalding steam poured from the severed 
 pipes, but the first engineer went calmly about 
 his job, opening a safety-valve here, cutting off 
 steam there. 
 
 The crew were ordered away into the boats, 
 which were towed astern. The skipper and four 
 engineers remained on board. Then the submarine
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 203 
 
 again appeared, and those five men— the engineers 
 working in the inferno below— took the ship straight 
 at the enemy. She evaded the attack. 
 
 For an hour that curious fight went on. The 
 engineers (for this is their story) took it in turns 
 to creep along a tunnel full of water and steam to 
 repair injuries, the while the remainder, and the 
 skipper on the bridge, kept the ship in trim against 
 the enemy. 
 
 Then, just as a British patrol came along, a 
 great suction pipe in the engine-room choked up. 
 Unless that were cleared the ship was doomed. 
 Again and again the first engineer dived into the 
 water which was flooding the engine-room, but never 
 could he reach the pipe. So, at last, with the water 
 up to his neck, he stood and sawed the pipe in half 
 at the top, and the ship was saved. 
 
 In such fashion did the Merchant Seamen bring 
 the bread to England. 
 
 o 
 
 What a story is theirs, those Merchant Seamen 
 of ours ! How the Golden Age of their endeavour 
 under Elizabeth pales before the splendour of their 
 achievement in these latter days ! 
 
 " Trade is timid," is it ? " Two or three ships 
 sent to the bottom will hold up the food supply," 
 will it ? " The mere terror of our submarines," 
 said Germany, " has swept the seas clean at 
 one blow" — has it? Even the examples of a 
 thousand years cannot convince some folk. 
 
 Within a period of eighteen days in 1917, taken 
 at random, 6,076 ships of over 100 tons entered 
 our home ports and 5,873 left them. Nearly 12,000
 
 20 4 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 ships in and out in 18 days ! And this when the 
 submarine blockade was at its height. 
 
 On any single day during the War there might 
 have been found over 1,000 ships steaming or sail- 
 ing within home waters ; seas which the Germans 
 with silly arrogance proclaimed as " Verboten." 
 
 And how did the Merchant Seamen use the 
 little guns which My Lords had generously given 
 to them ? 
 
 Out of a hundred unarmed ships attacked by 
 submarines, an average of seventy-four have been 
 sunk. But out of a hundred ships armed with a 
 single gun, no fewer than seventy to seventy-five 
 have won through. My Lords were very wise. 
 And, by that same token, the Merchant Seamen 
 handled their guns like long-service ratings. 
 
 No one will readily forget the story of the gunners 
 in the great White Star liner, the Justicia, in July, 
 1918. 
 
 The Justicia was off the north of Ireland about 
 half-past two of an afternoon in July, when a tor- 
 pedo struck the ship by the engine-room. She was 
 turning for port when two more torpedoes crossed 
 her bows. The Justicia was attacked not by one 
 submarine, but by seven ; some say eight. 
 
 Through the night that followed the U-boats 
 left her alone as she slowly steamed for safety. 
 But with the early morning came the real onslaught. 
 
 Two torpedoes struck home simultaneously, one 
 in the engine-room, the second up forrard. And 
 then the gunners of the Justicia got busy. They 
 sank four of the enemy submarines, and actually 
 hit with shells and exploded two, if not more,
 
 GOMMUNIGATIOiNS 205 
 
 torpedoes as they sped towards the doomed ship. 
 To hit a torpedo coming toward you at thirty knots ! 
 Never had such astonishing marksmanship been seen 
 before. 
 
 Unfortunately, though, no marksmanship could 
 save the ship. She foundered some few hours later, 
 but with a loss of no more than eleven of her crew 
 out of six hundred odd. 
 
 The days passed by, and ever with their passing 
 the needs of the Armies and of the Allies grew 
 greater. Coal and boots and clothing must be 
 carried to them from England ; even something of 
 our slender store of grain must we give to France 
 to help feed her people too. " Les anglais," said 
 a Paris newspaper, " with their hearts of gold, 
 have behaved in this only as France expected — 
 like the gentlemen that they are." 
 
 For not only must our merchant seamen bring 
 food to England, but also must they serve the 
 Allies. For Britain was bearing by far the greatest 
 burden of the war — in ships, in finance, in manu- 
 factures. Bearing it for the common cause. 
 
 " England," said Pitt a hundred odd years ago, 
 " has saved herself by her exertions ; she will, I 
 trust, save Europe by her example." No false 
 modesty should forbid us from amending those 
 words to read to-day, " She has also saved Europe 
 by her example." 
 
 And always the merchant seamen went about 
 their business, quietly, sternly. And always the 
 bestial madness of the Germans, intoxicated with 
 murder and rapine, waxed more uncontrolled until
 
 2o6 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 the submarine warfare had degenerated into no 
 more than a hideous orgy of blood-lapping. 
 
 " Sink and slay without leaving a trace," went 
 forth the edict from the German War Staff. And, 
 true to the thousand-year-old instincts of the Ger- 
 man race, the murderers set about their mission. 
 
 What was it Sir Charles Napier said about them 
 in the Napoleonic wars ? " From the general of 
 the Germans down to the smallest drumboy in 
 their legion, the earth never groaned with such a 
 set of murdering, infamous villains. They murdered, 
 robbed, and ill-treated the peasantry wherever they 
 went." * 
 
 The same ; ever the same. 
 
 Hospital ships with wounded and dying ; emigrant 
 ships ; ships with repatriated prisoners maimed and 
 broken from the horrors of Wittenberg and reprisal 
 camps ; all were game to the net. Anything. 
 Everything. Slay and spare not ! 
 
 And once again My Lords of the Admiralty spoke 
 with the Merchant Seamen of England. 
 
 " The end draws on apace," they said ; " it is 
 the darkest hour before the dawn. Nobly have 
 you fulfilled your pledge, gloriously have you striven. 
 Bear but a little while longer. The plans are work- 
 ing ; the avengers of blood are afoot. Now will 
 the Royal Navy protect you as the Navy protected 
 her merchants in times past. The great battle- 
 ships of the Grand Fleet shall henceforward escort 
 you upon your way." 
 
 And the Merchant Seamen went forth proudly 
 * Sir Herbert Maxwell's " Life of Wellington."
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 207 
 
 and steadfastly to bear to the end. And the great 
 battleships of the Fleet turned from their ceaseless 
 watching and waiting before the enemy ports, and 
 shepherded the ships of the merchant seamen upon 
 their way.* 
 
 But here and there did the murderers slip through 
 the meshes of steel that were fast enclosing them. 
 And behind them where they passed rolled a wake 
 of blood. 
 
 It was in mid-Atlantic once again that a U-boat 
 found the little merchant tramp, the Belgian Prince. 
 She couldn't fight, she couldn't ram, she couldn't 
 run — the attack was too sudden. The skipper and 
 her crew, forty- three souls, surrendered. They were 
 taken on board the U-boat and lined up on her 
 hull as she lay awash. 
 
 The U-boat commander first of all with axes 
 smashed up the lifeboats of the Belgian Prince 
 and pitched the pieces adrift. 
 
 He then went down the ranks of the forty-three 
 men and robbed them of every article of value 
 they possessed — pocket-book, purse, watch, com- 
 pass. Collected and dropped them within the body 
 of the submarine. 
 
 Again he passed down the ranks and took from 
 them all the life-belts that they carried. All, except 
 from three men who managed to conceal them 
 under their kits. Took them and dropped these, 
 too, within the submarine. 
 
 The Commander — Wagcnfiihr was his name, but 
 it doesn't matter ; his bones have long since rotted 
 
 * Nearly 90,000 merchant vessels were convoyed under British 
 organisation and of these only 436 were lost.
 
 208 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 beneath the sea that he defiled * — the commander 
 entered the conning-tower and slammed the hatch 
 down over him. 
 
 For an hour and a half the forty-three men 
 stood upon the deck ; waiting, wondering. Then 
 the end came. The submarine began to submerge. 
 
 I need not go into details. You can picture 
 the men standing there ; you can picture the water 
 lapping over their feet ; rising to their knees. You 
 can hear them saying — "Oh, well, we're for it" — 
 and jumping, as their foothold fell away beneath. 
 
 Of those forty-three men the three with the life- 
 belts got back to the Belgian Prince and were picked 
 up a few hours later by a patrol. The forty were 
 drowned. Or rather, they were murdered, if ever 
 murder was done in this world before. 
 
 No. I do not like telling these stories any more 
 than you like reading them. But I hold that there 
 isn't a household in this Empire where the facts of 
 these damnable atrocities should not be driven home 
 right up to the hilt. And that is why I steel myself 
 to the writing. 
 
 - 15,000 non-combatants, men, women and little 
 children, has Germany murdered upon the High 
 Seas. Their blood cries aloud to Heaven for ven- 
 geance. 
 
 And, make no mistake about this, it is the 
 German people who have done these things. It is 
 the German people who went mad with joy when 
 the Lusitania was sunk and struck medals to com- 
 memorate it ; who cried aloud against their rulers 
 
 * The " U 44 " with Paul Wagenfixhr and all hands was sunk 
 about a fortnight after the outrage.
 
 COMMUNICATIOiNS 209 
 
 that the campaign of murder was not nearly com- 
 prehensive enough. 
 
 Remember this, you who speak of Leagues of 
 Nations and friendship with Germany when Peace 
 has been signed. As they are so will they be 
 always until the foul brood is exterminated from 
 the earth. Certain it is that no decent man or 
 woman of our race can ever again regard a German 
 — man or woman — other than with the deepest 
 horror and loathing. 
 
 Oh, I could give you a hundred more such 
 atrocities to haunt your dreams. The Addah, where 
 the U-boat shelled the little boats as they came 
 down from the davits ; shelled them as they struck 
 the water ; shelled them to pieces, and then went 
 on firing at the men as they swam or floated about 
 in the water. 
 
 Or the Mariston, where the U-boat commander 
 leaned back in his conning-tower with his glasses 
 to his eyes and laughed — as our men were being 
 devoured by sharks. . . 
 
 Q
 
 The Avengers 
 
 " // is, as Mr. Pitt knows, annihilation that the Country wants, 
 and not merely a splendid victory." — Nelson. 
 
 Had you passed down the quayside at Granton 
 by Edinburgh, on a certain March morning of 1918, 
 you would have noticed, warped alongside, a rather 
 ungainly, squat-looking steamer. She was no different 
 from a hundred other such ships on the north-east 
 coasts, save that she carried on her deck forrard 
 a useful-looking gun and another one in her stern. 
 The Commissioner was her name, and she used to 
 act as watch-dog for the Aberdeen fishing-fleet. 
 And a merry time did the Commissioner spend over 
 it. For in her armoury there were no such happy 
 trifles as depth-charges, wire nets, and other such 
 aids to the sport of U-boat hunting. It was just 
 kill or be killed, and the devil take the hindmost. 
 Now this was the way of the Commissioner. 
 
 Upon a summer's day early in the War the 
 fishing-fleet lay off the sandy shoals of Aberdeen- 
 shire. Nets were down everywhere, and, upon the 
 outside edge, lay the Commissioner, nets down too, 
 seemingly as unsuspicious as her charges. 
 
 Away to the north suddenly there appeared a 
 submarine. No doubt whether she was friend or 
 foe, for she began straightway to fire upon a little 
 fishing-steamer on the outskirts of the fleet. 
 
 The steamer, and her name was the Strathearn, 
 
 210
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 211 
 
 hauled in her nets in a hurry and started to run 
 for it. But the shells were coming too close and 
 too fast for the liking of the crew. 
 
 " Lower away a boat, Geordie," they called to 
 the skipper. 
 
 And the skipper leaned over the bridge-rail to 
 them and cried : 
 
 "I'll see ye in hell furst ! ' And his voice 
 lashed like a whip. ' Fir-r-re up ! ' he called. 
 " Fir-r-re up ! I think we hae a chance. If the 
 auld ship's gaun doon I'm gaun doon in her." 
 
 So they fired up the little old tub, and they 
 slipped away from the enemy. And as they passed 
 the Commissioner and gave to her a fair field of 
 fire a blow of the axe cut away the fishing-nets, 
 and there was a dainty Hotchkiss gun pointing 
 straight at the oncoming submarine. 
 
 Once she fired — missed. Twice she fired — missed. 
 But the third shot got the enemy's bow-gun ; the 
 fourth smashed her conning-tower ; and the fifth 
 hulled her and sent her down in flame and burning oil. 
 
 And that was the end of that one. 
 
 Now an ocean-going submarine is certainly not 
 an easy craft to deal with. In addition to the points 
 about them mentioned before* they can operate 
 at a distance of 300 miles and more from their 
 bases. And once they get out to sea — well, re- 
 member those 250,000 square miles in the North 
 Sea alone, and imagine the task of looking for a 
 surface ship in that wide expanse, let alone a ship 
 that goes under the water. 
 
 * Ante, p;igc 1G3.
 
 212 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Then, when you tackle a submarine, the chances 
 are that she dives promptly, goes to the bottom, 
 and sits quietly on the ocean bed. There she will 
 wait until nightfall, to reappear and go on with 
 her business. And at night a submarine is only 
 visible at about two hundred yards. 
 
 It is very difficult to realise how shallow the 
 ocean is in many places. And if it is shallow it 
 means that the submarine can (or rather could) 
 indulge in her rest cure with perfect equanimity. 
 The Irish Sea, for instance, where so many of our 
 ships have been sunk, is very shallow on either 
 side. So is the Heligoland Bight, both within the 
 Bight and for quite a radius outside. 
 
 Thus aircraft afford the most valuable means 
 for "spotting" submarines. For, apart from the 
 wide field of vision, an observer can see below tha 
 water to a good depth, just as one may see to 
 the bed of a river by standing on a bridge. 
 
 So it was that a dirigible airship of ours, hover- 
 ing quietly on patrol above a certain part of the 
 North Sea, spotted a submarine enjoying a little 
 snooze in its comfortable bed beneath. Another 
 good look. No, there was no doubt about it. Imme- 
 diately the regular routine in these matters was 
 begun. 
 
 First, a wireless message from the airship to 
 the neighbouring destroyer patrol. That brings up 
 the Destroyer, racing hard, and, lumbering along 
 behind, four of our old friends, the fishing trawlers. 
 
 Another signal from the airship and the De- 
 stroyer, shutting down steam, cruises slowly within 
 close range, her men at " action stations," her guns
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 213 
 
 trained towards the spot where the submarine may 
 break surface. 
 
 Now the trawlers have arrived, and very 
 methodically they set about their job. Two and 
 two they lower away a couple of long chain sweeps, 
 one towards the bows of the submarine, the other 
 towards her stern. Lowering away, the two pairs 
 of trawlers gradually close towards each other so 
 that the sweeps now lie beneath the hull of the 
 submarine. Then the trawlers cross each other, for 
 all the world as though they are playing at " cat's 
 cradle," and there you have the submarine fixed. 
 
 The grating of the chains against her hull must 
 have given that U-boat a rude awakening, for the 
 airship up above wirelessed down that there was 
 a bit of a struggle going on. She could come up 
 to the surface any time she wanted to — the " cat's 
 cradle ' arrangement was very sympathetically 
 arranged — but she couldn't wriggle out in any 
 other way. 
 
 Well, after wriggling quite a lot, the U-boat 
 took a breather to sit quiet and think about it. 
 And the destroyer commander — for he was a sym- 
 pathetic soul — filled in the time by having a little 
 wireless chat with the skipper of the airship. Oh, 
 no, they didn't discuss hydroplanes and weather- 
 gauges and shoals and sharks, as you might imagine. 
 What the Destroyer wanted to know was whether 
 I he Dirigible had seen the middle page of that week's 
 La Vie Parisienne, and didn't he think it was rather 
 phasing? 
 
 The Dirigible was able cordially to agree on 
 that point; then, turning to the business in hand,
 
 2i 4 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 askedj"What about it?" And the Destroyer com- 
 mander replied, " Yes, what about it ? I think 
 he's had time enough to come up if he wants 
 to." (To surrender.) 
 
 So the Destroyer talked to the trawlers. And 
 the trawler-men arranged two beautiful tins of high- 
 explosive stuff and lowered them gently over the 
 side, down through the green water to where the 
 U-boat lay. And the H.E. tins tapped quietly 
 against the hull. Just a little touch on the shoulder, 
 as it were, to say 'Time's up." But there came 
 no answer, no movement. 
 
 " All right. Let him have it," said the De- 
 stroyer. 
 
