Pincher Martin, O.D.: A Story of the Inner Life of the Royal Navy

'Damn!' Wooten muttered fiercely, stepping to the engine-room telegraph and turning the handle until the pointer showed the revolutions of the turbines for ten knots.

With the sounding-machine going every five minutes, the siren wailing mournfully every two, and extra lookouts placed on the forecastle, they groped their way blindly on. It was trying work; for, now that the fog had shut down, the neighbourhood at once seemed crowded with other ships, the dismal hooting of whose sirens and steam-whistles came from all directions at the same time. The noises they made were curious. Some barked like dogs; others cleared their throats noisily, or stammered and yelped shrilly; while more boomed and bellowed like cattle, howled liked wolves, or laughed like jackasses.

'I've heard a farmyard in the early mornin',' Wooten observed; 'but the racket that's going on now fairly licks creation.'

Once they sighted a huge dull blur in the haze right ahead, and the skipper, holding his breath, jammed the helm over just in time to avoid a large Norwegian tramp laden with timber. The vessels slid by each other barely twenty feet apart, and as they passed a man with an excited purple face and a white beard leant over her bridge-rail gesticulating wildly. 'Why for you no look where you come?' he bellowed in incoherent and very bad English.

'Don't get excited, Father Christmas!' Wooten retaliated, justly annoyed. 'Why the deuce don't you sound your hooter, you perishin' pirate?'

The master of the steamer waved his fists excitedly, but before he could collect his wits and think of anything further to say the vessels had slid past each other and were out of sight and earshot.

For an hour the Mariner travelled on, with the fog as thick as ever. They were running down the Channel between the minefield and the banks lying off the shore; but in spite of the fact that they were working entirely by dead reckoning, and the tide was an unknown quantity, nothing unforeseen occurred.

'What the deuce is that?' asked MacDonald, as an excited, irregular, and strident 'He-he-haw-haw-haw!' burst out from the murk ahead.

Wooten laughed. 'Sounds exactly like a donkey braying,' he said. 'As a matter of fact, it's some blighter playing on one of those hand fog-horns. Sailing-craft of sorts. He's right ahead, too. Keep your eyes skinned!'

A moment later there came a wild yell from the forecastle, 'Ship right a'ead, sir!'

'Starboard! Hard a-starboard!' the skipper ordered at once, as a blurred silhouette came out of the mist right under the destroyer's bows. 'By George! we've got her!' His heart was in his mouth, and he gripped the rail convulsively and waited for the crash.

But they didn't hit her quite; for the Mariner, turning sharply to port under her helm, just shaved past within a fathom of a small decked sailing-boat with brown, idly flapping sails. An ancient mariner in a billycock hat at her wheel stared up open-mouthed at the destroyer's bridge, and then, yelling like a maniac, darted aft and hauled in on the painter of the dinghy towing astern. He did it just in time to save his small boat from being run into and destroyed. Farther forward a red-faced boy, with one hand on the pump-handle of a battered brass fog-horn, looked up with frightened eyes, as they passed so close that Wooten could almost see the drops of moisture on his rough blue jersey.

The midship gun's crew happened to be cleaning their weapon as the boat drifted by.

''Ow do, granfer?' said the irrepressible Billings, stepping to the rail and removing his cap with a low bow. 'Where did yer git that 'at?'

'You keep a civil tongue in yer – 'ead!' retorted the aged fisherman with some heat.

'Now then, yer naughty boy,' answered the seaman, wagging a finger reprovingly, 'don't git usin' sich langwidge. Comin' aboard ter 'ave a nice drop o' rum?'

'Go to 'ell!' shouted the naughty boy, purple in the face. 'You – torpeder deestroyers'll be the – death o' th' likes o' me! Second – time we've bin nearly run down this marnin'! W'y can't you – look where you're – well goin'? We've got our – livin' to get' – The remainder of his remarks were inaudible as his craft dropped astern and was swallowed up in the fog.

'Nice ole gent, ain't 'e?' Billings remarked with a grin, gazing after the boat with admiration. 'Don't 'e talk well? I 'specs, if we really know'd it, that ole bloke is a shinin' light in one o' these 'ere chapels ashore. Don't matter wot yer sez an' does in the week, s'long as yer good an' goes ter chapel reg'lar o' Sundays.'

''Ow often does we git these 'ere fogs?' queried Pincher, a trifle anxiously. ''Ow in 'ell does the skipper know where-abouts th' bloomin' ship is if 'e carn't see nothink?'

