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

But the coxswain's chief function, his raison d'être, is to act as a skilled helmsman. He is generally a man of long service and tried experience, who has done all his time in torpedo-craft. He knows, or should know, the individual idiosyncrasies of practically every type of destroyer in the navy; and, this being the case, he is the commanding officer's right-hand man if he is good – and he usually is – and his bête noir if he is bad. He steers the ship going in or out of harbour, when she is moving away from or going alongside a jetty or another ship, during steam tactics and manœuvres, or in action. In short, he is the qualified helmsman whose presence is required at the wheel in any circumstances calling for special skill and knowledge. He draws extra pay for his attainments, and has been through special courses to fit him for his rating; but his value lies in the fact that he has learnt his trade through long experience at sea.

William Willis, the coxswain of the Mariner, was a short, well-covered little man, with a laughing red face and a pair of twinkling blue eyes. He was always laughing, no matter how bad the weather, no matter what happened; while he had the peculiar knack of always appearing on the bridge at the very instant he was wanted, and without having to be sent for. How, when, and where he slept or ate at sea Wooten never discovered; for no sooner had the next destroyer ahead hauled out of the line to avoid a floating mine, or an important signal been made, than Willis, breathing like a grampus, clambered ponderously up on to the bridge and relieved the helmsman. It seemed second nature to him to arrive at the moment he was most needed. One peculiar trait of his was that he never would admit that the weather was really bad.

'Bit rotten, cox'n, eh?' Wooten would remark, shaking the drops of water out of his eyes after a green sea had lolloped over the forecastle and deluged every one on the bridge with spray.

'Not near so bad as I 'ave 'ad, sir,' Willis always answered stolidly. 'When I was in the Boxer we was once 'ove-to for three days in weather like this 'ere.' He occasionally varied the formula by mentioning the Zephyr, the Angler, the Kangaroo, the Albatross, the Garry, the Mohawk, or various others of the destroyers in which he had served; but no matter if the barometer had dropped half-an-inch in an hour, or the wind was blowing with almost hurricane force, or the ship was rolling and pitching to an extent that nobody would have believed possible if he had not seen and felt it, her weather, in the coxswain's opinion, was never so bad as that experienced by the other craft he had been in.

Sometimes, in the days when Wooten was still new to the ship, and before he had come to understand the ways and tricks of handling her – and a destroyer does occasionally take a deal of handling – they got into difficulties. Perhaps they would be going alongside an oiler 34 at dead of night to replenish their fuel, and the wind would get on the wrong bow, and a strong tide sweep the ship the wrong way. Willis rarely talked on the bridge, but then it was that he considered himself entitled to speak.

'Why not try 'er with a touch astern starboard, sir?' would come a hoarse remark. 'Slew 'er stern round – see?' He never spoke as if he were offering advice; he merely made a suggestion, as it were, and oftener than not Wooten acted upon it, and found it good.

Daniel Bulpit, the chief engine-room artificer, Thompson's trusted assistant and second in command, had few peculiarities. He was a hard-working, conscientious, and thoroughly capable west-countryman, who was always cheerful and always obliging. In appearance he was short and thick-set, with a fresh complexion, hair slightly tinged with gray, and blue eyes; and what he didn't know about the Mariner and her internal economy was not worth thinking about. Before joining the destroyer he had been at the College at Dartmouth, teaching the naval cadets their business in the pattern-shop. He had evidently been popular there, for when he went ashore he was frequently recognised and accosted by certain of his 'young gentlemen,' most of whom by this time had attained the dignity and single gold stripes of sub-lieutenants.

Gartin, the chief stoker, was a character, and, among other duties, had charge of the engineer's stores and tools. He was a tall man, with shaggy eyebrows, black hair, and a black beard, and, judging from the conversation occasionally heard issuing from the storeroom hatch, took his job very seriously indeed, and regarded most people, certainly all seamen, as disciples of Barabbas.

'Please, will yer let us 'ave the loan of a cold chisel an' a nammer?' once asked Pincher Martin.