 The trawler-men pressed a couple of buttons. 
 A muffled explosion. A great column of water. A 
 patch of oil that spread and spread, smoothing out 
 the winding-sheet of yet another killer-of-little- 
 children. 
 
 ' Eh, lad," said the Berwick trawler-man, " 'tis 
 a verra easy way to catch the fish. But it's awfu' 
 expensive, ahm thinking, to the Government. Thae 
 gunpowder will run awa wi' a heap o' siller." 
 
 There is only one royal road to the catching 
 of submarines and that, as Admiral Jellicoe told 
 us, is by stopping them from coming out. Thus, 
 when Lord Jellicoe went to the Admiralty as First 
 Sea Lord, one of the first things he set about was 
 the improvement of British mines. Up till then 
 they had left much to be desired.* Mine-laying 
 
 * I am indebted to Mr. Archibald Hurd for much useful in- 
 formation upon this subject.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 215 
 
 was not a science (or art) which was much en- 
 couraged in the Royal Navy. " Attack " is their 
 principal business, not blocking up an enemy in 
 his ports. 
 
 Nets were very useful at the outset for catching 
 submarines, but they did not prove a very great 
 success. So mines had to come. And not only 
 had the mines to be manufactured upon a prodigious 
 scale, but the craft and the men to lay them had 
 to be secured. At the outbreak of the War we 
 had, I believe, about 150 small craft available 
 for such odds and ends of work, submarine chasers, 
 and so on. Within a couple of years or so the 
 Royal Navy was using over 3,000. 
 
 And they must have been quaint, those very first 
 mines of ours. For the story goes that one evening, 
 in a thick fog, a fishing lugger bumped heavily 
 against something or other which the skipper took 
 to be a buoy, moored there for the guidance of 
 similar lost souls. So he hitched up alongside 
 with a cable, bumping against the buoy in friendly 
 fashion all through the night. The next morn- 
 ing, when the fog had cleared, the skipper dis- 
 covered to his consternation (and amusement, I 
 fancy) that his little friend was a terrible British 
 mine. 
 
 However, under the energetic administration of 
 Admiral Jellicoe and with the co-operation of the 
 Board of Inventions, presided over by Lord Fisher, 
 the mines were steadily improved, manufactured, 
 and well and truly laid. The climax was reached in 
 May of 1918 by the announcement of the existence 
 of a new and enormous British minefield, 121,000
 
 2i6 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 square miles in extent, entirely blocking the northern 
 approaches of the North Sea. And here is the plan 
 of it (p. 217). 
 
 The imagination boggles at the stupendous num- 
 ber of mines which must have gone to the covering 
 of those scores of thousands of square miles, and 
 at the organisation which laid them. 
 
 But as the submarines did get out (before the 
 days of big minefields), they had to be hunted down 
 in the open seas. And the cunning and skill that 
 went to the hunting of them makes a story more 
 fascinating than any romance of Fenimore Cooper's 
 backwoodsmen and Red Indians. 
 
 The Devischland — the so-called mercantile sub- 
 marine — crossed from Hamburg to New York with 
 a cargo of — I forget what ; a few bottles of dye- 
 stuffs or something, and, of course, an autograph 
 portrait of the God-given Kaiser. There is no room 
 in a submarine for much else. 
 
 The Royal Navy looked on with interest. ' A 
 new stunt ! " said the Navy. " We're always ready 
 to learn things." 
 
 The Deutschland went and returned in safety. 
 Great was the jubilation in the Fatherland. ' So 
 that's all right," said the Fatherland. " We've 
 found a way at last for our good German commerce. 
 We can go ahead now." 
 
 So another " peaceful submarine," the Leipzig, 
 set forth upon another peaceful voyage of trading 
 with the " idiotic Yankees." 
 
 " Here," said the Royal Navy, " not so much 
 of it ! " 
 
 And Hamburg waited for the return of the good
 
 th» u&rr* cq ii. LORuua
 
 218 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 ship Leipzig, and waited — and waited in vain. For, 
 curiously enough, the Leipzig never returned. 
 
 The Navy is wise in these matters, as in most 
 else. A new route or a new method on the part 
 of an enemy submarine is carefully charted. When 
 the enemy repeats the experiment the hounds are 
 at once upon the trail.* It was most thrilling, as 
 may be guessed, to watch the course of an enemy 
 submarine being pricked off upon a chart, almost 
 from hour to hour ; the submarine quietly pur- 
 suing her way in blissful ignorance of the attention 
 she is receiving. The auspicious moment arrives 
 with the submarine reaching a suitable position 
 for destruction ; a wireless call goes forth ; the 
 avengers " proceed as requisite " ; and — that's that. 
 
 After the first year or so of the War there were 
 very few cases recorded of ordinary humanity on 
 the part of U-boat commanders towards their vic- 
 tims. At the beginning of the campaign there 
 were some instances of decent behaviour — decent, 
 I mean, for the Germans. The seamen, stranded 
 in open boats a hundred miles from land, were 
 sometimes permitted to take some food with them 
 and perhaps a warm coat or two and a compass. 
 But after a while such " chivalry " was forbidden. 
 
 However, I have come across at least one case 
 of humanity, and so the incident is worthy of men- 
 tion. 
 
 A tramp steamer had been sunk in the usual 
 
 * This was in the earlier days. Later on, when the Navy 
 thoroughly grasped the idea of the game, they " killed " straight 
 
 away.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 219 
 
 way, and the skipper and crew were pulling away 
 from the scene in the ship's boat. The Germans 
 were always anxious to get hold of any of our mer- 
 chant skippers, to make an example of them, and 
 so, on this occasion the boat was hailed and the 
 captain ordered on board the U-boat. 
 
 The little boat was reluctantly pulled round 
 and brought alongside the submarine. A few warm 
 hand-shakes, and " good-bye, mate ; good luck ! " 
 and the skipper clambered on board. 
 
 " Down below, schweinhund ! ' was the curt 
 order, and the skipper hoisted a leg over the edge 
 of the conning-tower to obey. 
 
 Now the circular opening into the bowels of 
 a submarine is not very big. And it certainly was 
 not big enough for the " old man." You see this 
 particular skipper was what you might term a 
 " man of parts." And the " parts ' were so dis- 
 tributed that — well, he couldn't get through the 
 opening. 
 
 " Lend a hand below there," called the sub- 
 marine commander. 
 
 So three men below laid a hold on to the skipper's 
 legs and hauled away. But they couldn't move him 
 an inch. 
 
 Then the Germans on deck had a try ; they 
 pushed for all they were worth while those below 
 pulled. But that didn't move the " old man " 
 any. He simply couldn't get his embongpong 
 through the hatch. Then the commander came 
 and sat on his head ; and although the commander 
 was a pretty big man too even that was no use. 
 
 So the Germans reluctantly had to give up the
 
 220 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 job. And since, incredible as it may seem, they 
 actually saw the funny side of it, the U-boat com- 
 mander ordered the skipper back into the boat and 
 told him he might go. And the little boat pulled 
 away with the " old man ' in the stern and the 
 seamen doubled up over their oars with cheering 
 and laughter. 
 
 Endless are the stories of the Avengers and how 
 they strove for the mastery. Every craft that 
 could float seemed to be drawn into the chase after 
 the murderers, hunting them down in every sea. 
 And very few U-boats were out at a time. The 
 general idea of the public that the seas were swarming 
 with pirates was hopelessly incorrect. So we really 
 cannot laugh at the Turks when they imagined that 
 there were a dozen British submarines operating 
 in their waters at the time when the E-ll was putting 
 in some of her best work out there. Fifteen U-boats 
 at a time in all the Mediterranean and Atlantic was 
 the estimated maximum. 
 
 Kills by destroyers, battleships, depth-charges, 
 aeroplanes, Allied submarines, gun-fire, steel nets, 
 mines, and a hundred other ways. The Admiralty 
 doubtless has in preparation a " popular ' book 
 dealing with the whole subject. I hope it will be 
 distributed broadcast by millions of copies, for we 
 can never hear too much of the deeds of ingenuity 
 and gallantry performed by the men, the instru- 
 ments of a righteous vengeance. 
 
 Not infrequently a U-boat met its doom as a 
 result of its own greed. This kind of justice was 
 not, of course, so satisfactory as summary execution,
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 221 
 
 but as the result was the same there was no cause 
 for complaint. 
 
 This was in the good old days when we had 
 actively at work an Ally by the name of Russia. 
 Germany, however, managed with dire effect to 
 sow seeds of red ruin within her borders, and so the 
 Ally was lost. However, when we were working 
 together Britain used to supply her with ammunition 
 by way of Archangel ; a traffic which the enemy 
 naturally did their best to stop. 
 
 A munition ship of ours was making her way 
 past the North Cape when she was torpedoed. The 
 ship was beginning to sink when the U-boat came 
 to the surface and closing upon her victim proceeded 
 to shell her at close range. 
 
 Now, if the U-boat had been content with the 
 effect of the torpedo all would have been well — 
 for the U-boat. But it chanced that the very first 
 shell she fired exploded the greater part of the cargo 
 of ammunition. And it also chanced that upon 
 the deck of the ship was a big three-ton motor-lorry. 
 And the explosion lifted the motor-lorry and hurled 
 it over the side ; crashed it straight into the hull 
 of the submarine, and sank her out of hand. 
 
 But of all the methods by which justice was 
 executed none were more remarkable than those 
 of the "mystery" ships, or ' Q '-boats. The records 
 of the officers and men who manned them stand 
 out even amongst the stories of the imperishable 
 deeds wrought by the other thousands of our sea- 
 farers. 
 
 Briefly, the 'mystery 1 ships were old tramp
 
 222 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 steamers, sailing ships and other such harmless 
 craft. But they were so altered and arranged 
 internally as to carry a number of heavy guns, 
 torpedo tubes, and the necessary devices of a small 
 warship. So skilfully, though, were these concealed 
 about the ship that even naval officers inspecting 
 could not detect their presence. 
 
 One of the ship's funnels, for instance, might do 
 duty as a periscope, besides carrying on with its own 
 job. A roll of wire hawser would really be an observ- 
 ation post. The stove-pipe in the officers' cabin a 
 speaking-tube. And there would be concealed pas- 
 sages all through the ship so that one might go 
 from one end to the other without appearing on 
 deck. Incidentally, too, the men would be prac- 
 tised in the art of rushing headlong and terror- 
 stricken over the side in " panic " parties. 
 
 And if she isn't an old tramp ship then she 
 probably looks like an iceberg, or a whale, or Lipton's 
 Shamrock II. — any old thing other than what she 
 really is. In short — 
 
 She's the plaything of the Navy, she's the nightmare of the Hun, 
 She's the wonder and the terror of the Seas, 
 She's a super-censored secret that eludes the prying sun, 
 And the unofficial wireless of the breeze ; 
 She can come and go unseen 
 By the fore-doomed submarine ; 
 She's the Mystery Ship, the Q-boat, if you please, 
 
 as a seaman poet has put it. 
 
 And the men who served on them were some of 
 the finest in the Navy. (Really, I seem to have 
 said that so often. But how can one put it ?) And 
 the officers — well, same again. For the moment 
 I thought of setting down the names of a few of
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 223 
 
 those officers and men who won the Victoria Cross. 
 But when every single man earned that decoration 
 I am sure the lucky recipients (generally chosen by 
 vote of their comrades) would be the first to protest. 
 So we will leave it. However, as most people know, 
 the name of the leading spirit in the whole scheme 
 was Gordon Campbell, Captain, R.N. And his name 
 and his deeds will inspire ballad-writers and story- 
 tellers for generations to come until name and fame 
 become one of our Country's proudest Sagas. 
 
 In such fashion, then, did the Mystery ships sail 
 the seas. When the first of them appeared the 
 U-boat fell a fairly easy prey. But after a little 
 while the stories of them reached Germany, and 
 U-boat commanders were on their guard against 
 innocent-looking colliers. (Perhaps that is one of 
 the reasons why the really innocent ships were made 
 to suffer so terribly.) So the fights which took place 
 towards the close of the war were terrific in their 
 intensity. 
 
 Mystery ships are no new playthings of the 
 Royal Navy. In fact, I daresay that they are as 
 old as sea- war fa re itself. Curiously enough one of 
 the finest of all single-ship actions in the Navy's 
 previous records was fought by a Mystery ship. It 
 took place on August 10, 1805. The whole story 
 i . well worth the telling, but just the beginning of 
 it will serve for a comparison with one of Captain 
 Campbell's adventures. 
 
 The British ship was the Phoenix (Captain Baker), 
 a 30-gun frigate,* with a crew of 245. But she 
 
 * Frigate, a warship next in size and equipment to a linc-of- 
 battleship.
 
 224 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 was so disguised that her thirty-six guns only looked 
 like twenty, and her general appearance was that 
 of a little sloop.* She was off the Portuguese coast 
 on patrol duty, when, one day, she was hailed by 
 an American trader. 
 
 "The very man we want," said Captain Baker; 
 " he'll go and talk about us to every French ship 
 he meets." 
 
 So the American skipper was invited on board. 
 The British officers bought some cases of his claret 
 and then proceeded to give him a jolly good time. 
 (The Royal Navy was just as royally hospitable in 
 those days as it is now.) 
 
 After a good dinner and a couple, say, of bottles 
 of port (America hadn't gone " dry ' in 1805), the 
 skipper was taken upon a tour of inspection round 
 the disguised ship. Not much of a craft he found 
 her, only twenty guns ; in fact hardly a fighting- 
 ship at all. 
 
 Sure enough, as Captain Baker expected, that 
 American the next day was talking to the captain 
 of a French ship, the Didon. And he told the French 
 captain just what Captain Baker wanted him to. 
 
 The Didon was carrying important despatches, 
 and although she mounted forty guns it was her 
 duty to avoid a fight. But when the Phoenix hove 
 in sight — the very ship the American had told him 
 about — the temptation was too great, and the 
 Frenchman let fly at her. 
 
 The Phoenix closed in (very unwillingly, it seemed) 
 and for quite a while she was terribly knocked about. 
 At last she secured the position she wanted, and — 
 * Sloop, a small one-masted vessel.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 225 
 
 out came the hidden guns. A great fight followed 
 and the Phoenix was the victor. 
 
 Now we will skip a hundred years and note how 
 history repeated itself with Captain Gordon Campbell 
 and his mystery ship, H.M.S. Dunraven, in the guise 
 of an ancient collier. And this is the tale of it. 
 
 On a grey August morning of 1917 far out in 
 mid-Atlantic the dingy-looking collier with her one 
 little tiny gun went limping along at her poor 8 knots. 
 Little white-capped seas tumbled past her and a 
 school of porpoises gambolled merrily across her 
 bows. Peaceful enough it all was, not another 
 vessel in sight ; yet not so far away there were 
 doubtless warships at work, patrolling, going about 
 their duty. Still, our collier was not particularly 
 concerned with warships for she really was hardly 
 worth firing at even if a submarine 
 
 " Object, starboard," called the look-out, about 
 eleven o'clock. 
 
 By the time the skipper got his glasses to the 
 point the object had disappeared. ' False alarm, 
 probably," he said, " but anyway better zigzag a 
 bit." 
 
 So the collier went on her way zigzagging across 
 the sea ; when 
 
 " Object, starboard," called the look-out again. 
 And the words were barely uttered before a shell 
 whistled across the deck. A submarine had appeared 
 about 5,000 yards off. 
 
 So the little gun was cleared away, the Knsign 
 was hoisted, and the fire was returned ; but, oh, so 
 feebly, because it was only a little gun, and the
 
 226 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 shells went very short. And the collier turned upon 
 her course to escape. 
 
 On came the submarine. But the collier in 
 turning to escape must certainly have put something 
 out of gear for her speed dropped to 7 knots, and 
 then, alas, to a miserable 6 knots. So the submarine 
 overhauled her fast, firing as she came. The collier 
 was in a hopeless position. 
 
 Then from the collier's wireless the messages 
 began to flash for all the world to read. " S.O.S. — 
 come quickly — pursued by submarine — S.O.S." 
 
 The submarine picked up the message and came 
 on the faster. And now the after part of the collier 
 was on fire from the enemy's shelling. 
 
 " S.O.S. — submarine overtaking me — S.O.S. — am 
 abandoning ship." 
 
 And over the side of the poor frightened collier 
 the panic-stricken crew (or some of them) dropped 
 a boat, pulling away hard from the doomed ship. 
 