Joshua smiled condescendingly. 'Fawgs!' he said. 'Sometimes we 'as 'em in th' North Sea fur days an' days on end – weeks sometimes.'

'But 'ow does ships find their way abart then?' Pincher persisted.

'Find their way abart?' Billings repeated, scratching his nose with an oily forefinger. 'I dunno rightly. They eases down an' keeps their soundin'-machines goin' reg'lar, an' uses their compasses; but I reckons they doesn't allus know where they is. They pretends to, o' course, but I believe they trusts ter luck more 'n 'arf th' time.'

Martin sucked his teeth. 'But supposin' we 'its somethink?' he asked. 'Supposin' we 'ad a bargin' match wi' another ship, or runs ashore?'

Billings grunted. 'W'en that 'appens yer kin start thinkin' abart it,' he returned. 'It's no good yer troublin' yer 'ead abart wot may 'appen; yer won't git no sleep, an' won't 'ave no happetite, if yer does. S'pose we gits blowed up by a mine or by one o' them there ruddy submarines; s'pose we 'as a collision wi' somethink a bit bigger'n ourselves, or per'aps 'as a bomb dropped on our 'eads from a bloomin' hairyoplane or a Zeppeling?'

'Well, an' wot abart it?' demanded the ordinary seaman, rather perturbed at Billings's summing up of the different ways in which they might meet their fate.

'Wot abart it? Why, I tells yer it ain't no use yer worryin'. If we does 'ave bad luck an' 'as an 'orrible disaster, shove yer life-belt on an' trust ter luck, same as yer did in th' ole Belligerent. It takes an 'ell of a lot to sink a deestroyer,' Joshua added. 'I've seen 'em 'arter collisions wi' their bows cut orf, their starns missin', an' chopped clean in 'alves, I 'ave; but still they floated some'ow, an' wus towed back 'ome inter 'arbour.'

'I don't fancy seein' this 'ere ship chopped in 'alves,' said Pincher dubiously.

'Don't talk so wet,' Joshua growled. 'Yer ain't frightened, are yer?'

'Course I ain't!' came the indignant reply.

'Yer looks ter me as if yer wus,' said the A.B. 'But, any'ow, don't worry yer 'ead. A deestroyer's a ruddy sight safer'n some other ships. We've got speed, we 'ave, an' kin run away if we're chased by an 'ostile cruiser, an' we don't draw too much water fur bumpin' mines and sichlike. Jolly sight safer 'n livin' ashore, I calls it.'

'I dunno so much.'

'Course it is. Look at th' ways yer kin lose th' number o' yer mess w'en ye're livin' on th' beach,' Billings replied with a snort. 'Yer kin be run over an' laid out by a motor-bus. Yer kin be drownded in yer barth, or git a chimney-pot dropped on yer napper in a gale o' wind. Yer kin be suffocated in yer bed if yer leaves th' gas burnin', an'' —

'An' yer nearly dies o' suffocation if yer drinks more 'n a gallon o' beer,' chimed in another man, who knew Billings's past history.

Joshua turned round wrathfully. 'I don't stan' no sauce from th' likes o' you, Dogo!' he exclaimed, advancing threateningly.

'It's true, ain't it?' queried Dogo, retreating to a convenient distance. 'Besides, I never said 'oo it wus 'oo nearly died o' suffocation, did I?'

'No, but I knows ruddy well 'oo yer means, yer perishin' lop-eared milkman; an' nex' time yer sez things ter me I'll give yer a clip 'longside th' ear'ole as'll keep yer thinkin' abart it fur a week!'

The bystanders laughed.

'Don't you take no notice o' 'im, Pincher,' Joshua went on. ''E ain't no sailor. Afore this 'ere war started 'e wus drivin' one o' these 'ere milk-carts an' shoutin' "Milk-o!" artside th' 'ouses, an' makin' love ter th' slaveys!' It was perfectly true so far as the driving of the milk-chariot was concerned, for Dogo Pearson, after serving his first period in the navy, had retired into civil life as a milkman, only to be called up again on the outbreak of war.

It was Dogo's turn to get angry. 'Look 'ere, Billin's!' he said angrily; 'I'll 'ave yer know' —

'You men had better be gettin' on with cleanin' that gun!' came the wrathful voice of Mr Menotti, who had come forward unseen. 'It's not half done, red rust everywhere, an' you're all standin' round spinnin' yarns. Get a move on, or I'll have you up here cleanin' it in your spare time!'