The chief stoker glared. He had a rooted antipathy to all men who came to borrow tools, for as often as not they omitted to return them. This necessitated a game of hide-and-seek throughout the ship on the part of Gartin himself; while, when the implements were eventually retrieved, the edges of the chisels were generally found to be jagged, the saws blunt, and the punches broken. 'What d'you want 'em for?' he asked suspiciously.

'Ter cut a length o' three an' a narf wire in 'alves.'

'Ain't got none!' snapped Gartin.

Pincher knew full well that he had. 'We carn't do th' job without 'em,' he expostulated mildly.

'Can't 'elp that; you'll 'ave to do the best you can, or else borrow 'em off some one else. I ain't got no 'ammers nor chisels, I tells you!'

'But I see'd' —

'Can't 'elp what you see'd. I ain't got none; that's flat, ain't it?'

'Well, if yer really 'aven't got 'em I s'pose I'll 'ave ter go an' tell the bloke wot sent me ter borrow 'em,' said Martin with an air of resignation.

Gartin pricked up his ears. ''Oo was it 'oo sent you?'

'Fu'st lootenant,' said Pincher, inventing a polite fiction on the spur of the moment.

'Why didn't you say so afore?' Gartin demanded wrathfully, opening a tool-box. 'Think I'm 'ere to 'ave my time wasted like this? You're quite certain it was th' fu'st lootenant sent you?' He thought he had seen a twinkle in Pincher's eye.

'Well, 'e said 'e wanted the job done this mornin', any'ow,' the ordinary seaman prevaricated.

The chief stoker produced the hammer and the chisel, and handed them across as if he were making a gift of the Crown Jewels. ''Ere you are. Look out you returns 'em. If you don't' – He glared fiercely and shook his head.

'If I doesn't?'

'If you don't I'll take you afore the engineer horficer an' the captin, an' 'ave the price of 'em stopped outa your pay. I'm fed up wi' chasin' people round the ship. They comes to me borrowin' things right an' left, never says so much as "Thank you," an' never troubles to return the gear wot they borrowed. I ain't 'ere to get runnin' round arter seamen wot isn't no better'n a pack o' thieves!'

'I'll look out I returns 'em orl right,' said Pincher, retreating up the ladder with a broad grin all over his face.

'I'll look out you pays for 'em if you don't!' was the chief stoker's final remark.

Pincher retired chuckling, with the tools in his possession. He did not feel the least bit uneasy. Gartin's bark was always worse than his bite, and nobody ever took him really seriously.

Hills, the petty officer telegraphist, was a burly, powerful-looking man of average height. His eyebrows, like Gartin's, were long and bushy, the hair on his head was thick and luxuriant, while his chin, though he shaved every morning regularly, was always bristly and blue by the evening. At sea he spent most of his time in the wireless office abaft the charthouse. It was a tiny apartment, about eight feet by five, and every conceivable nook and cranny, and almost every square inch of the walls and ceiling, was occupied by instruments. Where there was room on the walls Hills had decorated his little den with photographs of his wife, children, relations, and friends, and sundry flamboyant and highly coloured picture post-cards. There was just room for a mahogany slab which served as a table, and a chair bolted to the deck, in which, with a pair of telephone-receivers clipped over his ears, Hills sat enthroned like some mysterious wizard in his cave. The wireless office was soundproof and practically airtight. Its occupant detested draughts, and at sea in winter, when the two small side windows were kept tightly shut, the atmosphere could almost be cut with a knife. In the early mornings, when Hills had had an all-night sitting, and felt peevish and looked dishevelled, his shipmates always said his hairy face assumed a simian aspect, and that he himself reminded them of a gorilla in his cage. It was a libel, but this did not prevent certain irreverent persons from forgathering outside his den at cockcrow, opening the door gently, and then, scratching themselves after the manner of apes, inquiring tenderly as to his health.

''Ullo, "Birdie," 'ow goes the zoo? Wot time does th' hanimals feed this mornin'?'

'Oh, go to 'ell!' 'Birdie' would exclaim irritably. Sometimes he adopted stronger measures, emerged from his lair with a ferocious expression, and, armed with a broom-handle, pursued his tormentors round the forecastle to the accompaniment of yelps of pain and howls for mercy as he belaboured them roundly.