 One of the enemy shells, too, must have found 
 its way into the engine-room, for clouds of steam 
 went up. Pipes had evidently been severed some- 
 where. 
 
 For an hour and a half had this unequal fight 
 continued. The dead and dying lay about upon the 
 decks, which were now beginning to burn fiercely ; 
 but not a man moved in his agony. And ever closer 
 came the submarine ; now only four hundred yards 
 away. Dense clouds of smoke rolled away from 
 the collier's stern, completely veiling the enemy from 
 view. And below deck, in the stern, was the collier's 
 magazine, And above, on deck, was a gun and a 
 gun crew — waiting. The smoke — ah, that smoke !
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 227 
 
 Then, suddenly, another shell from the sub- 
 marine burst true within the collier's aft-structure, 
 and with a heart-rending crash that gun and gun 
 crew were blown into the air. The explosion started 
 all the electric signals going in the collier, and, on 
 the moment, screens were dropped everywhere by 
 the hidden gun crews, and the collier lay revealed 
 to the submarine for one of the dreaded Mystery 
 ships. 
 
 Only another two hundred yards had the sub- 
 marine to steam clear of the drifting smoke, and 
 the Dunraven would have had three guns bearing 
 at point-blank range. 
 
 " Keep off," signalled Captain Campbell to 
 destroyers waiting over the horizon. " Keep off. 
 This is my game." 
 
 And the destroyers, like good sportsmen, " kept 
 off." 
 
 Now the Dunraven' s decks were all aflame. The 
 magazine was on fire — the flames were licking around 
 the explosives. But still the gun crews (what were 
 left of them) lay by their guns, waiting — waiting. 
 Over the side went another ' panic ' party, but 
 yet there were a few men left to see it through. 
 The submarine, hit several times, had submerged. 
 
 Then came a torpedo, smashing abaft the engine- 
 room, bursting as it struck. With decks red hot, 
 with cordite burning, detonators, depth charges and 
 shells exploding everywhere, with wounded men, 
 maimed and helpless, lying on the decks — lying still 
 that the enemy might not see them — the last " panic " 
 party of a dozen men crowded over the side upon a 
 raft.
 
 228 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 The collier lay abandoned. Decks clear, to all 
 seeming. A drifting derelict. Yet half a dozen 
 men, Campbell with them, hung grimly on, flames 
 licking about them, the good ship slowly sinking 
 beneath them. 
 
 " Keep off ! This is my game ! " 
 
 An eternity of sixty minutes passed, while the 
 submarine slowly circled, submerged, around the 
 ship, eyeing her through the periscope. Campbell 
 and his men lay still as death. The fires blazed, 
 scorching their very clothing. Yet there may come 
 a chance ! 
 
 The submarine came up astern. Opened fire. 
 Shelled madly for twenty minutes. Not a sign of 
 life from the ship. 
 
 Then Campbell took a chance and fired a tor- 
 pedo. It missed by inches. 
 
 The submarine crossed the bows of the Dunraven 
 and steamed down the other side. 
 
 Campbell fired a second torpedo. It missed 
 again. But the enemy saw it. Knew now there 
 were still desperate men on board. 
 
 The wireless crackled once more — in code. The 
 destroyers heard. 
 
 " All you can lay in," called the Destroyers to 
 their engine-rooms ; " smash the ship, but get 
 there." 
 
 But Campbell saw it through. After eight hours 
 of waiting his last gun got a bearing upon the sub- 
 marine, and as the destroyers hurried to the scene 
 and opened upon the enemy, a shell of his burst 
 fair and true. The U-boat heaved up her bows, 
 gave one great shudder, and sank.
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 229 
 
 And the good old collier ? The destroyers 
 gathered in her dead and wounded, but the ship 
 they could not save. The Dunraven had fought her 
 last fight. As with the little Revenge of glorious 
 memory, the storm-wind and the Atlantic rollers 
 called to her, and she sank, with her little White 
 Ensign fluttering proudly at the mast-head until 
 the end.
 
 The Mine-Sweepers 
 
 " The maritime power of England is not the wayward child of an 
 absolute monarch who determines to be potent on every element : it 
 is the slow, natural growth, which has stood many a fierce attack and 
 weathered many a storm." — Mirabeau. 
 
 " Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook ? 
 or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down ? " 
 says the writer of the Book of Job. 
 
 " Canst thou put an hook into his nose ? or 
 bore his jaw through with a thorn ? " 
 
 Aye, old writer, the wonders past thy belief 
 have indeed been performed by the Seamen of a 
 race undreamed-of in those far-off days of thy 
 imagining. The leviathan of thy picture has in 
 these latter days become a vivid reality ; and yet 
 were the Seamen unafraid. 
 
 Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. 
 
 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or cauldron. 
 
 The flakes of his flesh are joined together ; they are firm in them- 
 selves ; they cannot be moved. 
 
 He maketh the deep to boil like a pot : lie maketh the sea like a 
 pot of ointment. 
 
 Unarmed, unafraid, recking nothing of the cost, 
 did the Seamen of Britain set forth to do battle 
 with this new, fearsome denizen of the ocean — the 
 deep-sea mines that Germany had laid. 
 
 With a skill and ingenuity which surely could 
 not be surpassed did Germany scatter broadcast 
 over the seas her devil's spawn. Over against every 
 
 230
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 231 
 
 harbour of ours and the Allies ; across all the ocean 
 highways common to all peoples going about their 
 " lawful occasions " ; down the Mediterranean, up 
 the Adriatic, in the Indian Ocean, north of the 
 Australasian coasts, round the Cape of Good Hope ; 
 in every piece of water where ships might pass 
 there were found the high exolosive mines of Ger- 
 many. 
 
 And wherever they were laid there also were 
 they gathered in and destroyed. And as the British 
 Navy was the rock upon which the Allied navies 
 of Japan, France, Italy, and America builded, so 
 was it the Seafarers of our Islands who gave the 
 most to this most hazardous work. 
 
 And the mines themselves — how can one tell of 
 the deadly peril of them ? Of those great cylindrical 
 cases crammed with the most powerful explosive 
 that detonates almost to the touch. The folk of 
 Ramsgate will not easily forget the monster that 
 exploded off their coast in February, 1919, for that 
 one mine shook the town to its very foundations. 
 
 They may, for instance, lie carefully moored 
 in a certain spot and partly visible above the water. 
 Or moored well below the surface and invisible. 
 They may explode directly a vessel strikes them ; 
 or the contact of the ship's bows may serve to 
 start a mechanism which will explode the mine 
 some seconds later when the body of the ship is well 
 over it. (The horrible ingenuity of it !) 
 
 Or, again, mines may be laid on the bed of the 
 ocean to rise to the surface an hour, two hours, 
 twenty-lour hours later, timed just as one times 
 an alarum clock. Or they may be set just to drift
 
 232 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 with the sea currents, drifting anywhere and every- 
 where — against the Ramsgate shore or the Black- 
 pool piers. Sometimes they have a projecting horn 
 or horns which serve as detonators ; sometimes these 
 are lacking. 
 
 *&• 
 
 And just as varied are the methods of laying 
 them. In no department of German activity has 
 more subtlety, cunning, and engineering skill been 
 exhibited than in this brutal business. In this the 
 Royal Navy must, I think, " give them best." 
 In fact, so far as I know, our own mine-layers have 
 not attempted to compete. Some of the most 
 delicate of our own mine-laying work was carried 
 out, as I have told, by destroyer flotillas. We have 
 had no shipping on the high seas to destroy. And 
 if we had, the Royal Navy adopts other methods. 
 
 To take one system only, and a very common 
 one, adopted by the enemy. Imagine a couple of 
 trawlers sweeping with the slack stretched across 
 between them. You picture them steaming slowly 
 along, sometimes hauling up a mine, sometimes not. 
 But, as they pass, a couple of hundred yards be- 
 hind them, crawling along the ocean bed, there 
 steals a German submarine laying other mines. 
 The trawlers may finish that little stretch of patrol 
 water and reasonably report it as clear. But 
 
 It is quite impossible to give any idea at all 
 of the enormous work which was involved in keep- 
 ing the fairways clear. It is hard enough to imagine 
 the task in one single piece of water like the Firth 
 of Forth ; some definite stretch of water with 
 boundaries. When you multiply that by — but you
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 233 
 
 cannot multiply it. We are dealing with all the 
 seas of the globe, save the Pacific Ocean, perhaps. 
 I have not heard of any mines out there. Next 
 time you take a trip from Blackpool to the Isle of 
 Man, or from the Thames mouth to Margate, just 
 imagine the task of keeping that piece of water 
 clean. The whole — it is beyond imagination. 
 
 Then you may make your trip on a calm day 
 when the sea is like a mill-pond. Imagine the 
 sweeping then. Quite simple, you say. But what 
 of those clockwork mines coming up from the 
 
 J. 
 
 bottom of the ocean ? 
 
 Picture the sweeping when the seas are getting 
 up, when the weather is dirty. Those little fishing 
 steamers, trumpery little tubs beside your pleasure 
 craft, being hoisted up on the crests of the waves ; 
 dashed down into the ocean valleys possibly straight 
 upon the top of a half-submerged mine. 
 
 But I might go on writing through a ream of 
 paper and get no nearer to the mark of adequate 
 description. As Ruskin (I think it was) said, he 
 got a far better idea of the beauties of Windermere 
 and the Lake District from a shilling book of photo- 
 graphs than from all the writings of Wordsworth 
 and the Lake Poets. And so this is one of the 
 very few phases of sea life during the War in which 
 a kinematograph is of real use. On the film you 
 may see the routine of mine-sweeping being carried 
 on, and the exploding of the mines. 
 
 Y'i the film can only give ordinary isolated 
 incidents; it cannot suggest the vast extent of 
 the work. The perils of mines drifting amidst the 
 floating ice and Arctic fogs off the coast of Lapland.
 
 234 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 The ingenious disguises of them moored to floating 
 spars, or beneath upturned, floating row-boats, or 
 to a short, slender mast that looks like the periscope 
 of a submarine. (More than one ship, sighting such 
 a mast, has steamed full at it to ram the submarine 
 which she imagined lay beneath.) At least one 
 ship of ours has been mined off the coast of Queens- 
 land ; and it was a mine off the South African coast 
 that evoked that fine display of discipline from 
 Colonel John Ward's Labour Battalion in the Tyn- 
 dareus, discipline that rivalled the immortal heroism 
 of the men on the Birkenhead* 
 
 And what of the men who faced and fought 
 these perils ? Not for Britain alone, nor for the 
 Allies, but for the neutral states as well. Indeed, 
 when the reckoning is made up it is the neutral 
 states f who stand almost as heavily in the debt 
 of them as we do ourselves. 
 
 What of the men ? Impressed, doubtless, to 
 do this hazardous task, or set to it by way of punish- 
 ment. Oh, no. Volunteers all ; there are no 
 " pressed " men or conscripts in the British Navy 
 nowadays. " Volunteers, were they ? ' you say. 
 " Then they were doubtless chosen from the Navy 
 for their skill." No. They were not in the Royal 
 Navy at all ; nor, probably, had they ever seen a 
 mine in their lives before. 
 
 " Then," say you, " they were doubtless out- 
 
 * The tradition of an Island Race once again. 
 
 t " There arc no such things as neutral nations. If a nation 
 refuses to he enrolled for Civilisation then it is fighting by the side 
 of the obscene Horror which has plunged Europe into this carnival 
 of blood and misery."—" Retreat from Mons."
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 235 
 
 of-work men. But it must have been splendid pay 
 that induced them to take on the job." 
 
 Oh dear no. They were very much in-work 
 men, and earning very good money. And the 
 " splendid pay ' which induced them to throw 
 over their good earnings was two shillings or two 
 shillings and sixpence or three shillings a day. 
 
 No. The pay was nothing. The world does 
 not contain the gold that could buy the services, 
 the unwearied devotion, the self-sacrifice, the un- 
 dying heroism of the Mine-Sweepers, the deep-sea 
 fishermen of Britain. There was but one thing 
 that could purchase these things, the Call of their 
 Motherland. 
 
 And so they came. 
 
 A many years ago, so the story runs, there was 
 a man of Exmouth in Devon, one Master Richard 
 Whitbourne. He was the Commodore of Queen 
 Elizabeth's Fishing Fleet of Newfoundland in the 
 New World. To him and his captains and his men 
 as they fished the Newfoundland Banks there came 
 the news that the Spaniard fitted out a great armada 
 of ships to sail against England. 
 
 The Commodore gathered his captains and men 
 together and with his own great ship in the van led 
 the Newfoundland Fishing Fleet across the Atlantic. 
 Into the Narrow Seas he led them, straight to Sir 
 Francis Drake off Plymouth, and reported. 
 
 ' Sir," said the Commodore, " we have come 
 to fight the Spaniard." 
 
 And on the morning of the next day the Spaniard 
 hove in sight.
 
 236 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 Then when the business was ended, and the 
 Don had been chased merrily into the northern 
 mists, the Commodore gathered together once more 
 his men and led them back to their fishing off 
 Newfoundland. 
 
 Three hundred odd years later there came to 
 the Newfoundland Fishing Fleet the news that the 
 German was fighting with Britain. 
 
 So the Commodore of the Fleet gathered his 
 men and ships together and led them across the 
 Atlantic as Master Richard Whitbourne had done. 
 Into the Arctic seas he led them, to where Sir Dudley 
 De Chair held watch and ward with his squadron 
 off the Shetlands. 
 
 " Sir," said the Commodore, " we have come to 
 fight the Hun." 
 
 And when that business, too, was ended, and 
 the seas were clean again, the Newfoundland Fishing 
 Fleet returned as it had come. 
 
 I have no words in which to write of this love 
 and loyalty ; of those men and their kind. Only 
 the silence of tears. 
 
 They are just simple fishermen, these Mine- 
 Sweepers. And when the Call came they turned 
 out as one man from every fishing-port and village 
 of Britain's coastline. In peace-time they kept 
 the seas in all weathers, summer and winter, storm 
 and sunshine. There is nothing of seamanship that 
 they have to learn, for they know every wave in 
 the Channel " not merely as passing acquaintances 
 but addressing them by their Christian names." 
 But iu war-time they had to bring their unrivalled
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 237 
 
 craftsmanship to bear not only against the devices 
 of God, but against the wiles of the Devil. 
 
 God-fearing men are most of them, as those men 
 must ever be who go down to the sea in ships and 
 behold the wonders of the Lord in great waters. 
 But, in battle, they are stern and relentless, fighting 
 as Cromwell's Ironsides with a sword in one hand 
 and a Bible in the other. 
 
 An old Scots trawler skipper leaned over the 
 side of his vessel and looked placidly at a thin stream 
 of oil rising slowly to the surface. A depth-charge 
 of his had closed the account of an enemy sub- 
 marine. In his right hand the skipper held a Bible, 
 his finger marking the place of the Book of Joshua. 
 
 " 'Tis a braw fighting book, the Book of Joshua," 
 he remarked. " Yon men of Israel were braw fight- 
 ing laddies wi' bow and spear." And he returned 
 calmly to his watching. 
 
 " What are you thinking about, Davie ? ' they 
 asked him. 
 
 ' Ahm thinking," he answered slowly, ' that 
 it'll be just aboot twenty minutes before the De'il 
 gets him." 
 
 For not only did the trawler-men have to fight 
 the mill's, but, on occasion, enemy ships as well, 
 submarines and surface-craft. Some of these stories 
 I have already told. Like the destroyers they 
 turned with zest to any job that came along in the 
 course of the ordinary routine. 
 
 And it is curious how quickly they imbibed the 
 Navy tradition in little things; the big tradition 
 was already theirs. It was just the same with the
 
 238 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 men of the New Armies, picking up the habits and 
 customs of the old " Regulars." And the trawler- 
 skippers picked up the Navy habit of a naive brevity 
 and unconscious humour in the making of official 
 reports. What R.N. officer, for instance, ever 
 made a more delicious comment upon an incident 
 than that made by a certain trawler-skipper when 
 reporting upon the misadventure of a sea-plane ? 
 
 Owing to engine-trouble the sea-plane had dived 
 down to a pair of trawlers engaged in sweeping, and 
 had asked for a tow. Barely had the request been 
 made when four great mines exploded one after the 
 other, bumping the sea-plane and trawlers about 
 with the wash but doing no actual damage. 
 
 " This sea-plane," wrote the skipper, " must 
 have experienced an entirely novel and unique 
 sensation." And I'll wager that old fellow chuckled 
 to himself as laboriously he penned the words. 
 