The argument ceased, and the gun's crew, stifling their amusement, busied themselves with their emery-paper, bath-brick, and polishing-rags.

'You wait till I gits yer on th' mess-deck, me boy-o!' growled Joshua sotto voce when the gunner's back was turned.

'Orl right, chum,' Dogo grinned unconcernedly; 'don't go gittin' rattled.'

Billings was really a great friend of his.

All things come to an end in time, even sea fogs, and that same evening the Mariner steamed jauntily into her first port of call and dropped her anchor.

'I'm glad you've arrived all right,' said the senior naval officer when Wooten went over to report himself. 'To tell the truth, we were a bit anxious about you.'

'Anxious, sir! Why?'

'We've had to close the Channel to all traffic until it's been swept,' said the S.N.O. 'A steamer went up on a mine bang in the middle of the fairway about an hour after you must have passed the place.'

'Good Lord!' the lieutenant-commander ejaculated with a sigh of relief.

The S.N.O., who was used to such things, smiled blandly. 'Have a cigarette,' he said, pushing the box across. 'What about a glass of brown sherry? I've just got a new lot in, and it's rather good stuff.' He reached up and fingered a hanging bell-push.

'Thank you, sir. I think I will.'

The S.N.O. rang the bell for his steward.

CHAPTER XIII

FRITZ THE FRIGHTFUL

I

Pincher soon discovered that life on board a battleship and life in a destroyer were two totally different existences.

In the Belligerent a cast-iron routine had always been adhered to, at sea or in harbour, fair weather or foul. Nothing was suffered to disturb that routine, unless it were occasional excursions to sea in the small hours of the morning and frequent coalings. Times were laid down for everything. Day after day bugles blew or pipes twittered at exactly the same hours; and to the ship's company, the actual workers, things seemed to run as smoothly as clockwork with a minimum of effort on the part of every one. They all knew what to do, and when to do it; and the men themselves never realised the forethought, the energy, and the capacity for organisation on the part of the commander and other responsible officers which were necessary to produce such a result. They took it for granted. Their groove was made for them, so to speak, and they suffered themselves to slide along its well-oiled length without troubling their heads as to what supplied the motive-power. Moreover, men were told off for their jobs collectively, not individually. Their bodies seemed to be regarded as machines capable of so many units of work, and there were such numbers of them in the ship, and the vessel herself was so huge, that the labours of any single person, provided always he was not a very important person, did not seem to have any effect on the community as a whole. Indeed, a seaman could even go on the sick-list, or leave the ship altogether, without his absence being noticed or felt except by his own messmates and friends.

But in the Mariner things were very different, for here the labours of every single individual counted. If a man neglected his work or idled his time away, his shortcomings had their effect on some one else. They were soon noticed, and the laggard speedily found himself chased and goaded into a proper state of activity by Petty Officer Casey; and Casey, a glutton for work himself, always had a persuasive way with him, and a horny fist to back up his arguments.

There was a routine, of course, and very nice it looked on paper; but the life was so full of sudden surprises that as often as not any preconceived time-table went by the board. It was not surprising, for the Mariner and the other destroyers of her flotilla had always to be ready for service at the shortest notice, and her men frequently found themselves bundled unceremoniously out of their hammocks in the middle of the night to get the ship to sea. It did not matter whether it was blowing a gale, raining, or snowing; go to sea they must, and did.

Sometimes they chivied Fritz; and he – a wise man, but no gentleman – waited for no one. It was not the fault of the destroyers that he had usually vanished into space by the time they arrived to strafe him. Fritz was the ubiquitous Hun submarine, any 'untersee-boot' which happened to come into their domain, and a merry little dance he sometimes led them. Occasionally, to vary the monotony, they called him Hans, Adolf, Karl, or some other Teutonic appellation; but more often than not he was just Fritz, and Fritz he will remain until the end of the war. Sometimes, though reported as such, he was not really Fritz at all.

'The skipper of the trawler Adam and Eve reports having sighted a periscope flying a large flag in latitude xy^° z^′ N., longitude a^° bc^′ E., at six-thirty this morning,' was the sort of thing they were sometimes told. 'Proceed to the vicinity with all despatch, and search.'

