worst a prison camp could hardly be more lacking in amenities than Lussin Piccolo, while as to the food, I was sure that it would be a good deal better. But would we be prisoners of the French? That thought preoccupied me as I sat there in the wardroom under armed guard, gratefully drinking the coffee laced with brandy which a steward had brought me. Imprisonment on parole in Bizerta or Toulouse might be quite agreeable, I thought. But suppose that they handed us over to the Italians after all? My old U-Boat comrade Hugo Falkhausen had been taken prisoner with his entire crew earlier in 1916 when his boat had been caught in nets by British armed trawlers in the Otranto Straits. The British had handed him over to the Italians and since then his accommodation and diet had been so poor that he had been bombarding the Red Cross and the Swiss government—even the Vatican—with letters of complaint. I wondered also whether and how soon I would be able to get a telegram off to tell Elisabeth that I was safe. The alarm would have been raised by now at Lussin and if we were not found by nightfall tomorrow we would be posted missing. In her present condition I was anxious to spare her any upset.
These thoughts were interrupted as an orderly entered: I was cordially requested to attend an interview with the commanding officer. The Captain of the destroyer Bombardier was a portly little man in his fifties called Kermadec-Ploufragan: a Breton like most French seamen. He invited me to sit down and offered me a cigar, which I gladly accepted. For some reason he insisted on speaking with me in English, though my French was reasonably good. It was only as the conversation progressed that I realised that this might have something to do with the presence of a fusilier marin standing sentry on the other side of the door.
“My most dear Lieutenant,” he began, “Lieutenant d’Issigny has just related to me of your quite incredible chivalry: that you sink his submarine after long and bitter struggles, then you land on the water to rescue him and his equipage even though you yourselves will become prisoners.” I was about to point out that we had not sunk the Laplace after long and bitter struggles, that on the contrary, so far as I could make out the Laplace had sunk herself through incompetence. But he went on before I could speak. “Yes, my dearest Lieutenant, it is indeed a most sad and pitiable thing that yourself and your pilot should have become captive solely because of your honourable and gentle behaviour.”
“Captain, think nothing of it. These are the fortunes of war I am afraid. If our torpedo-boat had found us before you did then Lieutenant d’Issigny and his crew would now be our prisoners. Lieutenant Nechledil and I can at least console ourselves that we managed to rescue twenty-four of our enemies from drowning once they could no longer wage war on us. We are both seafarers like yourself and regard ourselves as waging war on the French government, not on the human race.”
Kermadec almost wiped away a tear at these words. “Ah, my dear Lieutenant, your noble words, they move me so deeply. Such distinguished sentiments. We French have always considered you Austrians to be a civilised people like ourselves, not beast-brutes and savages like les sales Boches. Your actions today confirm me only in this. But . . .” his face brightened, “but courage; it must not that we despair ourselves of the situation. There may yet be a solution.”
“A solution, Captain? I’m afraid that I don’t understand. Lieutenant Nechledil and I are your prisoners and that’s all there is to be said on the matter.”
“Please, please to wait a little moment. I have spoken with Lieutenant d’Issigny and we are agreed that perhaps it may be possible to de-capture you, if you understand my meaning.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t follow you . . .”
“It is almost dark. Your aeroplane, it is towed astern. You may still get into it and we will cut you loose. Voila—you have escaped. No one will say anything or know anything. But you must first promise me two things.” “And what are they, if I might ask?”
“The first, that you will not start your motor and take off until we are out of hearing; the second, that you will give me your paroles as officers never again in this war to fly against France. Against the Italians—pah! they are crapule: it signifies nothing. But not against France.”
It certainly looked an attractive offer. I sensed now that both d’Issigny and the Captain of the destroyer were intensely anxious to have us both out of the way. Of course—d’Issigny himself must have been in the conning- tower hatch firing the machine gun at us as we roared overhead. A submarine has no portholes, so only he and his unfortunate diving coxswain knew that their boat had been sunk purely through accident and not from our bombs. If Nechledil and I conveniently disappeared from the scene then he and his crew might get medals from this action instead of facing a court of enquiry. He and Kermadec would explain away the rescue by saying that we had flown away before we could be captured, leaving the Laplace's crew swimming in the water for the destroyer to pick up. The professional honour of La Royale would be preserved and everyone would be happy.