 Always, you observe, this saving grace of humour ; 
 the all-in-t he-day's- work outlook upon hardship and 
 danger. And even mine-sweeping was not wholly 
 devoid of its humorous side although one may well 
 guess that the funny side was not always visible at 
 the moment. 
 
 A pair of trawlers had been at sea for nearly a 
 week on their duty, and had not been spending a 
 very happy time. They were on their way back to 
 port when a particularly ugly-looking mine with 
 two projecting horns was sighted. The trawlers very 
 carefully " fetched a compass round about " the 
 monster, but the seas were too rough to get the 
 ' sweep ' properly to work. Then they tried ex- 
 ploding it by rifle fire, but either the marksmen
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 239 
 
 couldn't hit it or else the bullets could not find a 
 vital spot. 
 
 At last after a couple of hours' hard work they 
 Sfot hold of the mine with the " sweep " — and then 
 they discovered to their disgust that it was only 
 a dead cow after all. 
 
 The trawlers, you must know, generally worked 
 in flotillas of six, under the command of an officer 
 of the R.N.R. or the R.N.V.R. It was in that 
 capacity that there served so many of those retired 
 R.N. senior officers ; men like Admiral Startin. 
 
 There was an occasion when two trawlers, towing 
 the " sweep ' between them, exploded a couple of 
 mines. The explosion cut the ' sweep " and one 
 trawler began to haul in the slack of the broken 
 wire. As it was hauled in over the roller a mine 
 came up with it entangled in the wire ; and just 
 under the water the men could see a second mine 
 also entangled. 
 
 Now the ship was rolling to the swell of the sea 
 and at any moment the roll might explode the mine, 
 or both of them, and send vessel and crew to eternity. 
 The skipper did the only thing possible and ordered 
 the crew to " abandon ship." 
 
 With the men safely off the skipper reported 
 to the Commodore of the flotilla. 
 
 The Commodore at once called for a volunteer. 
 Needless l<> say every man round stepped forward. 
 The Commodore and liis picked man were then put 
 alongside the abandoned trawler; they boarded 
 her, and then set steadily to work to cut the wire 
 with the mines still entangled in it. They cut it,
 
 240 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 and the mines fell clear. These were afterwards 
 exploded. 
 
 Observe, if you please, that those two men went 
 calmly to almost certain death. There was no need 
 for them to do it — certainly not the Commodore ; 
 the vessel itself was of little value, and there were 
 no lives to be saved. But — it was the Tradition of 
 the Sea Service ; and the example of initiative, 
 resource and fearlessness - hich the Commodore set 
 to the men under his command was no more than 
 the duty which the British Navy enjoins. 
 
 It is by a hundred such deeds performed each 
 day that passes that the British Navy moves and 
 has its being. For one incident such as I have 
 narrated there are a thousand like it which will go 
 for ever unrecorded. They are all in the day's work. 
 And because they are of the everyday routine the 
 British Navy is the glory of the British Empire and 
 of Civilisation. 
 
 And Germany seriously imagined she could 
 successfully challenge its power by building war- 
 ships ! 
 
 " The Grand Fleet," said Admiral Jellicoe upon 
 one occasion, " could not exist without the trawlers." 
 
 So, besides keeping the fairways of the ocean 
 clear for all ships now we find that the Grand Fleet 
 itself depended for its very life upon the fishermen. 
 For is it realised, I wonder, that never a warship 
 of ours could put to sea, from Scapa, from Harwich, 
 from the Firth of Forth, until the mine-sweepers 
 had reported " all clear " ? Yet it was so. And 
 you may be certain that the enemy paid very special
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 241 
 
 attention to the several Fleet bases, and exercised 
 all his ingenuity upon their exits and entrances. 
 
 And one day in Scapa Flow, when there was an 
 alarm that an enemy submarine had got in, the 
 little trawlers ranged themselves alongside the 
 battleships to protect their big sisters (so well as 
 they could) against a torpedo attack. 
 
 " Come inside," said the Battleships to the men 
 of the trawlers and drifters. " Come inside or you'll 
 be hurt." 
 
 " No, thank 'ce," said the trawler-men, " we like 
 our little ships, and we'll just stick to 'em." 
 
 Then it was the mine-sweepers who encountered 
 and reported what I always regard as one of the 
 most horrible infamies in all the long catalogue of 
 which Germany was guilty. The deliberate mooring 
 of special mines across the track of the Dutch ships 
 which were bringing our repatriated prisoners of war 
 back to England. Dutch ships, mark you ; and 
 the course which they were to take had been agreed 
 upon by the British and German Governments. 
 
 You had forgotten all about that little incident, 
 I expect. Well, one can hardly be expected to 
 remember more than a very few of those hellish 
 deeds of Germany's. 
 
 I look back adown the long gallery of portraits 
 of Britain's Seafarers in this late War. I pause here 
 at the picture of a submarine commander, there at 
 the ship's company of a destroyer; the staff of an 
 engine-roonij a naval surgeon or two, the men of 
 the "black squad," the Merchant Service— all thai 
 most gallant assembly. But always and ever I 
 Q
 
 242 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 return to the pictures of the fishermen who swept 
 the mines. 
 
 If one confidently asserts what the world knows 
 to be the precise truth that it was the British Navy 
 which saved Civilisation, then I say that it was the 
 Mine-Sweepers who saved the British Navy. And 
 always when I say the " British Navy " I mean the 
 four estates of it. 
 
 It was the manifest duty of our warships to 
 avoid a minefield. It was equally the duty of the 
 mine-sweepers to seek it out. 
 
 Those men, peaceful citizens, took their lives in 
 their hands and steadily looked death in the face 
 every hour of the day and night when on the seas. 
 Their ships were not built to fight ; they were un- 
 armed save now and again for a little six-pounder 
 gun in the bows. It is easy enough to offer one's 
 life for a cause ; not always so easy to give one's 
 money. Those men offered both. They served for 
 the merest pittance of pay. But never once in the 
 four years did they request, much less demand, 
 more. Their work was practically unknown to the 
 general public, its value was therefore unrecognised. 
 They sought no recognition. Their portraits did 
 not even appear in the illustrated papers. They 
 did their duty, and, of their bounty, they added a 
 hundred per cent. 
 
 " It is impossible," said Admiral Jellicoe, ' to 
 reward adequately the services of the officers and 
 men of the trawler fleet, because if one attempted 
 to bestow a sufficient number of decorations I do 
 not suppose anybody would go undecorated." 
 
 That was the tribute of a great seaman, and the
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 243 
 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet. It was 
 the reasoned judgment of a comrade of the Sea 
 Service. It is the last word. 
 
 I have said it before and I say it once again. 
 You who read may to-night go down upon your 
 knees and humbly thank the Great Disposer of the 
 Universe for that He gave to you and to your country 
 such men as the fishermen of Britain to keep you 
 safely, to feed you and to clothe you. You, and 
 Britain, owe to those men everything. 
 
 So must I close the writing of this brief chronicle. 
 I have not begun to tell what the British Navy did 
 in the Great War. I have but touched upon the 
 fringes of the story. For the story is the record of 
 sea service of some 650,000 mariners of ours, and 
 all of them volunteers. 
 
 I have said little or nothing of the engineering 
 staffs of the ships — out of sight, they are, I am 
 afraid, too often out of mind. And yet their gallantry 
 was that of the man who has to work always unarmed 
 in face of deadly peril. So, too, the stokers of the 
 great and little ships. I have said nothing of the 
 Royal Marines, a regiment with the most famous 
 traditions and the oldest, I believe, of any regiment 
 in the Service. 
 
 What, too, of the Boy Sea Scouts ? The Boy 
 Scouts have been amongst the most inspiring and 
 popular workers in all our War Service. But the 
 Sea Service branch of the organisation is prac- 
 tically unknown. And yet there have been no fewer 
 than 25,000 of those splendid youngsters at work
 
 244 THE SEAFARERS 
 
 round our coasts ; many, too, serving afloat in the 
 patrols. 
 
 I have not mentioned the Admiralty Salvage 
 Corps in their raising of sunken ships, performing 
 that which a year or so ago the sailorman would 
 have deemed a miracle. Nor have I spoken of the 
 Navy-that-flies ; designedly, perhaps, for that is 
 of another element. For every story that I have 
 told of gallantry and humour and self-sacrifice and 
 love and devotion there arc a thousand more. 
 
 All that I have sought to do is to reveal a little 
 of the spirit of our Seafarers ; the human element ; 
 the man behind the gun. 
 
 For it was not those great grey ships hidden 
 within the Northern Mists that Germany challenged 
 and dared to face. Not the great 18-inch guns 
 in them, nor the men who manned them. It was 
 a something beyond our own, beyond Germany's 
 imagining. A mighty spiritual force. The Soul 
 of an Island Race. 
 
 And Germany failed, as we knew that she must 
 fail. 
 
 For the spirit of the Mariners of England — 
 do you who have seen the issue need the assurance ? — 
 the spirit of them has been as great in these four weary 
 years of watch as it was when Nelson sailed down 
 the Mediterranean and fought and won the Battle 
 of the Nile ; at the very moment when, in the streets 
 of London, they were asking each other, "What is 
 this Nelson of yours doing ? " 
 
 It has been as fine as on the day when Hawke 
 sailed into Quiberon Bay in a howling gale on a 
 lee shore and forced the French Fleet to fight and
 
 COMMUNICATIONS 245 
 
 beat them "all ends up"; at the very moment when 
 in Smithfield, London, they were burning Hawke 
 in effigy because he wasn't doing his job. 
 
 It has been as fine as when Grenville lay in the 
 little Revenge with the Spanish Fleet round him in 
 a ring and fought them to a standstill. 
 
 Grenville and the Revenge ! Drake and Devon ! 
 Devon, the cradle of our Seafaring Race. Ever do 
 you call to us, your sons, as England does to you. 
 
 For I sat upon a Devon cliff upon a summer's 
 morning. And faintly to my ears across the Channel 
 seas came the ceaseless muttering of the guns in 
 Flanders. And I turned to an old Devon man near 
 by my side. 
 
 ' The guns are pretty busy this morning," I 
 said. 
 
 " Guns ! ' he said, with fine scorn. " Guns ! 
 They'm bean't no guns. They be — the tapping o' 
 Drake's Drum. Frankie Drake, he be out and up 
 the Channel again same as he were before." 
 
 Aye, old man, you were right. Eternally right. 
 England had called upon the Admiral in her need 
 and he has answered just as he swore that he would. 
 
 Call f)im on tlic ticey Sfa, Call \)im up tfir j^ounH, 
 
 Call f)im luljfii jjc gail to meet tf)r foe; 
 92iftfjm tlic olti (TraUc's plain' %\C tfje oHi jflag flwin'. 
 
 tH)t}) f)nbf founD fjini, tuarr an' luafein'. 3<s tftcy founlr 
 l)im long ago !
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 Few people read Navy books ; fewer si ill buy tbem — 
 except sea fiction, which is always popular. Thus I 
 am under no illusions about the present volume. Why, 
 then, add to the list of " unwanteds " ? Well, there 
 are several reasons, and they seem — to me, at least — 
 fairly sound. But first let me explain the genesis of 
 the book. 
 
 The subject of Britain's Sea Service is one with which 
 I have been actively concerned for a dozen years past. 
 So it was one of the first topics with which I dealt in 
 my causeries on the Western Front, September, 1914. 
 It was always the most popular subject with the troops, 
 that and the story of the rise of the German Empire. 
 
 Returning from France in the summer of 1915, I 
 discovered, to my amazement, that the Government 
 had taken no steps to organise a comprehensive scheme 
 throughout the country of Enlightenment in War Facts 
 and Ideas. Further, that the public was being left in 
 almost total ignorance about the work of the Navy and 
 the Sea Services. As regards the first, I have referred 
 in I he " Marne " volume to the action taken. The scheme 
 embraced plans for enlightenment by the Drama, music, 
 literature, pictures, kinematography, " popular " lectures, 
 etc., and the training of men and women in enlightenment 
 work. The result was such as I might have anticipated. 
 Only in those days I foolishly imagined that we were 
 out to win the War at the earliest moment, and that 
 everything that conduced to that end would immediately 
 be welcomed. Like many another, I had to suffer dis- 
 illusionment, although, naturally, that made no differ- 
 ence. 
 
 As regards the second point, that of Ihc Sea Service, 
 1 decided that, so far as lay in my power, all that foolish 
 nonsense ahout the " silence " of the Navy had got to 
 be slopped. So. starting in a very small way (I was 
 hard at work helping to train men and horses for the 
 B.A.) Willi local recitals and chats" on the work of 
 the Navy, together with recitals upon all sort', of War 
 
 249
 
 250 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 topics, the " Old Army," etc., recruiting appeals and the 
 like, the scheme gradually developed until, by Christ- 
 mas, 1918, I had given no fewer than three hundred 
 performances of this Navy recital alone : " The Mariners 
 of England," as I called it. 
 
 This volume, "The Seafarers," is founded upon that 
 Recital. Very much elaborated, of course, and adapted. 
 For that which tells in the spoken word will rarely " carry " 
 in a book. Most of the colloquial remarks have neces- 
 sarily been deleted. For instance, on page 207, the 
 Belgian Prince episode. In print you cannot say : " Wagen- 
 fiihr was his name. But it doesn't matter. He has gone 
 to Hell long since." It is merely vulgar. But on the 
 stage, with the audience tense with emotion and horror, 
 the " aside " brought always a cheer of passionate 
 relief. Probably about an eighth of the book, if so much, 
 formed the matter for the Recital, but the sequence^ of 
 construction of book and Recital is identical. 
 
 Speech v. Literature 
 
 From certain points of view this book is undoubtedly 
 a mistake. I recognise that fully. In these stories of 
 the sea, with their inevitable lack of variety, one needs 
 the warmth and colour of the voice, the facial expression, 
 the dramatic gesture, the elocution to carry conviction. 
 
 And here I would remark that the most potent method 
 of bringing home to the Public the meaning and achieve- 
 ment of the British Navy is by the spoken word. Lantern 
 slides and the Kinema, under present conditions of pro- 
 duction, cannot convince. Indeed, I found even good 
 slides a distinct handicap, and so I soon ceased to use 
 them. 
 
 A certain type of book is useful ; but I am speaking 
 of the big general public. The great majority, who would 
 as soon think of reading a " Navy " article in a newspaper 
 as of tackling the money-market column in a financial 
 journal. 
 
 One of the chief obstacles, so far as the average lay- 
 man is concerned, to the enjoyment of sea books is the 
 sea language in which they must to some extent be 
 written. What is the use of saying that a ship is " making 
 eight knots " ? Unless you explain the meaning by a 
 footnote, Mr. John Citizen has not the faintest idea what 
 you are telling him. Even now I can never remember 
 the difference between " port " and " starboard " with-
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 251 
 
 out recalling that " port " has the same number of letters 
 as " left." And yet I wonder whether it is noticed how 
 many nautical terms are ordinary figures of speech with 
 us. " Another shot left in the locker " ; " making head- 
 way " ; " taken aback " ; " having the wind taken out of 
 your sails " ; and so forth. Well, I have tried to "steer a 
 middle course," and have added footnotes where advisable. 
 
 Controversy Deprecated 
 
 If anyone looks to find in this volume any matter 
 for controversy he will be disappointed, or at least, I 
 sincerely hope so. I do not believe in initiating such 
 matters where the Royal Navy is concerned. It does 
 a deal of harm. Where it is a matter of general adminis- 
 tration in which the public is properly concerned, that 
 is another matter. But to take any part in dividing 
 the Royal Navy into two camps (which is Irish), and, 
 as a layman, discussing whether senior naval officers 
 are right or wrong, that I strongly deprecate and would 
 most certainly avoid. I cannot see how any civilian 
 is in a position to pass judgment. 
 
 I have written of the shortage of destroyers and the 
 lack of defences at Scapa Flow. But that is a matter 
 of public concern with its Naval Administration and 
 Government. As a matter of fact, I have spoken of 
 the shortage of destroyers since 1915, and I am quite 
 sure that Admiral Beresford must have urged the point 
 long before the War. The knowledge about our non- 
 defended bases has surely been public property for quite 
 a while, although I have never mentioned this in public. 
 Certainly there was much discussion in pre-war days 
 about our lack of docks and bases. I have therefore 
 been greatly surprised to find that Admiral Jellicoe's 
 revelations have caused so great a sensation. Really, 
 our public ignorance about the Navy is amazing. 
 