Proceed they did, hot-foot and full of warlike energy, only to find that the skipper of the Adam and Eve had been mistaken, and that his periscope with its large flag was nothing but some other fisherman's dan buoy broken adrift from its nets. Dan buoys, seen in the half-light of the early morning or evening, are apt to be deceptive, particularly when the imagination is stirred at the thought of the substantial honorarium to be earned for authentic information of the enemy.

But even battleships and cruisers make mistakes sometimes. The newspapers have never mentioned one fierce engagement which took place in a certain northern harbour, in the chill gray light of an early dawn, when a long black submarine was suddenly seen approaching the outer cruiser of a line of men-of-war lying peacefully at their anchors. He came in on the flood-tide, grim and menacing, causing a great commotion in the water, and with his periscope raising its flutter of spray. Now and then he disappeared altogether.

It was Fritz, they thought, come to pay them an early morning visit, and with all the joy in the world the officer of the watch in the cruiser opened fire. It was easy shooting. The guns barked angrily, and four-inch shell spouted, foamed, and burst round the invader until he was a submarine no longer. The fleet was flung into a state of considerable excitement; but the submarine sank gracefully to the bottom, while the officer of the watch, metaphorically patting himself on the back, told his agitated pyjama-clad commanding officer of what had occurred.

'Are you quite certain you got him?' the latter inquired anxiously.

'Absolutely certain, sir,' the lieutenant replied. 'We all saw him hit several times. He sank by the bows.'

'Have sunk hostile submarine,' was the signal made to the flagship a few minutes later. 'Request permission to send down divers to investigate.'

'Approved!' came back the answer. 'Report results.'

'Divers have been down, but report they can find no traces of the alleged submarine,' another semaphore message went across three hours afterwards.

The flagship did not deign to answer, but her signalmen tittered; the 'alleged' tickled them.

'I'm absolutely certain he was hit, sir,' the officer who had opened fire reiterated for the thousandth time. 'I'm positive I saw him sink – absolutely positive!'

'Well, where the deuce has he got to, then?' the captain wanted to know, shrugging his shoulders unbelievingly. 'The damned thing surely can't sink and not leave a trace of anything behind him!' He seemed rather irritable.

Three days later a light cruiser anchored towards the entrance of the harbour, and started talking. 'There is a large black object stranded on the beach abreast the ship,' she said by semaphore. 'Am sending boat to investigate.'

'Object previously reported is a whale,' came a supplementary message in less than half-an-hour. 'It has been dead some days, and appears to have been killed by shell-fire.'

The defunct monster advertised his presence far and wide when the tide fell. People approached him wearing gas-masks and with ammonia-soaked handkerchiefs held to their noses. How the authorities got rid of him history does not relate. One cannot very well bury a thing the size of a house. Perhaps they sold him for fertiliser.

There were no C.B.'s or D.S.O.'s conferred for that battle, though the shooting certainly had been good.

But all this has carried us rather far from the Mariner and her men. They always found Fritz, Hans, Adolf, Karl, or whatever they chose to call him, as cunning as a hatful of monkeys; but the destroyers and other craft which sought to compass his destruction admired him for his efficiency, for efficient he certainly was. He combined boldness with seaman-like caution, and would suddenly appear in an area crowded with traffic, sink a merchant ship or two, and then disappear into space. Occasionally he behaved as a sportsman, and towed the boats containing the crews of the ships he had just sunk in towards the shore. Sometimes, when it came to sinking liners and passenger-ships with women and children on board, his reputation was unsavoury; but even the righteous wrath and indignation of his pursuers, who always played the game themselves, were not levelled so much at Fritz himself as at those who had given him orders to go out and do his dirty work.

The Mariner was once working in an area in which Fritz was very active indeed, when Hills the telegraphist clambered on to the bridge in a state of purple excitement, flourishing a sheet of paper.

'Well, what is it?' Wooten demanded. 'What's the matter?'

'There's a steamer down to the south-east'ard makin' the S.O.S. call, sir!' the man ejaculated agitatedly. 'Says she's bein' overhauled by a submarine, who's firin' on her. I've got her position, course, and speed!'

'The devil you have!' said Wooten, putting the telegraphs to 'Full speed,' and giving the helmsman a new course. 'Let's have her position.' He took the paper from the telegraphist, and laid the latitude and longitude off on the chart. 'Lord!' he remarked, rather perturbed, 'we're a good forty miles off. It'll take us over an hour to reach her. They'll be strafed by then, poor devils!'

The Mariner, meanwhile, with smoke pouring from her funnels and a great bow-wave creaming aft from her sharp stem, was dashing off at something over thirty knots.