The only question now was, what was in it for us? Our engine was defunct, so we would be set adrift and left to our fate. It would be a long, cold night and perhaps by morning a bora would be blowing. In the end we might merely have exchanged a prison camp for a watery grave.
“Captain,” I asked, “if we were to be landed by you, whose prisoners would we be?”
“Ah, that is simple. We would have to hand you over to the Italians. The Marine Nationale are guests at Brindisi and we have no faculties for holding prisoners. There is an agreement for this.”
That settled it: five minutes later Nechledil and I were seated once more in the cockpit of the flying-boat L149 as it drifted away astern into the Adriatic night. A few minutes more, and the noise of the Bombardier’s engines had been swallowed up by the darkness. We were on our own once more.
Many years later, about 1955, I happened to see a recently published book entitled A Sailor Remembers, by none other than Rear-Admiral Dagobert St Jurienne, Chevalier Greoux-Chasseloup d’Issigny, French Navy (Rtd). Written in a most entertainingly florid style, it told of his adventures from the time when he had chosen the seafaring life up to his retirement in 1953. I must say however that I found it to be more interesting for what a sailor had managed to forget than for what he had remembered, particularly as regards his own murky activities during the Second World War when he had served as Deputy Minister of the Marine in the Vichy government, then attached himself to Admiral Darlan in North Africa, then deftly changed sides in 1943 and emerged among the ranks of the victors. My main interest though was in finding out what (if anything) he had to say about certain events one day in December 1916. I was not to be disappointed: After a ferocious battle lasting over an hour with the many Austrian aeroplanes, the immortal submarine Laplace slid at last beneath the waters of the Adriatic, overwhelmed by the superior might of the enemy. As the waves closed over them our brave matelots raised three cheers of “Vive la France!” and sang the “Marseillaise” while the perfidious enemies circled above them like odious vultures.
Yet even in the darkest moments of war some sparks of humanity may be found in the adversary, and as we swam among the wreckage an Austro-Hungarian hydroplane alighted on the waves beside us and supported me and my brave fellows in the water until succour arrived. These very chivalrous and gentle Austrians, by name the Chevalier von Parchatzky and the Vicomte de Nec-Ledil, would have supported us longer even at the cost of themselves becoming prisoners, but I bade them leave with a cry of “Save yourselves while there is still time, my braves!” So they started their motor and climbed into the air, waving to us as they did so in farewell. Alas, we later heard that these noble fellows were both lost soon afterwards, and that the sea had swallowed them up forever.
I was unable to resist sending a postcard to the Admiral’s publisher saying that while sadly the Vicomte de Nec-Ledil was no more, the noble Austrian Chevalier von Parchatzky was very much alive and would in fact be glad to meet him if he were ever in London. I read a few weeks later in The Times that he had died suddenly of a stroke. I hope that there was no connection.
For the time being though, Lieutenant d’Issigny’s surmise about our being engloutis par la mer came uncomfortably close to being fulfilled. A north-west wind got up during the night and soon raised a sea that would have been uncomfortable in any small boat, let alone one like ours with a great venetian-blind structure of wings and tailplane on top of it. By dawn we were wet through, frozen and exhausted by lack of sleep and continuous bailing. Nor had we the slightest idea where we were. The hazy sun came up to reveal a heaving grey disc of water with our flying-boat tossing and lurching in the middle of it as its flat bottom slithered down into each wave-trough. We were being drifted along at about six or seven knots by the wind, I thought. But at least drifting was better than staying still. In an almost land-locked sea like the Adriatic drifting with the wind would bring us eventually to one shore or another. I decided to aid this process. I took out my clasp-knife and clambered out on to the lower wings. I slit open the fabric on the under-surface of the wings above and pulled this down in flaps, which I fastened to the lower wings to make crude sails.
Steering with our paddles and the rudder, this would help us to make better speed before the wind and