 And a propos of Admiral Jellicoe's book, " The Grand 
 Fleet, ", and in view of possible comment, it is only fair to 
 my own work to state that "The Seafarers" was written, 
 and the script in t lie hands of the Publishers, before the 
 publication of the Admiral's volume. 
 
 Bricks without Straw 
 
 To be quite honest, I do not believe that I could have 
 written " Seafarers " at all had I first read Lord Jellicoe's
 
 252 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 book. The facts about the destroyers, Scapa Flow, the 
 battleships, the star-shells, were naturally within my 
 knowledge from my work with the Navy. But somehow 
 I think that I must have missed the significance of the 
 facts. I had quite got into the Navy way of regarding 
 these defects as " all in the day's work." The routine 
 of making bricks without straw — if you take my meaning. 
 Just as it was with our shell shortage in Flanders in 
 November, 1914. One never talked of these things 
 outside the Navy. And in the Navy even senior officers 
 very rarely exhibited the concern which they must always 
 have felt over the shortage of materiel. As for the 
 destroyers, I can honestly assert that never once did I 
 hear, or hear of a Commander " grousing " over the 
 exacting and never-ending work which he was called upon 
 to perform. No, the Royal Navy " carried on " with 
 what it had, and took no more account of it than it 
 did over enemy mines and submarines. 
 
 But I could not have written " Seafarers," and 
 for this reason. Now that the significance of the defects 
 revealed by Lord Jellicoe is apparent, the work per- 
 formed by the British Navy has proved far more amazing 
 than even I had realised. As it is, I have been unable 
 to find any words which can remotely suggest the wonder 
 of the achievement. With the significance brought home 
 to me I should have been quite dumb. 
 
 I must, though, confess to a devout feeling of thank- 
 fulness that " The Grand Fleet " has been published 
 first. I tremble to think of the storm which I should 
 have raised over my devoted head had these revelations 
 (and others) come, quite unwittingly, from me. I prefer 
 to leave Service " revelations ' to the sensation-seeking 
 Press. I may add that in every case where I have been 
 in doubt whether to publish such facts, I have sought 
 the advice of senior naval officers. As a result I have 
 suppressed a good deal of matter. 
 
 "The Mariners of England" 
 
 Returning to the Recital, if I may say so without 
 appearing immodest it is work to which I look back 
 with pardonable pride. It was wholly unofficial ; there 
 was no monetary contribution to it either from public 
 funds or from individual private generosity ; all the 
 practical backing given by the Admiralty was a return 
 railway warrant to Edinburgh upon one occasion ; the
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 253 
 
 whole business was made self-supporting, and all net 
 proceeds went to Naval Charities. 
 
 But if there was no official support there was also no 
 interference, and after all that was the great thing. For 
 that I am deeply grateful. To be permitted to do useful 
 work for the Cause and in one's own way — what more 
 could any man ask ? And with so great a reward as 
 that which lay in the performance. One's only regret 
 is that development of the scheme as a whole, with its 
 endless possibilities, was refused. 
 
 From the above the reader may be interested in learn- 
 ing what ground was covered. In the three and a half 
 years, in leisure time from military duties and from direct- 
 ing other work, I have covered, broadly speaking, every 
 district in the United Kingdom south of Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow. 
 
 Thus, I toured in the south of Scotland ; in North 
 and South Wales ; the north-east and north-west of 
 England; the industrial districts of the Midlands; Lan- 
 cashire and Yorkshire; the East Coast; Gloucestershire, 
 Warwick, and Oxford ; the Home Counties ; Sussex, Hamp- 
 shire, Dorset, and the West Country to Plymouth. 
 
 In the course of the Tours I have addressed audiences 
 of wellnigh every class of the community : miners, 
 W.A.A.C.'s, ship-builders (ah ! the reception of the story 
 on Tyne-side where all the ships bad been built !), dock- 
 yard hands, boys' and girls' schools, soldiers and sailors, 
 mine-sweepers, University students, munition workers, 
 factory hands of Lancashire and Yorkshire, railway em- 
 ployees, villagers of I he country districts, hospital nurses, 
 with great audiences of the unclassified general public. 
 
 The eagerness which was everywhere evinced to hear 
 " whal the Navy was doing " I can only describe as 
 pathetic. The enthusiasm which greeted a little of the 
 story repaid one a thousandfold for the labour. 
 
 A Tribute 
 
 So, in response to the requests with which I have hcen 
 honoured, this little book goes forth. And many of the 
 requests have come from the Senior Service itself. That 
 is another reason, and a good one. 
 
 But, chiefest of all, I think, is this. I would ask 
 the Royal Navy, and all those who " kept the. Seas," 
 to accepl the volume as a tribute, some little hopelessly 
 inadequate expression of the deepest gratitude, from
 
 254 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 their comrades of the Junior Service. A Service which, 
 for the moment in this, I have the honour to represent. 
 People always say, " How come you, a soldierman, 
 to speak about the Navy ? " The answer is obvious. 
 You would never get a sailorman to do it. You cannot 
 conceive an officer of the Royal Navy going about telling 
 people " what splendid chaps we all are." Of course 
 you cannot. And someone has got to do it. Who more 
 fitting than a member of the other Service ? That has 
 been one of the triumphs of the scheme. Besides, I have 
 only been a soldierman as every other man in the country 
 should have been. It is not my profession. I have to 
 earn my living. 
 
 The "Trilogy" 
 
 So here is the last volume of my little War trilogy. 
 And it is the last. Although I expect that I shall go 
 on doing the " wandering minstrel " business (D.V.) 
 until I really do look like an old bard — grey beard, harp, 
 and other accessories of the profession. (No. In answer 
 to kind inquiries, my portrait is not published.) 
 
 An Expression of Thanks 
 
 Well, now I must say " Thank you " to those who 
 have held out a helping hand in my work. First to the 
 big-hearted generous public. The unfailing support, the 
 splendid enthusiasm of my readers and audiences have 
 been of priceless value and encouragement to me in a 
 very difficult and delicate task. I wonder if some of my 
 unknown correspondents — and from every part of the 
 world — realise how deep is the debt of gratitude which 
 they impose. I am poor even in thanks. 
 
 Then must I thank that Senior Officer of the Head- 
 quarter Staff, but whose name I regret I may not men- 
 tion. With rare insight and imagination that officer 
 realised from the outset, when the scheme was but in 
 embryo, the vital need for enlightenment and the value 
 to the Cause of that which I proposed. His personal 
 encouragement and the facilities which he permitted, 
 upon his own responsibility, have alone permitted the 
 execution of the project. 
 
 Next, my gratitude is due to Mr. Gerald Christy, 
 who, by his business organisation and whole-hearted 
 co-operation, wrestled, with complete success, with all
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 255 
 
 the intricate arrangements of the Recital tours. I owe 
 to Mr. Christy a big debt. (And to think that the Govern- 
 ment again and again refused his offer of gratuitous ser- 
 vice I) 
 
 To the Honorary Secretaries and Councils of various 
 Societies throughout the Kingdom; to the local Civic or 
 Urban Authorities for affording me their hospitality and 
 organisation ; to the pastors of the many Nonconformist 
 religious bodies ; to head masters and head mistresses of 
 Schools, public and private — to all these and many more 
 my grateful appreciation and thanks. They all gave of 
 their best and co-operated in the scheme with enthusiasm. 
 (Ah, what might have been done if only the Government 
 had heeded !) 
 
 Of officers of the Royal Navy I owe a special debt 
 of gratitude to Admiral Lord Jellicoe. In the midst of 
 his onerous duties Lord Jellicoe again and again spared 
 the time to give to me his most invaluable encourage- 
 ment. I am much indebted, too, to Admiral Sir Charles 
 Madden, to Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, to Admiral Sir 
 James Startin, and to Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman. 
 To these officers the support they gave may have seemed 
 a trilling thing ; but to the individual working single- 
 handed it meant everything. 
 
 I am indebted, too, to Commander C. C. Walcott, 
 R.N., of the Naval Intelligence Department, for his patience 
 and courtesy in supplying me at various times with odd 
 facts and figures. Also to the Statistical Department of 
 the Admiralty for further figures. 
 
 "The Seafarers" and Published Authorities 
 
 Thus far the Recital. Now regarding the historical 
 material woven into this volume. My Sea library is not 
 a large one, but it is useful. I find nearly half a shelf 
 taken up by the seven massive volumes of Laird Clowes's 
 "History of the Royal Navy." A good, solid founda- 
 tion. At the other end of the scale I see John Lev- 
 land's delightful little 6i x 5-inch work, "The Royal 
 Navy," and II. W. Household's equally delightful " Light- 
 ing for Sea Lower in Days of Sail." In between come, 
 of course, the works of Admiral Mahan. No student of 
 the Sea Affair may lack these. Then there is Julian 
 Corbett's " Drake and the Tudor Navy," in two volumes. 
 A splendid romance, so written that every hoy would 
 love it if only he knew about it.
 
 256 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 From Corbet t's "Principles of Maritime Strategy' 1 
 have derived much ins I ruction, and from Thursfield's 
 " Nelson, and Other Studies " much information and 
 entertainment. Silburn's " Evolution of Sea Power " ; 
 Commander Robinson, R.N., in his " British Fleet " and 
 " British Tar in Fact and Fiction," both classics, I imagine ; 
 Hakluyt's " Voyages " ; Masefield's " Sea Life in Nelson's 
 Time " and " A Sailor's Garland " ; Brigadier-General 
 Aston's " Letters on Amphibious Wars " — all these and 
 many others have contributed in varying degrees to the 
 Writing of " The Seafarers." 
 
 Then everyone who has followed — or tried to follow — 
 the fortunes of the British Navy in the Great War must 
 acknowledge the guidance and help of Mr. Archibald 
 Hurd. I most certainly do. Mr. Hurd's work in the 
 Daily Telegraph and Fortnightly Review has been a bright 
 oasis in a wilderness of mediocrity. Of course, Mr. A. H. 
 Pollen in Land and Water — we have all looked forward 
 week by week to his articles. But Mr. Hurd has got at a 
 large public, and he is warmly to be congratulated, as also 
 are the Proprietors and Editor of the Daily Telegraph. 
 
 I am indebted lo The Times for information derived 
 from various articles. This, I think, I have acknow- 
 ledged in footnotes to the text. Naval Despatches and 
 official communiques have also been studied, and occa- 
 sional articles in English and Scottish journals. I think 
 that practically covers my published authorities. 
 
 Personal Experience 
 
 It will, I imagine, be fairly obvious that quite a deal 
 of "The Seafarers" is the result of personal observation. 
 That is so. For I have had the privilege of seeing some- 
 thing of practically every phase of the Navy's work in 
 the War, sometimes the honour of actually sharing in 
 it. For the rest, like old Haklnyt, I have made it my 
 business to talk to the men who have done the work. 
 It Was a pretty hard business extracting information. 
 
 As I have already suggested I tackled this Navy work 
 in the firm conviction that great harm was being done 
 by the insensate policy of silence about the Sea Service. 
 The three-and-a-half years' work has only served to 
 deepen that conviction. I spoke strongly on the subject 
 in my " Marnc ' book, and I had hoped that by those 
 comments and personal example the Government would 
 move in the matter. I must confess to my failure.
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 257 
 
 But it is not just the question of Enlightenment in the 
 work of the Navy or of the Army, it is a question of ade- 
 quate enlightenment in all the vital facts of the day. But 
 I will take the Navy question by itself. And if you imagine 
 that I have a " bee in my bonnet " over the business, 
 I can only reply that interpretation and enlightenment 
 form my life's work, so that I am interested in every 
 phase of it. For Enlightenment is an Art in itself. 
 
 The " Silent " Service 
 
 Well, now, about the Navy — the " silent " Service I 
 It is " silent," I imagine, because (a) its work is done 
 on the High Seas outside our ken, and (b) because men 
 of action do not speak about their gallantry, even if 
 they considered it as such. For those two reasons, ap- 
 parently, the public are not permitted to learn of the 
 Navy's deeds. It is quite time this " silent " myth was 
 exploded once and for all. 
 
 And do you fondly imagine that the Navy wishes the 
 public to be kept in this abysmal ignorance ? Devil a 
 bit. For one thing, the Navy itself does not know what 
 it is doing. " I wish," said Admiral Madden to me on 
 one occasion, " you would go round the Grand Fleet 
 and tell us what the Navy's doing." Ships know about 
 their own personal work, but not one man in a thousand 
 realises its bearing upon the big issues. Any more than 
 a company commander knows about the issue of a land 
 battle. 
 
 The Royal Navy has its own tremendously technical 
 work to perforin, and it has not time for anything else. 
 But if I have heard it from one man 1 have heard it from 
 fifty, flag-officers to the stokers' mess-deck, they are 
 one and all intensely anxious that the public should learn 
 of their doings. 
 
 For, apart from a very natural pride in their work, 
 senior officers are alarmed that unless the public learn 
 the facts the public will not vote the money for ships 
 and naval construction generally. And I have in this 
 volume referred to historical precedents in that very 
 point. So there is one very strong argument for publicity. 
 ' We shall have to have another big Fleet action," said 
 another distinguished flag-officer to me in 1917, " or 
 the public will never believe that we have been doing 
 anything. And that will mean a very small Vote of 
 Credit from Parliament," 
 
 K
 
 258 AUTHORS NOTE 
 
 Certainly R.N. officers and men are strongly averse 
 from posing before the public as heroes. So are all decent 
 men. The professional Navy is no different in that 
 respect from the regular, professional Army. The Old 
 Army, for instance, always disapproved of the wearing 
 of wound stripes on their tunics. Similarly, the Navy 
 cordially disliked the silver and gold chevrons denoting 
 years of war service. One Army officer of my acquaint- 
 ance, entitled to wear a long row of war ribbons and 
 decorations, refuses to wear a single one. 
 
 A naval officer does not talk about his work for at 
 least one very good reason — the ordinary layman would 
 not understand a word. Similarly, Navy humour is for 
 the most part wholly peculiar to the Service in that it 
 is concerned with incidents which could not appeal to 
 the ordinary civilian. In all my association with the 
 Royal Navy I have only picked up three humorous yarns 
 which would " carry " with an average audience. Two 
 of these appear in "Seafarers," and one of them is not 
 very funny. 
 
 No, you may wipe off the map that " silent " myth. 
 The Royal Navy wishes the public to know about the 
 ships and the men ; and from personal experience I know 
 only too well that the public long to hear about their 
 sailormen. 
 
 As for the " information to the enemy " idea, that 
 is as ludicrous as the rest. I am not accustomed to 
 give to my audiences information which could be of 
 military use to the enemy. And often, to my joy, I 
 have had uninterned Huns " in front." Even in this 
 volume there are only two or three incidents narrated 
 which might not have passed the Censor. You will 
 remember what America said when it was seriously pro- 
 posed to keep the American people in the same state 
 of ignorance about the doings of their warships in European 
 waters. 
 
 " Say ! We haven't sent our boys those thousands 
 of miles just on a joy ride, and we're darned well going 
 to know what they're doing. So you can get busy right 
 away." And the authorities had to " get busy." 
 
 Britain Doesn't Advertise 
 
 Then there is the dear old " Britain doesn't advertise 
 herself " idea. Well, it is about time she did. That 
 non-advertisement has in this late War done the Empire
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 259 
 
 an infinite deal of harm with her Allies and with other 
 countries. I happen to be one of those extraordinary 
 individuals Who are not only intensely proud of what 
 Britain has done in the War, but who are not afraid 
 to say so. And the sooner people stop playing the hypo- 
 crite about our effort the better it will be for the Empire. 
 It only gets Britons cordially disliked. I don't mean 
 that we should go about bragging and boasting. There 
 is a proper mean. We never get beyond the defect. 
 
 As for the effect in our own country of this policy 
 of silence — well, it has been simply disastrous from first 
 to last. But I am running off the rails. I was talking 
 about the Navy. 
 
 I do not blame the Admiralty so much, for enlighten- 
 ment of the general public is not their business. They 
 have plenty of other work in hand. But I do blame 
 the Government, and I do blame the Press. For the 
 former there is no shadow of excuse. Lack of imagina- 
 tion one can counter to some extent ; but definite and 
 determined opposition by men who pull powerful strings 
 — that is another matter. 
 