But Hills was popular on board, and was thoroughly good at his work; so, taking things all round, Wooten and the officers had reason to congratulate themselves upon having a good ship's company.

II

Who would not sell a farm and go to sea? Life in the navy, even in war, has its compensations. At any rate, the sailor's commodious residence conveys him, his belongings, his food, and his weapons to the scene of his activities at a speed of anything between seven and a half and thirty-six knots, according to circumstances. The soldier, on the other hand, though he may sometimes ride upon a horse or travel in a train, generally has to rely upon his own flat feet for locomotion. Moreover, he carries on his person several days' provisions, spare clothing, a rifle, a bayonet, ammunition, and equipment, together with an assortment of bombs, gas-masks, and entrenching tools. Any spare space or weight-carrying capacity which may remain to him is presumably at his own disposal, and may be utilised for accommodating gifts of tobacco, magazines, and socks from home. So the sailor is lucky in a way; while he also escapes the mud of the trenches, the plagues of flies, and other abominations – for which he is duly grateful. It is true, though, that his floating home, particularly if it is a small one like a destroyer, is very subject to the vicissitudes of the weather, and has a knack of being abominably wet and very unstable in a seaway. But life at sea in peace and life at sea in war are not so very different. The ocean, with its gales, calms, and fogs, is always the same, and hostilities only mean more time spent at sea, a few extra dangers thrown in, in the shape of mines and submarines, and the chance of a 'scrap' with the enemy.

Sometimes, during their expeditions to that region known as 'the other side,' for the express purpose of discomforting the Hun, the Mariner and the light cruisers and other destroyers with her had bad weather. Occasionally it was very bad indeed, and until they got used to it some of the ship's company wished fervently that they had never joined the navy at all. When their little ship was punching home against a rapidly rising gale, the green seas had a playful habit of breaking over the bows and of washing waist-deep over the upper deck; while, even in the quiet intervals, sheets of spray came flying on board until every one was soaked through and through, in spite of oilskins.

The movement was dizzy and maddening. It was usually a combined pitch and roll, a horrible corkscrew motion which left one wondering what antics the ship was going to indulge in next. At one instant the bows would be flung high into the air on the crest of a wave until the forefoot and some length of the bottom were clean out of the water. Then the sea would fall away from underneath, and, after hesitating a little, the bows would fall into the next hollow with a sickening downward plunge. Then a great gray wall of advancing water, topped with a mass of yeasty foam, would rear itself up and obliterate the horizon ahead. Sometimes the ship lifted in time to ride over it. Sometimes she seemed to hang, and the liquid avalanche broke on board and surged over the forecastle with a crashing and a thudding which made the whole ship quiver and tremble. At such times the mess-decks, the wardroom, and the cabins, however watertight they were supposed to be, were usually inundated with several inches of water. Hot food was often out of the question, for even if the cook were not seasick, or his fire were not extinguished by the sea, he, not being blessed with the tentacles of an octopus, could hardly prevent himself from being hurled violently forth through his galley door, let alone retain an array of saucepans, kettles, and frying-pans on the top of a nearly red-hot stove. Something was bound to go, and 'cookie' took very good care it was not he. Then it was that officers and men ate and drank what they could. Wooten favoured Bovril from a vacuum flask, corned beef sandwiches, and cheese; but some people, having no appetites, preferred to fast.

Destroyers cannot steam very fast against a heavy head-sea, and with bad weather from the west there was always the possibility that the enemy's battle-cruisers might emerge from their lair and chase and sink the retiring British ships one by one as they punched slowly homewards. Small craft are not suited for fighting in very bad weather, and such an eventuality might have been disastrous; but nobody seemed to trouble his head about it.

Life at sea in the summer, when there was hardly a ripple on the water, with a brilliant sun and no fog, was enjoyable, though it is true that they always ran a certain amount of risk from mines, floating or otherwise. The dangerous red squares, oblongs, and circles on the chart were abundant and well scattered. Ships did not willingly venture over them; but summer sun and absence of wind breed fogs, and they might be at sea in misty weather for a couple or more days with no glimpse of the land, no chance of taking an observation of the sun, and nothing but a dead reckoning position to work from. This – since tides, currents, and wind have a variable effect – might sometimes be anything up to twenty miles wrong, so destroyers occasionally trespassed upon the red danger areas without really meaning to do so. How could they help it?

