the Chaplain. Here are piles of woollen socks, cardigans, balaclavas, mitts and other clothes knitted by the thoughtful women of the Empire for their sailor sons. Here seamen are estimating the cold-resisting qualities of different garments—for winter in the North Sea is the next thing to Arctic exploration. Officers are popping in and out to borrow a pile of books—thrice blessed were the senders of these donations. The corner of the cabin is piled with fresh vegetables, but alas! the cry is apples! No exhortations to righteousness adorn the walls, and the chaplain is joking with a big stoker who is distractedly turning over the cardigans in search for one large enough to encompass his massive frame. A signal boy slips in, gets chocolate, gives a breathless thanks and slips out just in time to avoid the playfully raised hand of the P.O. of his ship. Two deck hands, covered in coal dust, put their heads round the door to ask if they can have a bath, and the indefatigable chaplain hands them the keys of the room provided for the purpose by the generous.
Religion here is more practical than theoretical. If a man swears when the “Padre” is present he pays a small fine, which goes to the recreation or other needy fund. The Commander is not immune from this law at the base under review, and has more than once been “heavily fined” for giving his true opinion of German sailors and winter weather.
The next cabin is that of the O.O.W., a seething mass of officers demanding “duty boats” and pinnaces to convey them to and from their ships lying out in the fair-way. Others are expostulating about being ordered to sea during their “stand-off,” informing everyone what a rotten service the navy is, crossing-sweeping is a sinecure compared with it. Then a few pass on to the cabin near the men’s quarters. Here the “Drafting Officer” is trying to palm off a deck hand on the C.O. of a trawler, who is vainly explaining that he must have a signalman. A telephone rings and news comes from the “Sick Bay” that an engineer has been badly burned and will be unable to go to sea with his ship. The distracted drafting officer searches through his lists of reserves for some competent man to take the place of the casualty.
Peace reigns in the adjoining department, where a grey-haired veteran is issuing charts, “Sailing Directions,” “Tide Tables” and “Warnings to Mariners.” In the near-by engineer-commander’s office worried experts are wrestling with innumerable problems relating to M.L. motors, steam capstans, steam steering gear, electric dynamos, damaged propellers, broken shafts, boiler cleaning and the numerous imperfections of overworked ships’ engines.
The Boom Defence staff is placidly serene. The turn of this department comes after a heavy gale has damaged the submarine nets, chains and buoys. The torpedo officers and their “parties” are discussing the best way of moving four of these steel monsters from a neighbouring depot ship to a new “Q” boat with only a rowing- boat at their disposal—soon the O.O.W. will be called upon to supply a drifter for the purpose.
In the ordnance store a veteran P.O. is trying to make his list of returned brass shell-cases correspond with the number of shells supplied to various ships six months before. He knows the sailors’ fondness for shell-cases as ornaments in their little far-away homes, and, failing to make all the figures agree, decides that some
The Port Minesweeping Officer is discussing with his sea commanders the clearing of a new mine-field laid by U-C-boats within the past few days, when a sudden stir is caused by the arrival of a signal from the wireless room to the effect that one of his vessels has struck a mine in lat. —— long. —— and is sinking. He appeals by telephone to the M.L. commander and in less than ten minutes a flotilla of fast launches is racing at 19 knots to the rescue.
In the Admiral’s cabin there is to be a conference of senior officers later in the day to decide on the best means of ridding the seas within that area—and each base has its own area of sea—of a hostile submarine which has been inflicting undue loss upon shipping, its latest victim being a Danish barque.
The combined wardroom and gunroom has some twenty occupants, reading the newspapers and magazines, warming themselves before the two big fires, or talking in little groups. This base has suffered some heavy losses lately, but reference to those “gone aloft” is seldom made, except quietly and a little awkwardly. The talk is of theatres in neighbouring towns, the respective merits of certain types of ships and weapons, the prospects of early leave, the dirty warfare of “Fritz” or the “beauties” of the North Sea in winter.
In this room all questions of rank and precedence are more or less waived. There are, of course, differences, especially when the wardroom, or abode of senior officers, does duty also as a gunroom for the juniors. But here there is camaraderie and an absence of iron discipline, although a sub-lieutenant would be extremely ill advised either to drop the prefix “Sir” or to slap the Commander on the back in an excess of joviality, relying on “neutral territory” to save him from rebuke. It is, however, no uncommon event to see all ranks of officers engaged in a heated debate, or groups of juniors laughing round the fire while their elders are vainly trying to concentrate their minds on the latest Press dispatches. Games are played and glasses clink merrily, but in a gunroom there is a very strict limit as to both time and quantity, though none regarding volume or discordance of sound.
Passing on to the organisation of the flotillas for sea, we find in this large base six minesweeping units, two being composed of fast paddle sweepers and four of trawlers. The former are used for distant operations and comprise nine vessels. They work in pairs, but the extra ship is available to sink mines cut up by the sweeps of the others, and to be immediately ready to beat off submarine attacks.
The trawlers are engaged in sweeping
This important duty was seldom left unperformed even for a day, except during fierce gales. Often the discovery of a distant mine-field caused many ships to be concentrated on clearing it, and the number available for the “routine sweeps” was consequently reduced, but longer hours of this arduous and dangerous work made up the difference, and the work went on in summer fog and winter snow for over four years.
The anti-submarine patrols were composed of five ships each, under the command of the senior officer of the unit—frequently a lieutenant with the responsibility of a captain. Their work lay out on the wastes of sea lying between England and Germany. It was seldom that the whole five vessels of each unit cruised together, the usual method being to scatter over the different “beats” and rendezvous in a given latitude and longitude at a specified time and date. They were usually able to communicate with each other and with the base on important matters by wireless. Their periods at sea varied from ten days to three weeks, with a four days’ “stand off” when they came into harbour. But of this time one day at least was spent in coaling and provisioning the ship ready for the next patrol. This ceaseless vigilance on the grey-green seas of England’s frontier was seldom interrupted for more than a few days in the year by impossible gales. Anything short of literally mountainous seas did not prevent the trawler patrols from riding out the storm carefully battened down and with just sufficient speed to keep head to sea.
The drifters were divided into patrol units, boom defence flotillas and under-water or mine-net units. Their work was thus more varied but equally as arduous and risky, as the loss of 30 per cent. of the entire fleet of over 1000 ships affords undeniable proof. The periods of sea duty were similar to those of the trawlers.
The motor launches at each base had some hundred square miles of sea to guard, and hunted in fives. The rough weather these plucky little ships endured in the open sea in mid-winter, the intense cold—for there was no proper heating appliance—and the state of perpetual wetness made their duties among the most arduous in the sea war. Later pages of true narrative will show to the full the work of these gnats of the sea.
In addition to all these flotillas there were convoy ships, whaler patrols, “Q” boats and a number of special duty ships. The work of the former was of the most exacting character, and left the crews of these vessels but little time ashore. In the base under review so arduous were the duties of the convoy ships that it became a matter of self-congratulation for patrol and sweeper officers and men that their ships were not so employed, and this by men who sailed submarine and mine infested seas for an average of 270 days in each year!
It must not be assumed that when in harbour there were no duties to be performed by either officers or men