 Now as this subject of enlightenment is most cer- 
 tainly my business, I have not the least hesitation in 
 setting down details of the scandalous neglect and gross 
 mismanagement on the part of the Government where 
 home propaganda has been concerned. And this I have 
 done elsewhere. It has relieved the pent-up feelings of 
 four long years' fighting against the civilian mandarins 
 and the Don't-hurt-Germany Party. Incidentally, the 
 indictment includes the scandal of the " War Aims Com- 
 mittee," the guillotining of the powers of the Ministry 
 of Information, and the deliberate refusal of the Govern- 
 ment to support or encourage in any way individual 
 enterprise.* 
 
 Beginning with the insults levied against Lord Roberts 
 and the contemptuous neglect of the information given 
 by our Intelligence Department before the War, down 
 to the astonishing gift of the " 1914 Star " riband 
 (the King's personal creation) to thousands of men not 
 
 * By the way, "why did the Authorities insist on sending out 
 to America some of our best war lecturers instead of keeping 
 
 them for the far ' nccdcl Home work? Major Ian Hay 
 
 Beith, Major Radclyfle Dugdale, Mr. Allied Noyes, Mr. John 
 Mascficld, and others ? Personally, I was officially invited on 
 four occasions to visit America.
 
 260 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 entitled to it, it is a rare catalogue of misdemeanours to 
 which an answer is demanded. 
 
 Ignorance in High Places 
 
 Now in the matter of our Sea Services the main, 
 outstanding fact is that ignorance in the meaning and 
 value of Britain's Sea Power is not confined to the general 
 public. The men who govern the country, the Press, 
 the teachers, the ministers of religious denominations, 
 all these are ignorant in greater or less degree. I would 
 wager that if an examination paper on the elementary 
 facts and principles of our Sea Power were set to a repre- 
 sentative class of these men, barely a third of the class 
 would secure even " pass " marks. 
 
 And this is the subject which is the foundation of 
 our very existence as a nation. " Sea Power " has be- 
 come merely a shibboleth when it should be a living, 
 splendid creed. 
 
 And yet, how should these men be informed ? Un- 
 less a man studies the subject upon his own initiative 
 he has no other opportunity of becoming acquainted 
 with it. Schools and Universities have never devoted 
 a particle of attention to it. One has only to take any 
 average book of English History, such as one studied 
 in childhood, to note how all the attention is given to 
 land warfare and battles to the total neglect of the Sea 
 Affair and its bearing. 
 
 But a man who seeks Government office should study 
 it upon his own initiative. In fact, I would make it 
 law that no man should be eligible for office until he had 
 shown himself conversant with the facts and principles 
 of Sea Power. Our national policy would then at least 
 be founded upon a proper knowledge of the issues most 
 vital to the country. And if Editors of the public Press 
 possessed a similar knowledge, we should find our journals 
 giving to the subject its proper position, together with 
 criticism of a worthy and informative character. 
 
 The Future? 
 
 But the past is done with. What of the future ? 
 Are we proposing to go on in the same old way ? Or 
 is it worth while for us to take to heart the lessons of 
 the past and to see whether they may teach us any-
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 261 
 
 thing to our profit and advancement ? Is enlightenment 
 in the meaning of Sea Power and in the work of our Sea 
 Services like to prove of use for the future ? 
 
 From one point of view there can be no possibility 
 of disagreement. Most emphatically it will prove of 
 use. But from another point of view there is, as I see 
 it, an element of doubt. What is going to be the future 
 of naval warfare ? 
 
 Now that is a subject which, frankly, I shirk dis- 
 cussing. So, too, do naval officers. We all dread it. 
 But it is with considerable astonishment that I have 
 noted all avoidance of the matter in the Press. Yet it 
 must be faced sooner or later. How can the British Navy 
 remain our first line of defence in view of the development 
 of aircraft ? 
 
 Is it realised that even before the armistice was 
 signed invention had reached to such a point that aero- 
 planes flying out of range of gun-fire could torpedo 
 battleships ? 
 
 And yet here is America voting an enormous warship 
 programme to outbuild the world. And here are re- 
 sponsible journals talking as though sea warfare in the 
 future is going to be only a trifling development of what 
 it has been in the late War 1 Is all this just bluff, a 
 trading upon ignorance, or is it due to an almost incredible 
 lack of imagination ? 
 
 That is my second point, and I leave the discussion 
 of it to the experts. It is no use setting out to teach 
 the younger generation that our future " lies upon the 
 water " when really it lies in the air. 
 
 The Royal Navy does not care to talk about it. And 
 yet there is one phase of the subject upon which officers 
 speak with no uncertain voice, and that is about the 
 Freedom of the Seas. On that topic there is nothing to 
 discuss. The detached, arm-chair, pretended idealism 
 of politicians, our own or of other nations, only excites 
 a quiet amusement. For what the Navy says in effect 
 is this : 
 
 ' What Drake and Rodney and Collingwood and 
 Anson and Ralegh and Nelson and Hawke and a 
 score more have won for us, we are not going to give 
 up." 
 
 It would therefore almost seem well if those politicians 
 saved their breath for the cooling of their porridge, for 
 I fancy that the temper of the nation is the same as that 
 of its Navy.
 
 262 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 The Moral Factor 
 
 But if we look to the lessons of the late War and of 
 past sea warfare to serve as an inspiration for the future, 
 then is Enlightenment worth the while. As a moral 
 force the story of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty of 
 our Seafarers must prove of incalculable value to the 
 youth of the Nation. It is a point so obvious that it 
 should call for no labouring. Yet why have the Authorities 
 never taken it up ? Always is one confronted with this 
 pitiable want of imagination, this myopia blocked by 
 the parish pump. If to the story of devotion we add 
 a little of the history of the Sea Power of Britain, and 
 of what that Power has done for the country and for 
 civilisation, surely that should tend to make better citizens 
 of all of us and prouder than ever of our great heritage. 
 
 As it is, this is what we are likely to encounter in 
 the streets of London at the Peace celebrations. There 
 will, I suppose, be the usual detachment of bluejackets 
 dragging a naval gun at the head of the procession. And, 
 as they pass by, Mr. and Mrs. John Citizen will flutter 
 handkerchiefs from window or pavement with the remark : 
 
 " Hm I Smart lads they always look. Pity they 
 never had a chance to show what they could do ! " 
 
 No. They only won the War for you, that's all I 
 
 The " Human " Touch 
 
 Now permit me to make one or two suggestions. 
 That is, if you agree with me that enlightenment in this 
 subject is worth while. (I have, by the way, a cordial 
 dislike for the words " education " and " lecture," as 
 may have been noticed.) The first, and most obvious, 
 step to be taken is to enlighten the men and women who 
 are to act as apostles and teachers. Then, having set 
 that work in hand, to tackle all the boys' and girls' schools 
 in the Empire. At least, that is how I see it. 
 
 The subject of Britain's Sea Service is one which is 
 intensely alive ; it throbs with vitality in every part. 
 Thus, anything academic in the training is out of place. 
 The " human " note must be there first, last, and all 
 the time. It is the men, not the ships, that have mat- 
 tered. I think that should be the basis. 
 
 This is not to suggest that a Chair in Naval History, 
 such as Lord Rothermere has recently founded at Cam-
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 263 
 
 bridge, is out of place. But we know what these pro- 
 fessorships are like to become ; and unless there is a 
 real live man of wide sympathies sitting in that Cam- 
 bridge Chair we shall find Naval History being taught 
 like mathematics or the Greek particle. 
 
 By the way, it is over three hundred years ago since 
 Richard Hakluyt was urging the proper Enlightenment 
 of English folk in their Sea Power. Here is what he 
 wrote : 
 
 " I have greatly wished there were a Lecture of Navi- 
 gation read in this Citie (London), for the banishing of 
 our former grosse ignorance in Marine causes, and for 
 the increase and generall multiplying of the sea-knowledge 
 in this age." 
 
 Three hundred years 1 Well, the Government always 
 did take a bit of moving. 
 
 A Dream Picture 
 
 But my dream for the teaching of the Sea Affair is 
 a great central Institution in London. It might form 
 a part of the Empire's memorial of gratitude to the British 
 Navy. And what more worthy memorial could one 
 desire than to perpetuate the teaching which our Sea- 
 farers have taught ? The building should be a noble one, 
 of rare imagination, worthy of the Sea Service. It should 
 contain all the treasured relics of our Sea history, past 
 and recent, not in a dry-as-dust museum, but so that 
 they may seem to live. A library, of course, there should 
 be, to contain all books of the sea published. And how 
 curiously few in number they are. A fine theatre for 
 the kinematograph, for that would be one of the most 
 import ;uii features of the institution. By it every phase 
 of the Sea Services, past and present, would be pre- 
 sented; stories of great endeavour, llw lives of famous 
 seamen, the story of our commerce, all would he shown 
 by the film. These so Ear as the distinct Limitations of 
 kinematograph and photographs permit ; and provided, 
 too, that British Film Companies learn I heir business 
 properly. 
 
 There should he another great hall for meetings. 
 Navy addresses and recitals for the general public ; a 
 smaller hall and class-rooms for lectures on the more 
 technical subjects and lor ehisses and courses. A picture 
 gallery? Well, no1 exactly that, because pictures in the 
 mass are wearying to the eye. I should prefer an arrange-
 
 264 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 ment something after the artistic method of Japan. But 
 pictures, and many of them, there should certainly be, 
 and well disposed for effect. Provision should also be 
 made for music. There would be orchestral concerts of 
 music associated with the sea, e.g. Mackenzie's " Britan- 
 nia " overture, Tyrrold's " On the Irish Shore," Delius's 
 " Sea Drift," Mendelssohn's " Hebrides," Debussy's " Sea 
 Pictures," "Wagner's " Flying Dutchman " overture, Ban- 
 tock's " Hebridean " Symphony, and so forth. Con- 
 certs and recitals and costume performances of songs 
 old and new about sea life, sailor chanties, folk songs 
 (the Breton folk songs of the sea are lovely things), Stan- 
 ford, Elgar — there is a good catalogue to choose from. 
 
 Another and most important feature would be the 
 recitals and dramatic lectures upon all phases of the 
 Sea Affair. It is the spoken word which strikes home 
 more than anything else with sea stories. But the recitals 
 must be alive ; no mumbling from a reading-desk, no 
 sheaf of notes. Clean, bracing elocution, and dramatic 
 fervour. Plenty of humour. And the audience must 
 take a part by singing choruses. There is nothing an 
 audience enjoys more. (Personally, I always get my 
 audiences singing " Heart of Oak," or " Tom Bowling," 
 or " The Battle of Jutland," etc.) 
 
 Other recitals would be given of Sea Poetry and Prose, 
 old and new : Coleridge, Shakespeare, Masefield, Quiller- 
 Couch, Shelley, Newbolt, B. L. Stevenson, Conrad — an 
 endless variety there is. 
 
 My dream Memorial would find a place for large 
 models to scale of ships of all kinds, arranged in picturesque 
 settings, and so that you could see inside them and the 
 " wheels going round." And I am quite sure people 
 would love the illusion of going down in a submarine. 
 At least, it would give an idea of the conditions of life 
 and work in one if a good model were built with scenic 
 accessories. 
 
 Children and the Sea Story 
 
 And so one goes on dreaming. But the keynote of 
 the whole must be, I repeat, that it is alive. We do not 
 want another Imperial Institute. Of course, in this I am 
 only anticipating the general character of Education in 
 the future, when Latin and Greek and History and Geo- 
 graphy will be taught properly so that the lessons are 
 actually enjoyed.
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 265 
 
 But whether my dream Memorial is immediately 
 practicable or not, those are the general principles which 
 I would suggest for Enlightenment. And apply them not 
 only to the training of the teachers, but to the youth 
 of the Empire. Two hours a week, one hour even, would 
 be of value to a school curriculum. Every school, for 
 instance, will have its own kinematograph. The sea 
 films would be obtainable on hire from the Navy Insti- 
 tution. The Institution would also be the Central Bureau 
 for general advice, the supply of special " big men ' 
 lectures, etc. 
 
 Children, boys and girls alike, respond most eagerly 
 to the telling of our Sea Story. (I cannot avoid the 
 personal note because I write almost wholly from per- 
 sonal experience.) My best audiences have been children, 
 and I give just the same kind of recital to them as to 
 grown-ups. And if you find little girls of twelve years 
 old or so telling you, after a recital lasting an hovir and 
 a half (without lantern pictures), that they could have 
 " gone on listening all the evening," you may reckon 
 that your work is not being wasted. 
 
 One little lady writing to me (quite spontaneously, 
 as I afterwards heard) remarked : " I wish that all the 
 people in the British Isles had been there on Saturday" 
 (at a Navy recital) ; " perhaps, if they had, we should 
 not have so many of those strikes which are a shame 
 to the country." 
 
 (Really, Mr. Premier or Mr. Chancellor, if a child 
 in a L.C.C. Secondary School can appreciate what is at 
 the bottom of most of our Industrial unrest, it is quite 
 time that you and your colleagues tackled the subject. 
 But you wouldn't listen lo repealed warnings all these 
 four years past, repeated appeals, offers of help ; now 
 it has come lo the very children bearing witness against 
 you.) 
 
 Pride of Country 
 
 The schools, and the public generally, should be afforded 
 every opportunity for visiting, or at least seeing, the 
 ships of the Royal Navy. A year or so ago I suggested 
 to the Government that one of the first things to be 
 done, so soon as it was practicable, was to arrange for 
 the public to see the Grand Fleet, or as much of it as 
 possible. I am glad to learn that this idea is likely to 
 be adopted. 
 
 Universities and other educational centres can do
 
 266 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 much good by arranging courses of lectures upon the 
 Sea Affair and Sea Power. They should be of a " popular " 
 character. Sheffield University did splendid work early 
 iti the War with its lectures all through the neighbour- 
 hood upon war topics. The London County Council, 
 already most sympathetic in such matters, can do work 
 of immense value in London with the children. Just 
 as they are now doing by the Shakespeare plays through 
 the sterling help of Mr. Ben Greet. 
 
 As regards other schools throughout the Empire may 
 I venture to urge upon all head masters and head mistresses 
 that this subject is at least worthy of a trial ? A single 
 hour's instruction, if it is given in an entertaining manner, 
 will, I believe, suffice to arouse a keen interest on the 
 part of pupils. It then becomes a matter of keeping 
 that interest alive, either by the suggestion of suitable 
 books for reading, or in other ways already noted. The 
 prize essay scheme for schools adopted by the Navy 
 League is excellent, and should be extended. Make the 
 children proud of their Country, and they will see that 
 their Country is worthy of their pride. 
 
 Some Broader Issues 
 
 Upon the broader issues of Enlightenment generally 
 I will not enlarge again here. I spoke of it in " The Marne — 
 and After." But I shall continue hammering at the subject 
 in and out of season until something practical is done. 
 To me the inaction of the Authorities is beyond com- 
 prehension. I can conceive nothing to account for it. 
 It isn't lack of imagination or knowledge, because every- 
 one takes a hand in telling the Government the facts. 
 It cannot be bribery by German gold. It surely cannot 
 be from political party motives, for everybody is affected 
 by these industrial strikes. It cannot be from lack of 
 men and women to undertake the work, for there are 
 many willing helpers. It cannot be from lack of funds, 
 for the Government can surely afford a return railway 
 fare or two and a night's lodging. What is the reason ? 
 I don't know. 
 
 One can hardly pick up a paper these days which 
 does not state quite plainly in referring to a strike, " the 
 men do not understand the facts," or " why does not 
 the Government enlighten everybody ? " — or some such 
 remarks. Take the Demobilisation business and all that 
 trouble with the soldiers marching to Whitehall. Every-
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 267 
 
 one knows that it was only because the men did not 
 understand the position. I remember urging, eighteen 
 months ago, that there would be chaos over this very 
 matter if Peace were to come suddenly and the men 
 were not told what to expect. As it was, when the trouble 
 was at its height, officers had to go round giving impromptu 
 lectures to inform the men. Then the trouble ended. 
 
 " Hullo ! " said a 'bus driver to a " Tube " man. 
 " Out on strike again ! What's it for this time ? " 
 
 ' I dunno," said the " Tube " man ; " but whatever 
 it is, we're going to get it." " 
 
 And that just about sums it all up. One could give 
 scores of cases during and after the War. Yet I know 
 myself of two big strikes nipped in the bud just by reason 
 of an Army officer, on his own initiative, letting the 
 workers have the facts of the case straight from the 
 shoulder. Only the other day I read of Mr. "Van der 
 Veer, the well-known London editor of the Amsterdam 
 Tclegraaf, speaking at Wigan (I think it was) on behalf 
 of the Navy League and stopping a certain strike there. 
 Why, too, are the commercial firms themselves so lacking 
 in enterprise ? 
 