Liberties should not be taken with mines. They are inventions of the Evil One, and at the beginning of the war caused many people to suffer from insomnia; but later on those who did nothing but traverse waters in which some unscrupulous mine-layer had deposited her eggs lost much of their dread of them. Familiarity had bred not actually contempt, but a species of fatalistic indifference which is rather difficult to describe. A mine explosion is always serious, sometimes disastrous, and it is never exactly pleasant to know that your ship may be blown up at any moment, and that you and your shipmates may have to take to the boats, if there is room in them for all hands and the cook, or if there is not, to go bathing in life-belts or swimming-collars. Moreover, some of you may be killed or wounded by the explosion itself, particularly if it occurs under a magazine; and if it happens close to the enemy's coast one may possibly be rescued by the Huns and incarcerated in Germany for the duration of the war. There is a chance of being saved by a British ship if one is anywhere near; but whichever way one looks at it, an under-water explosion is never anything but unpleasant to the victim thereof.

But there is nothing to be gained by worrying. In war one can go to Kingdom Come in such a variety of ways, all equally violent and all horrible, that it is as well never to allow the mind to dwell on any particular method of extinction. People never run unnecessary risks, naturally; but risks have to be taken, and mines moored beneath the surface are invisible at any time. 'Floaters,' too, are a source of danger; and, though mines which have become parted from their moorings are nominally supposed to be harmless, Hague Conventions and the tenets of International Law are sometimes disregarded. War has lost its old-time chivalry. It is now a dirty and an ungentlemanly business – one at which the modern Hun excels.

III

One dark winter evening the Mariner and three other destroyers were groping their way back toward the British coast after being at sea for two days and two nights. They had had the usual North Sea weather, thick haze and some rain; but during the later portion of the trip there had been a gale of wind from the south-west and an unusually bad sea. Even now, when they were close to the coast, and should have been more or less under the lee of the land, it still blew hard, with a heavy perpendicular lop which made the little ships pitch and wallow as they drove through it. The evening was as black as the mouth of the nethermost pit, and the sky was completely overcast, while for the last forty-eight hours they had never had a glimpse of the sun or the land. Their position, as usual in such circumstances, was more or less an unknown thing, a mere matter of dead reckoning and guesswork, which even the constant use of the sounding-machine could not verify.

Making the land after dark in peace-time, with all shore lights blazing, sometimes gives cause for anxiety; but in war, when all the lighthouses and lightships are extinguished, when many buoys are removed, and there are various dangerous mined areas to be dodged and avoided, it becomes something more than a joke. If mines are known to be present, the feeling is not at all a pleasant one. It is rather like being blindfolded and trying to find the door in a pitch-dark room, the floor of which is well strewn with bombs ready to explode on being touched. That was the sort of sensation at the back of Wooten's mind.

The Mariner happened to be the third ship in the line of four, and at five-fifty-one precisely, when the skipper, the sub-lieutenant, and the usual quartermaster, signalman, and lookouts were on the bridge watching the next ahead, there came a rumbling, crashing roar from somewhere close astern. It made the ship dance and tremble, and was nothing the least like the sharp report of a gun. The sound was more or less muffled, and the violent, reverberating thud could only be compared with the sudden banging of a heavy steel velvet-covered door in a jerry-built villa, if such a thing can be imagined.

Wooten, who had heard such reports before, knew at once what it was. 'God!' he exclaimed anxiously, looking astern; 'some one's got it in the neck!'

Some one had – the Monsoon, the ship astern – and a moment later her signal-lamp was flickering agitatedly in and out in the darkness. 'Have struck a mine!' she spelt out hastily.

Wooten cursed under his breath. 'These things always happen on nights like this!' he observed bitterly. 'Just like our rotten luck! – Signalman!'

'Sir?'

'Tell Monsoon I'm coming to her assistance,' Wooten gave the necessary orders to the quartermaster at the wheel. – 'Hargreaves, have the boats turned out ready for lowering in case she goes, and send down to No. 1, and tell him to be ready for taking her in tow. As fast as you can!'