Wooten scratched his head. 'Hills,' he said at last, as an inspiration seized him, 'call her up by wireless, and make her in plain English – not in code, mind – "Hang on. Destroyer will be with you in twenty minutes." Got that?'

'Yessir,' said the man, writing it down.

'Very well. Don't make our name, but use all the juice you can, so that they'll think we're very close. Understand?'

'Yessir,' nodded Hills, leaving the bridge rather mystified.

'You see, sub,' the skipper went on, 'we can't possibly get to this chap in time to save him from being sunk. All we can do is to try to frighten Fritz and to make him abandon the chase. D'you see?'

Hargreaves nodded vaguely.

'I don't believe you understand in the least what I'm driving at,' Wooten continued, smiling. 'Fritz has got wireless, and is on the surface. If he's the wily bird I imagine him to be, he'll have a fellow in his box-office listening to what's going on. He'll hear my signal, will take it in, translate it – they all know English – and there's just a chance it'll scare the life out of him, and make him shove off out of it. Savvy?'

Hargreaves nodded.

The scheme actually did work successfully, and Fritz was badly had, for in less than twenty minutes the unknown steamer was talking again. 'Submarine has abandoned chase, and has dived,' she said abruptly. 'Who are you?'

'Mind your own perishing business!' went back the reply in rather politer language.

Fritz seemed to work in spasms, for a fortnight would go by without a sign of him; and then, quite suddenly, there would come another recrudescence of his activity in another and quite unexpected locality. But the small craft were always hot on the scent the moment he bobbed up. They made his life a misery and a burden; and, though it is true he succeeded in sinking many a merchant ship, many of his species did not return to Wilhelmshaven. There were various effective ways of dealing with him, though exactly what those methods were must perforce be left a secret.

II

But Fritz was not the only thing they hunted; for once, in the English Channel, the Mariner was sent to sea to look for Fritz's mother, a suspicious sailing-vessel supposed to be supplying him with petrol and other commodities.

It was midnight when the orders came, pitch-dark, snowing hard, and blowing half a gale of wind, and there was considerable risk in taking the ship to sea at all. First they had an altercation with the side of the jetty, the brunt of which was taken by the whaler at her davits, and caused that boat to open her seams and crack her ribs in resentful indignation. Then, since there was no room to turn, Wooten had to perform the rather ticklish manœuvre, in the midst of a snow-flurry, of steering stern first through a line of closely anchored ships with no lights. Any naval officer will agree that handling a destroyer in such circumstances, with a strong wind broad on the beam, the night so dark that it is impossible to see more than a hundred yards, and clouds of black, oil-fuel smoke making it darker still, is apt to be hair-raising and startling. Wooten found it so at any rate, and congratulated himself that he succeeded in getting to sea with no further damage than a badly squeezed whaler.

Shortly before daylight they arrived at the spot where the suspicious sailing-vessel had been sighted from the shore. They were all in a state of suppressed excitement, for they fully believed they were in for something at last; while the guns' crews, fidgeting with impatience, were standing by their weapons ready to open fire.

Wooten himself was very hopeful. 'If this report is true,' he said to the first lieutenant, 'I shouldn't at all wonder if we found a submarine taking in petrol alongside her.'

MacDonald, inclined to be sceptical, shook his head and smiled. 'I have my doubts, sir,' he said with true Scottish caution. 'It's my opinion that the whole yarn is pure bunkum.'

When the dawn broke in a blaze of scarlet and orange there was a sailing-craft in sight, and she was barely a mile away from the place where the submarine supply-ship had been reported. She seemed rather an ordinary-looking vessel, ketch rigged, with a sturdy, broad-beamed hull, and was hove-to under the lee of the land. Her sails were patched and dingy, and, like Joseph's coat, were of many colours. But really and truly there was nothing at all remarkable about her, though most of the officers and fully half the men were firmly convinced that she was a Hun of most immoral character.

The Mariner approached her warily, with guns trained, and the men's fingers itching on their triggers. They longed to fire. The Jessie and Eva, however, evinced no particular interest in the proceedings; and when the destroyer steamed up close alongside, and went astern to check her way, only a small, sleepy-eyed boy was visible on deck.

'Where d'you come from?' Wooten bellowed through a megaphone.

'Brixham, surr!' answered the youth with a broad west-country burr, as a tousled head appeared up the after-companion and stared at the destroyer in amazement.