 Wherever one turns, whatever problem of the moment 
 one considers, it is invariably want of enlightenment 
 which is the primary cause of the trouble. The Sexual 
 Disease problem is almost wholly one of lack of enlighten- 
 ment. (But this was tackled at the end of 1913, and 
 with far-reaching results so far as the measures have 
 yet been possible.) The appreciation of good music — 
 mainly a matter of learning " how to listen." 
 
 Much may be done by individual effort, and in spite 
 of official apathy, as has been done during the War. 
 But a man cannot go on indefinitely giving his time 
 and money to this purpose. Most of us have to earn 
 our living. I certainly have. And it's time I stopped 
 talking and got on with some Work. 
 
 A. Corbett-Smith. 
 
 The Middle Temple, 
 
 London, February, 1919.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 ADMIRAL LORD COLLINGWOOD'S DESPATCH 
 
 UPON THE 
 BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR 
 
 " On Monday, the 21st of October, at daylight, when 
 Cape Trafalgar bore east by south about seven leagues, 
 the enemy was discovered six or seven miles to the east- 
 ward, the wind about west and very light ; the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief immediately made the signal for the 
 fleet to bear up in two columns, as they are formed in 
 order of sailing ; a mode of attack his Lordship had pre- 
 viously directed, to avoid the inconvenience and delay 
 in forming a line of battle in the usual manner. . . . The 
 action began at twelve o'clock, by the leading ships of 
 the columns breaking through I he enemy's line . . . the 
 succeeding ships breaking through, in all parts, astern of 
 their leaders, and engaging the enemy at the muzzles 
 of their guns ; the conflict was severe ; the enemy's 
 ships were fought with a gallantry highly honourable to 
 their officers ; but the attack on them was irresistible, 
 and it pleased the Almighty Disposer of Events to grant 
 his Majesty's arms a complete and glorious victory about 
 3 p.m. Many of the enemy's ships having struck their 
 colours, their line gave way; Admiral Gravina, with 
 fourteen ships . . . stood towards Cadiz, leaving (as 
 prizes . . .) to his Majesty's squadron nineteen ships of 
 the line. . . . 
 
 " Such a battle could not be fought without sustaining 
 a great loss of men. I have not only to lament, in common 
 with the British Navy and the British nation, in the 
 fall of the Commander-in-Chief, Viscount Nelson, the 
 loss of a hero whose name will be immortal, and his 
 memory ever dear to his country ; but my heart is nut 
 with the most poignant^ grief for the death of a friend,
 
 270 APPENDIX 
 
 to whom, by many years' intimacy and a perfect know- 
 ledge of the virtues of his mind, which inspired ideas 
 superior to the common race of men, I was bound by 
 the strongest ties of affection ; — a grief to which even the 
 glorious occasion on which he fell does not bring that 
 consolation which perhaps it ought. His Lordship re- 
 ceived a musket-ball in his left breast about the middle 
 of the action, and sent an officer to me immediately with 
 his last farewell, and soon afterwards expired. . . . 
 
 " The whole fleet were now in a perilous situation, many 
 dismasted, all shattered, in thirteen fathoms of water, off 
 the shoals of Trafalgar ; and, when I made the signal 
 to prepare to anchor, few of the ships had an anchor to 
 let go, their cables being shot. But the same good Provi- 
 dence which aided us through such a day preserved us 
 in the night by the wind shifting a few points and drifting 
 the ships off the land. . . . Having thus detailed the 
 proceedings of the fleet on this occasion, I beg to con- 
 gratulate their Lordships on a victory which, I hope, 
 will add a ray to the glory of his Majesty's crown and be 
 attended with public benefit to our country." 
 
 II 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED BY 
 
 ADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY 
 
 ON BOARD H.M.S. LION, ON 24TH NOVEMBER, 1918, 
 
 TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE LION 
 
 AND FIRST BATTLE CRUISER SQUADRON 
 
 " Officers and Men of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, 
 
 — You are going away to-day to perform a final duty, and 
 I could not let you go without visiting a part of my old 
 command, and more especially my old flagship, to say a 
 few Words. First of all to thank you for all that you have 
 done during the past four and a half years to enable us to 
 achieve a triumph, which you witnessed, and which has 
 surpassed anything that has ever occurred before. I 
 thank you for maintaining cheerfulness through the long 
 Weary years of war, for having maintained an efficiency 
 which has created a prestige in the minds of the enemy, and
 
 APPENDIX 271 
 
 has brought about his downfall. England owes the Grand 
 Fleet a great, great debt. The world owes the Grand 
 Fleet a great debt. It has been said before, and it will be 
 said many times again, that the war, which is now on the 
 threshold of coming to an end, has been won by sea-power. 
 You are the representatives of sea-power. Military suc- 
 cesses have been great. Military victories have been 
 achieved under circumstances which have produced diffi- 
 culties, all of which have been overcome by the greatest 
 gallantry, devotion to duty and sacrifice. But all that 
 would have been of no value without the sea-power of 
 England. On you lies the great burden, and to you is 
 due great credit. 
 
 " I have always said in the past that the High Sea 
 Fleet would have to come out and meet the Grand Fleet. 
 I was not a false prophet ; they are out, and they are now 
 in. They are in our pockets, and the First Battle Cruiser 
 Squadron is going to look after them. The First Battle 
 Cruiser Squadron, in fact the Battle Cruiser Force, has a 
 more intimate acquaintance with the enemy than any other 
 force of the Grand Fleet. It has been their great fortune 
 to have cast their eye upon them on several occasions, and 
 generally with very good effect. But we never expected 
 that the last time we should see them as a great force would 
 be when they were being shepherded, like a Hock of sheep, 
 by the Grand Fleet. 
 
 " It was a pitiable sight, in fact I should say it was a 
 horrible sight, to see these great ships that we have been 
 looking forward so long to seeing, expecting them to have 
 the same courage that we expect from men whose work 
 lies upon great waters — we did expect them to do some- 
 thing for the honour of their country — and I think it was 
 a pitiable sight to sec them come in, led by a British light- 
 cruiser, with their old antagonists, the battle-cruisers, 
 gazing at them. 
 
 " I am sure that the sides of this gallant old ship, which 
 have been well hammered in the past, must have ached — 
 as I ached, as all ached — to give them another dose of 
 what we had intended for them. Hut I will say this, that 
 their humiliating end was a suitable end and a proper end 
 for a foe so lacking in chivalry and in what we look for 
 from an honourable foe. From the beginning ids strategy, 
 Ids tactics and Ids behaviour have been beneath contempt,
 
 272 APPENDIX 
 
 and worthy of a nation which has waged war in the man- 
 ner in which the enemy has waged war. 
 
 " They are now going to be taken and placed under the 
 guardianship of the Grand Fleet at Scapa, where they will 
 enjoy, as we have enjoyed, the pleasures of Scapa. But 
 they have nothing to look forward to, as we had. That 
 which kept up our spirits, kept up our efficiency. They 
 have nothing to look forward to except degradation. The 
 First Battle Cruiser Squadron has been selected, because 
 it is the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, to take them there. 
 And I consider it, and I am sure that you consider it, a 
 great honour to have the guarding and shepherding of the 
 enemy to their last resting-place, until it is decided what 
 shall be done with them ; and I am sure that you will look 
 after them, and see there is no skipping about on Flotta, 
 better than anybody else can. 
 
 " I want to touch on one other topic, and that is, that 
 any of you who have dealings with representatives of the 
 High Sea Fleet will remember what they have done in the 
 past — no clapping them on the back, giving them a 
 cigarette, and calling them ' old chap.' As I have said 
 in my memorandum, you have to treat them with courtesy, 
 cold courtesy. Every time you feel sorry for them, re- 
 member what they have done in the past. Don't ever 
 forget it ; it would be the greatest mistake in the world. 
 
 " The British sailor is very sympathetic. We know that 
 he has a very large heart, and sometimes a very short 
 memory. In this case just contract your heart and 
 lengthen your memory, and remember that the enemy 
 that you are looking after is despicable, nothing more nor 
 less. He is not worthy of the sacrifice of one bluejacket 
 in the Grand Fleet. And that is the one bright spot in the 
 fact that he did not give us what we hoped for — a good 
 stand-up fight. He would not be worthy of the loss of one 
 life in the Grand Fleet ; he is too far beneath us. , . ,"
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aboukir, sinking of, 118 (note) 
 
 Addah survivors fired on by 
 enemy, 209 
 
 Admiralty Salvage Corps, the, 
 214 
 
 Aeroplane attack on Avocet, 6 
 
 Africa, combined operations in, 
 90 
 
 Aguila, sinking of, 31 
 
 Aircraft as submarine spotters, 
 212 
 the future of, 261 
 
 America, a German gibe at, and 
 the result, 71 (note) 
 and blockade of Germany, 
 
 182 
 shipbuilding programme of, 
 261 
 
 American soldiers, number con- 
 voyed to France, 164 
 transport torpedoed off Ire- 
 land, 162 
 
 " Amphibious warfare," in- 
 stances of, 77 et seq. 
 
 Anglo- Californian baulks a sub- 
 marine, 199 
 
 Anson, Commodore George, his 
 voyage in Centurion, 12 
 
 Aretliusa and Heligoland Bight 
 battle, 119 
 
 Army, the Service of the aris- 
 tocracy, 37 
 
 Aston, Brig.-Gen. G. ('.., his 
 " Letters on Amphibious 
 Wars," 78 (note) 
 
 Atlantic Ocean, mileage of, 
 18!i 
 
 Australian Government, Lord 
 Kitchener's Memoran- 
 dum to, 74 
 
 Avocet, a gallant Qght by, <i 
 
 A/ores, the, Germany and, 177 
 S 
 
 Bacon, Vice-Admiral, tribute 
 to the Dover Patrol, 84 
 
 Baghdad, fall of, its effect 
 throughout Eastern 
 world, 88 
 the Navy and, 86 
 
 Baker, Captain, of Mystery 
 ship Phoenix, 223 
 
 Ballin, Herr, an admission by, 
 190 
 
 Battle Cruiser Squadron (1st) 
 and surrender of High 
 Sea Fleet, 272 
 
 Beatty, Admiral, addresses First 
 Battle Cruiser Squadron, 
 270 
 and Jutland battle, 61, 123, 
 
 133 
 his contempt of German 
 Navy, 128, 271 
 
 Belgian coast, the, and amphi- 
 bious warfare, 84 
 
 Belgian Prince, surrender of : a 
 typical instance of Ger- 
 man kultur, 207 
 
 Blake, Robert, as soldier and 
 sailor, 29 
 
 Blockades, object of, 175 
 
 Blucher, sinking of, 119 
 
 Boy Sea Scouts, value of their 
 services, 243 
 
 Bradbury, Captain E, K., heroic 
 passing of, 65 (note) 
 
 Bunnell, skipper of Avocet, 6 
 
 British Fleet, "offence" the 
 inspiration of, 97 
 
 British Isles, German blockade 
 of, 182 
 
 British Navy. (Vide Navy, 
 British) 
 
 British shipping during sub- 
 marine blockade. 203-4 
 
 273
 
 274 
 
 Index 
 
 British superiority at sea, vital 
 importance of, 174 
 
 Broke fights enemy destroyers, 
 140, 142 
 
 Brunswick, a damaged figure- 
 head on, and how it was 
 restored, 132 
 
 " Cable length " defined, 18 
 (note) 
 
 Campbell, Captain Gordon, and 
 H.M.S. Dunraven, 225 
 work of, in scheme of Mys- 
 tery ships, 223 
 
 Canadian Nursing Sisters, a Roll 
 of Sacrifice, 34 
 and Llandovery Castle, 32 
 
 Cap Trafalgar sunk by Car- 
 mania, 153 
 
 Carmania, the crew's request to 
 skipper of, 153 
 
 Censorship question, the, 258 
 
 Centurion, Anson's voyage in, 12 
 
 Channel ports, the fight for, 162 
 
 Chile, Revolutionary Campaign 
 in, 78 
 
 Chinese, the, and the Royal 
 Navy, 55 
 
 City of Birmingham, captain's 
 tribute to women, 31 
 
 Clan Macfarlane, plight of sur- 
 vivors of, 201 
 
 Clan Maclavish, an unequal fight 
 with Moewe, 151 
 
 Clowes, Sir William Laird, on 
 the Royal Navy, 29 
 
 Collingwood, Admiral Lord, de- 
 votion to duty of, 66 
 his despatch on battle of 
 Trafalgar, 269 
 
 Colonies, overseas, 174 
 
 Combat, some maxims ; and 
 their observance, 94 
 
 Commerce protection, import- 
 ance of, 178 
 
 Commissioner sinks a submar- 
 ine, 211 
 
 Communications, preserving and 
 cutting, 173 et seq. 
 
 Contraband of war defined, 181 
 
 Controversy, dangers of, 251 
 
 Convoy and transport of troops, 
 159 et seq. 
 
 Co-operation, definition of, 76 
 
 Coquette's crew captured by 
 Arabs, 201 
 
 Corbett, Sir Julian, on value of 
 amphibious warfare, 86 
 
 Cornwallis, Admiral, war-orders 
 of, 116 
 
 Cornwell, Jack, the boy hero of 
 Chester, 65 
 
 Craven, Lieut. F. W., seaman- 
 ship of, 57 
 
 Cressy, sinking of, 118 (note) 
 
 Crimea, the, amphibious war- 
 fare in, 77 
 
 Crisp, Thomas, last words of, 65 
 
 Cruiser Squadron (10th), in- 
 valuable work of, 184 
 
 Cumberland, coast fighting of, 90 
 
 Damascus, capture of, 89 
 Dardanelles campaign, the 
 
 Navy's work in, 90 
 De Burgh, Hubert, victorious 
 
 fight in Straits of Dover 
 
 by, 61, 150 
 De Chair, Rear-Admiral Sir 
 
 Dudley, and the Tenth 
 
 Cruiser Squadron, 184 
 De Ruyter, Admiral, a tribute 
 
 to English courage, 38 
 Deep-sea fishermen, fine work 
 
 of, 167 
 Denmark, shipping of, sunk by 
 
 enemy, 197 
 Destroyers, shortage of, 251 
 their services at Jutland, 124 
 various duties undertaken 
 
 by, 139 
 work in Great War, 136 
 ( Vide also Torpedo boat 
 
 destroyers) 
 Deutschland crosses to and from 
 
 New York, 216 
 Didon fights Phoenix, 224 
 Discovery, fate of, 9 
 " Dockyard maties," an unex- 
 pected trip of, 1 
 Dogger Bank action, the, 156 
 Dover, cliffs of, 166
 
 Index 
 
 275 
 
 Dover Patrol, the, tribute to, 84 
 
 fine work of, 166 et seq. 
 Drake, Francis, amphibious war- 
 fare of, 76-7 
 and the policy of offence, 
 
 143 
 on comradeship, 51 
 Dummy battleships, a squadron 
 
 of, 155 
 Duncan, Admiral, a memorable 
 
 utterance by, 58 
 Dunraven, last fight of, 225 
 Dwarf, coast fighting of, 90 
 
 " E 11," romance of, 145 
 Elizabeth, an engagement with 
 
 pirate craft, 5 
 Emden, her last fight, 151 
 Enemy trading, law of, 181 
 Enlightenment in War Facts 
 
 and Ideas, scheme for, 
 
 249 et seq. 
 Evans, Commander, of Broke, 
 
 140 
 
 Ferguson, Rodert, of Vigilant, 
 
 193 
 First Battle Cruiser Squadron 
 
 shepherds enemy fleet 
 
 to Scapa, 271 
 Fisher, Lord, a disregarded pro- 
 phecy by, 198 
 and improvement of British 
 
 mines, 215 
 Fisherfolk and the Great War, 
 
 15 
 Food as contraband of war, 
 
 182 
 Food supply, Britain's, 178 
 Forecastle, definition of, 7 (note) 
 Formidable, loss of, 65 
 Fox, Lieut. -Commander Charles, 
 
 memorable utterance of, 
 
 64 
 skipper of Mary Rose, 62 
 Fraser, Sister M. M., heroism 
 
 of, 32 
 Freedom of the Seas, definition 
 
 of, 196 
 Germany's idea of, 196 
 
 Frigate, definition of, 223 (note) 
 Fryatt, Captain, murder of, 201 
 
 Gartside-Tipping, Lieut. -Com- 
 mander H. T., death 
 of, 85 
 Gaura, siege of, Navy's share 
 
 in, 90 
 German atrocities and barbar- 
 ities, 48, 54, 201 ct seq. 
 cruiser chases Ortega, 10 
 sunk by British submar- 
 ine, 146 
 German Navy, filthy condition 
 of their ships, 122 
 their loss of moral, 120, 121 
 Germans, submarine losses of, 
 