The sub. hurriedly left the bridge, and Wooten, working the helm and the twin screws, circled round until his ship was about fifty yards away from and abreast of the damaged vessel, which had fallen off into the trough of the sea. The Mariner's men, meanwhile, in all stages of deshabille, had thronged to the upper deck at the sound of the explosion, and were making the various necessary preparations.

'Are you all right?' the skipper bellowed as the ship slid slowly past, rolling heavily.

'I don't know about being all right,' came back a voice. 'My stern, with the rudder, screws, and the whole bag o' tricks, is missing. I think she'll float, though.'

'Right! I'll take you in tow!' went back the reply. – 'Good Lord!' added Wooten, swaying to the heavy rolling and looking at the sea; 'it's going to be the devil's own job, though.'

It was. When a searchlight shone out and illuminated the scene, the Monsoon seemed to be in a very bad way. She was not rolling very heavily, for some portion of her damaged stern was still connected to the hull, causing her to lie over to starboard toward the wind until the mast was at an angle of thirty degrees to the vertical, and broken water could be seen washing half-way across her upper deck. The spectacle was an alarming one, for she seemed to be in some danger of capsizing.

The Mariner, meanwhile, had drawn slightly ahead. She was rolling so heavily that at one moment her rails were under water, and the next were high in the air, while the men working on the wet and slippery deck had the greatest difficulty in preventing themselves from being hurled bodily overboard.

Wooten manœuvred his ship until her stern was on a level with the Monsoon's bows, and about thirty feet distant; where-upon men stationed aft endeavoured to hurl heaving-lines across on to the forecastle of the damaged vessel. If a small line could be got across from ship to ship, the end of it would be made fast to a coir hawser in the Monsoon. The coir would then be dragged over to the Mariner, and on the end of it would be secured the steel-wire towing-hawser, one end of which would be hauled on board and secured in the towing ship, and the other in the vessel being towed. But, try as they might, they could not bridge the space. The wind simply laughed at them, and hurled their lines back in their faces, while all the time the throwers were in constant danger of being shot into the sea by the movement. Except for the glare of the searchlight, it was pitch-dark. Wooten could not approach any closer for fear of bringing the vulnerable stern, with its rudder and screws, into collision with the Monsoon's bows, and if he allowed that to happen his own ship would be disabled and rendered helpless, and the last state of affairs would be worse than the first. There was only one alternative, and that was to lower a boat to take the lines across; but this again was easier said than done.

Hargreaves, the sub-lieutenant, and five men took their places in the whaler hanging at her davits, and the boat was then lowered gradually toward the water. The skipper watched them with his heart in his mouth, for as she descended, and the falls lengthened, the scope of her oscillation became longer and longer, and dizzier and dizzier. The ship herself was still rolling horribly, and at one instant the whaler was swung giddily out at an impossible angle over the water, while the next she came into contact with the ship's side with a crash and a thump which threatened to stave in her planks and to precipitate every mother's son of her crew into the sea. Watching the business was a ghastly nightmare which seemed to last for minutes. In reality it must have been over in a few seconds, but Wooten heaved a sigh of heartfelt relief when he saw the boat fall with a splash on to the top of a gigantic sea. But the next moment he held his breath again, for she was flung bodily aft on the crest of the billow until she was all but deposited on deck as the ship rolled drunkenly toward her. Then she sank out of sight somewhere under the bottom as the Mariner lurched over the other way, to reappear a few seconds later, with her crew plying their oars lustily. How they ever succeeded in getting clear nobody quite knew, for in that sea only a merciful Providence saved Hargreaves and his five men from disaster.

The line was passed across by the boat, and the end of the Monsoon's wire hawser was shackled on to a length of chain cable at the Mariner's stern, and when this had been done the two ships were connected and everything was ready for going ahead. The whaler was then rehoisted after another series of hairbreadth experiences, and the struggle began to get the damaged ship head on to the sea and wind preparatory to towing her into safety. A bare hour and twenty-four minutes had passed since the explosion had occurred. To Wooten and his men it had seemed like half the night.