 149 
 Germany and the transport of 
 troops, 164 
 bases of, 176 
 blockade of, 180 et seq. 
 her communications cut, 175 
 humiliation of : Admiral 
 
 Beatty on, 271 
 infamous conduct of, 241 
 lack of enterprise at sea at 
 beginning of war, 115, 
 117, 118 
 medals commemorating 
 sinking of Lusilania, 
 208 
 privations of, 187 
 submarines surrendered, 98, 
 
 149 
 surrenders her Fleet, 97, 121 
 Golden Hind, tonnage of, 25 
 Goodhart, Lieut. - Commander, 
 
 heroic death of, 146 
 Goivan Lea, a plucky fight with 
 an Austrian cruiser, 154 
 Grand Fleet, enlistment of " hos- 
 tility men," 26 
 watching and waiting policy 
 of, 97 
 Great Britain, an historic De- 
 claration by, and the 
 result, 183 
 her fatal policv of silence, 
 
 258 
 storehouses of, 190
 
 276 
 
 Index 
 
 Great Britain, strength of Mer- 
 cantile Marine at out- 
 break of war, 191 
 Great War, the, and the Mer- 
 cantile Marine, 14 
 
 co-operation of the two Ser- 
 vices in, 78 
 
 Sea Power as deciding issue 
 in, 72 
 
 the seven theatres of, 160 
 
 Hakluyt, Richard, on need 
 of Enlightenment, 263 
 
 Hall, Rear-Admiral Sir W. R., 
 head of Intelligence Ser- 
 vice, 112 
 
 Hartlepool, bombardment of, 97 
 
 Harvey, Captain, of Brunswick, 
 a deputation to, 132 
 
 Harwich Force, the, 98 
 
 Hela sunk by British sub- 
 marine, 146 
 
 Heligoland Bight, battle of, 119 
 mining, 139 
 shallowness of, 212 
 
 Hermione, recapture of, 96 
 
 Hewitt, Fleet-Surgeon D. W., 
 129 
 
 Hogue, sinking of, 118 (note) 
 
 Holland, " neutrality " of, 197 
 
 Hood, Rear-Admiral the Hon. 
 H. L. A., a tribute to, 
 125 
 
 Horse transport by sea, statis- 
 tics of, 161 
 
 Hospital ship torpedoed and 
 sunk, 31 
 
 Howe, Lord, and the " Glorious 
 First of June," 132 
 
 Hudson, Henry, explorations of, 
 9 
 
 Hun aircraft attack on mer- 
 chant ship, 6 
 
 India, foundation of British 
 
 Empire in, 9 
 Indian Marine, the, operations 
 
 on the Tigris, 87 
 Irish Sea, shallowness of, 212 
 Island Race, the, story of, 22 
 
 Jellicoe, Admiral Sir John 
 (Viscount Jellicoe of 
 Scapa), a tribute to, 132 
 
 and the submarine menace, 
 133 
 
 as First Sea Lord, 113 (note) 
 
 despatches on Jutland bat- 
 tle, 123 et seq. 
 
 improves British mines, 214, 
 215 
 
 inspects " Mock Turtle " 
 squadron, 157 
 
 on Sir D. Beatty's work at 
 Jutland, 133 
 
 praises the trawlers, 240, 242 
 
 tribute to his officers and 
 men, 59, 129 
 
 unconquerable optimism of, 
 58 
 Jiddah, surrender of, 89 
 Justicia, astonishing marksman- 
 ship of her gunners, 204 
 Jutland Bank, battle of, a mis- 
 leading British commu- 
 nique, 56 
 
 Germany's smashing defeat 
 at, 120 
 
 heroism of the wounded, 129 
 
 the Kaiser's proclamation 
 on, 127 
 
 work of destroyers at, 124, 
 125 
 
 Kattegat, the, action in, 107 
 Kent avenges loss of Monmouth, 
 
 61 
 Keyes, Vice-Admiral, 167 
 Kildare, loss of, 201 
 Kinneir, Douglas, of Ortega, 10 
 Kipling, Rudyard, cited, 46 
 his " Message to the Nation," 
 71 
 Kitchener, Lord, and the possi- 
 bility of invasion, 174 
 Konigsberg, marooning of, 90 
 " Kultur," German, instances 
 of, 48, 54, 201 ct seq. 
 
 Lake Tanganyika, motor- 
 launches capture enemy 
 gunboat on, 90
 
 Index 
 
 277 
 
 Lectures as a means of En- 
 lightenment in war facts, 
 252 et seq. 
 
 Leipzig, her " peaceful voyage" 
 and her non-return, 216 
 
 Leyland, John, on Vice-Admiral 
 Saunders, 77 
 
 " Libel of English Policv," the, 
 24 (note) 
 
 Light craft and single ship 
 actions, 135 et seq. 
 
 " Line ahead " defined, 18 (note) 
 
 Lion, Admiral Beatty's address 
 to First Battle Cruiser 
 Squadron on, 270 
 
 Llandovery Castle torpedoed and 
 sunk, 31 
 
 London, air-raids on, 97 
 
 Loxley, Captain, goes down with 
 his ship, 65 
 
 Lusilania, sinking of, 208 
 
 MacCabe, Lieut. John F., 17 
 
 Madden, Admiral, a request to 
 author by, 257 
 
 Madeira, Germany and, 177 
 
 Mahan, Admiral A. T., on Brit- 
 ish sea supremacy, 73-4 I 
 
 Mails, and how they reached the 
 troops, 169 
 
 Maris ton, and a U-boat com- 
 mander, 209 
 
 Mary Rose, a gallant fight by, 62 
 
 Masefield, John, cited, 13 
 
 Maude, General, on co-operation 
 in war, 87 
 
 May, Sir Arthur, 129 
 
 Mercantile Marine. (Vide Mer- 
 chant Service) 
 
 Merchant Service, the, 4 et seq. 
 a Venetian Ambassador's 
 
 tribute to, 8 
 convoyed by battleships, 206 
 ensigns of, 15 
 
 shipping requisitioned by 
 Government, 191, 192 
 (notes) 
 supplied with anti-aircraft 
 guns, 202 
 
 Mesopotamian campaign, the 
 Navy and, 87 
 
 Midshipmen, a tribute to their 
 
 work in Dardanelles 
 
 campaign, 92 
 Military strategy, the root of, 
 
 173 
 Mine-laying by destroyers, 139 
 
 German activity in, 232 
 Minelayers, craft engaged as, 215 
 Mine-sweepers, 230 et seq. 
 Mine-sweeping extraordinary, 57 
 Mines, German, devilish ingenu- 
 ity of, 230 et seq. 
 Mocenigo, Pietro, on merchant 
 
 seamen, 9 
 " Mock Turtle " squadron of 
 
 battleships, the, 155 
 Moeive fights and sinks Clan 
 
 Mactavish, 151-2 
 Monmouth, loss of, 61 
 Mons, the " Old Contempti- 
 
 bles " at, 161 
 Motor-lorry sinks a submarine, 
 
 135, 221 
 Miiller, Captain von, of Emden, 
 
 151 
 Munday, Fleet-Surgeon R. C, 
 
 129 
 Mystery ship, an old-time, 223 
 Mystery ships (Q-boats), 221 et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Napier, Sir Charles, on the 
 
 Germans, 206 
 Napoleon, his fear of amphibious 
 
 attacks, 76, 86 
 Nasmith, Lieut. -Commander M. 
 E., " owner" of E 11, 
 145 
 Naval Medical Service, the, 
 splendid work of, 129 
 warfare, the future of, 261 
 Navy, British, a feat of organisa- 
 tion and transport by, 
 162 
 and " Royal " Navy, 4 (note) 
 convoy of troops by, 159 
 co-operation in, 76 ct seq. 
 its part in the Great War, '_', 
 
 69 
 national ignorance regard- 
 ing, 2-19 et seq.
 
 278 
 
 Index 
 
 Navy, British, the Four Estates 
 of, 22, 36, 242 
 what it is, 3 
 Navy, Royal, 4 (note) 
 
 and the shell shortage, 252 
 co-operates with U.S. Navy, 
 
 165 
 democratic nature of, 36, 37 
 first function of, 94 
 its admiration for the " Old 
 
 Contemptibles," 59 
 personnel of, 14 
 present-day comradeship in, 
 
 50, 51 
 question of pay and allow- 
 ances, 72, 73 
 the original, 12 
 the " silent " Service, 257 
 tradition of, 41 et seq. 
 Nelson, a typical example of 
 his humanity, 49 
 death of, 65 
 his Trafalgar Memorandum, 
 
 115 
 tradition, the, 94 et seq. 
 waiting policy of, 142 
 Nelson, and the death of her V.C. 
 
 commander, 65 
 Neutral ships and contraband 
 of war, 183 
 shipping sunk by Germans, 
 197 
 New Zealand, Lord Kitchener's 
 Memorandum to Gov- 
 ernment of, 174 
 Newfoundland Fishing Fleet, 
 
 the, 235-6 
 Nore, the, mutiny at, 13 
 North Sea battle, an incident in, 
 
 60 
 North Sea, the, dummy battle- 
 ships in, 155 
 minefield in, 215 
 North Wales, loss of, 201 
 Norwegian ships sunk by enemy, 
 
 197 
 Niirnberg chased by Kent, 60 
 
 Offence, naval policy of, 141 
 Ortega sails an uncharted chan- 
 nel 11 
 
 Ostend, enemy base at, 176 
 Overseas bases, importance of, 
 
 177 
 colonies and how protected, 
 
 174 
 
 Pacific Ocean, mileage of, 183 
 Parslow, Captain, heroism and 
 
 death of, 199 
 Pascoe, John, a fight with 
 
 Algerine pirates, 5 
 Peck, Commander, of Swift, 140 
 Pepys on the victualling of 
 
 sailors, 138 
 Phoenix, an old-time Mystery 
 
 ship, 223 
 Poop, definition of, 7 (note) 
 Port beam, meaning of, 7 (note) 
 Porter, Sir James, 129 
 Punch, a cartoon on Jutland 
 
 battle in, 128 
 
 " Q " boats. ( Vide Mystery 
 
 ships) 
 Quebec, capture of, 77 
 
 Ralegh, Sir Walter, colonises 
 Virginia, 8 
 
 Ramsgate, a mine explodes off 
 coast of, 231 
 
 Pappahannock, loss of, 201 
 
 Red Sea, the, blockade of Ara- 
 bian coast of, 88 
 Revenge, tradition of, 62 
 
 Rodman, Admiral, Great Brit- 
 ain's debt of gratitude 
 to, 165 
 
 Rodney, Admiral, and *' break- 
 ing of enemy's line of 
 battle," 143 (note) 
 
 Rosebery, Lord, on military 
 command, 37 
 
 Roumanian opinion of British 
 Fleet, 56 
 
 Royal Navy. (V. Navy, Royal) 
 
 Rozhdestvensky.Admiral, a cost- 
 ly error by, 177 
 
 Rupert, Prince, as soldier and 
 sailor, 29
 
 Index 
 
 279 
 
 Russia, a trade route created 
 with, 9 
 Germany's malign influence 
 and, 221 
 Russo-Japanese War, the, 97, 
 177 
 combined operations in, 78 
 Rutland, Flight-Lieutenant, 124 
 
 Sailors, and the food question, 
 138 
 
 Saunders, Vice-Admiral, co-op- 
 erates with Gen. Wolfe, 
 77 
 
 Scapa Flow, experiences of com- 
 mander of surrendered 
 destroyer at, 128 
 undefended in first year of 
 Great War, 117, 251 
 
 Scarborough, bombardment of, 
 97 
 
 Scott, Admiral Sir Percy, an un- 
 fulfilled forecast of, 198 
 
 Scouts, Sea Service branch of, 
 243 
 
 Seafaring folk of coast line, the, 
 15 et seq., 36 
 
 Sea-warfare, limitations of, 96 
 
 Secret Services, British and 
 German, 112 
 
 Sims, Admiral, Great Britain's 
 debt of gratitude to, 165 
 tribute to British Grand 
 Fleet by, 73 
 
 Sister Services, the, 76 et seq. 
 
 Sloop, definition of, 224 (note) 
 
 Sluys, battle of, 97 
 
 Smith, John, of Vigilant, 193 
 
 Smith-Dorrien, Sir Horace, 133 
 
 Spanish-American War, com- 
 bined operations in, 78 
 
 Spanish Armada, the, and the 
 Merchant Service, 7 
 insignificance of English 
 Fleet in, 150 
 
 Startin, Admiral Sir James, an 
 heroic deed by, 53 
 awarded Albert Medal, 54 
 re-enters the Service, 52 
 
 Slratliearn escapes from the 
 enemy, 211 
 
 Strikes, industrial, an example 
 of need of Enlighten- 
 ment, 266 
 Submarine attack, methods of, 
 162 
 fought by trawlers, 18 et 
 
 seq. 
 sinks Dutch fishing-smack, 
 197 
 Submarine service, British, 144 
 Submarines, avengers of, 210 el 
 seq. 
 British losses in Great War, 
 
 149 
 displacement of, 25 
 increasing activity of, 197 
 life in, 147 
 ocean-going, 211 
 surrendered bv Germany, 98, 
 149 
 Sweden, shipping lost by enemy 
 
 action, 197 
 Swift, a fight with enemy de- 
 stroyers, 140, 142 
 Sydney chases and destroys 
 Emden, 151 
 
 Tiger, hurried departure of, 1 
 Tigris, the, amphibious opera- 
 tions on, 87 
 Torpedo boat destroyers, Rear- 
 Admiral Tyrwhitt's ad- 
 vocacy of, 136 
 splendid work of, 136 
 (Vide also Destroyers) 
 Torpedoes, range and speed of, 
 
 163, 211 
 Trade routes, importance of 
 
 protecting, 174 
 Trafalgar, battle of, Admiral 
 Lord Collingwood's des- 
 patch on, 269 
 numbers of ships engaged 
 in, 151 
 Trawlers, Admiral .Jellicoe's tri- 
 bute to, 240, 2112 
 as mine-sweepers, 232 et seq. 
 attacked by submarine, 18 
 Trcwin, Asst. -Paymaster, 121 
 Troops, transport and convoy 
 of, by British Navy, 159
 
 280 
 
 Index 
 
 Tyndareus, heroism of troops 
 
 on, 234 
 Tyrvvhitt, Rear-Admiral R. Y., 
 
 and his Harwich Force, 
 
 98 el seq. 
 and torpedo boat destroyers, 
 
 136 
 
 Undaunted's success with enemy 
 
 destroyers, 119 
 United States, foundation of, 8 
 Navy of, co-operates with 
 
 Royal Navy, 165 
 
 Veer, Mr. Van der, as strike- 
 breaker, 267 
 Vengeur, a fight with Bruns- 
 wick, 132 
 Vigilant, and her three heroes, 
 
 193 
 Virginia, colonisation of, 8 
 
 Wagenfuhr, U-boat command- 
 er, dastardly conduct of, 
 207 
 
 Wandle sinks a German sub- 
 marine, 8 
 
 " War Aims Committee," the, 
 259 
 
 Ward, Colonel John, heroism of 
 his Labour Battalion, 
 234 
 
 Warfare, land and sea : main 
 difference between, 96 
 
 Watt, Joseph, a plucky fight 
 with an Austrian cruis- 
 er, 154 
 awarded the Victoria Cross, 
 155 
 
 Wei-hai-Wei, Japanese attack 
 on, 78 
 
 Welch, Thomas, of Vigilant, 
 193 
 
 Whitbourne, Richard, Commo- 
 dore of Queen Eliza- 
 beth's Fishing Fleet, 235 
 
 Wilson, Havelock, and boycott 
 of Germans, 46 
 
 Wolfe, General, co-operates with 
 Vice-Admiral Saunders, 
 77 
 
 Women, heroism and self-sacri- 
 fice of, 30 el seq. 
 
 Zeebrugge, enemy base at, 176 
 Zeppelins v. Destroyers : and a 
 
 tale of a dog, 47 
 Zigzagging, and why adopted, 
 
 200 
 
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