We had landed the man who usually attended the engine-room telegraphs, as he was also the mailman. The Yeoman of Signals, who ordinarily would have been on the Searchlight Platform, was taking duty at the telegraphs.
To handle the telegraphs, he had to stand facing aft and the result was that he did not see the flag of a diving party working at the Dock Entrance. Worse still, he didn’t see that they had the red flag mastheaded, signifying the diver was down. The diver, by a curious coincidence, was working on the wreck of a Destroyer that had come to grief in a gale of wind and sunk for the very reason that the skipper was not using enough power on his engines and thereby lost control of his ship. As a result, she fell on the stone knuckle, smashed up and sunk.
When the Yeoman did, at last, see the flag, and reported it to me that divers were down, it was too late to stop her. If I had then come astern on the engines I should only have churned up the water and endangered the diver still more. So I did the best I could in the circumstances and just stopped the engines, letting her run with her own way.
The Commander in charge of the diving party was naturally mad, thinking I had purposely ignored his flag. Still, if he had come to me, I would have explained how difficult it was to see his old flag, which was abominably dirty, and was up against a brick wall a few shades dirtier.
Worse was to follow.
Having passed the diver, we at once went to our 16 knots again and shot in through the lock gates. At the best of times with the dock empty it was always touch and go getting through these gates and swinging at an immediate right angle. This time there was, by further rotten luck, a transport lying in the far corner, where we had to moor.
Immediately the stern was clear of the end of the lock, as usual, I put the helm hard a port and went half speed astern on the starboard engine which should swing her round eight points in her own length. Unfortunately, the Yeoman instead of putting the starboard telegraph to half speed astern, put it ahead. Seeing that she was gathering way instead of stopping, I gave the order “Full speed astern both.” He then put both telegraphs to “Full speed ahead.” Of course, she just leapt across the dock and though, in a couple of seconds more I did succeed in getting the “Full Speed Astern” she crumpled up her bow like a piece of paper on the transport in the corner.
The Yeoman was a good fellow and owned up to his mistake like a man, when I taxed him with how it had happened. So I told him not to worry, that I would get him out of it somehow, or the other and I wended my way round to Headquarters to report my mishap.
I was saluted with “Hello, what have you been up to?”
Naturally thinking Captain “D” alluded to my little mishap in the dock, I started with,
“Well, you see, sir, the telegraphs were unfortunately put the wrong way and before I could regain control, we crashed into the transport. I’m awfully sorry, sir, I’m afraid it means another dockyard.”
He asked me what on earth I was rambling about.
“Aren’t you speaking about my smash in Granville dock, sir?”
“Am I the devil! You’ve been reported by the C. in C. Portsmouth for leaving that harbour at an excessive speed and now you have just been reported again for passing a Diving Party also at an excessive speed. On top of that you tell me you have crashed in Granville Dock and rammed a Transport. You can’t think of anything else while you are on the subject, can you?
It needed a deep breath before I could start in and tell him, that in the first place, they were infernal liars in Portsmouth, that the Diving Party’s flag was too dirty to distinguish up against the brick wall and, finally that the Yeoman in consequence was so upset he forgot he was facing aft and put the telegraphs to Full Ahead instead of Full Astern.
I must say I was really a bit surprised myself, when at last he did seem to come round to my point of view.
Of course I explained how in ignorance I had entered Portsmouth and gone up the harbour at an undoubtedly excessive speed, but that the Dockyard authorities had been too slow in the uptake to hang the blame on the Falcon. Furthermore, that I knew full well they were out for my blood and had determined to catch me on the way out. Not only was I just as determined they should not catch me, but in any case they had been completely defeated by the fog. When I suggested that Dover should call for a weather report on the date in question, I think Captain “D” saw the joke and called. They must have settled it between them, for I heard nothing more of that little episode.
To the Commander of the Diving Party, I submitted an abject apology — and suggested he should requisition a new flag, more in keeping with his dignity and the importance of the work he had in hand — or send the old one to the laundry. I heard nothing more from him, so that was another out of the way.
Next, I was asked what punishment I proposed to mete out to the Yeoman of Signals — since in the Service the punishment must always fit the crime. I submitted that he was a damn good man — that it wasn’t his job on the telegraphs anyhow, furthermore, if he had been in his proper place, on the signal platform, he would have seen the Diver’s flag and, in short, I didn’t propose to do anything.
“But you must do something in order that I can report that the necessary disciplinary steps have been taken.”
“All right, sir,” I said, “I’ll reprimand him.” (which is the lowest scale of punishment on the list). Even so, it would still have gone on the Charge Sheet and might have affected his promotion, just then due.
After thinking it over, I had him fell-in and just said, “Consider yourself reprimanded.” (The only point was that I had not reprimanded him.) I walked away chuckling to myself at the blank look of the Master-at-Arms, trying to puzzle out what he should enter in his precious book. Finally he appealed to the First Lieutenant, who, in turn, asked me what I wanted entered. I told him I was not a bit interested in what was entered; with the result that nothing was entered and the Yeoman in due course got his promotion without losing a single day.
Just out of sheer cussedness it would seem, the crew being Portsmouth men, we were sent up to Hull to refit and whilst there, the orders came that the whole of my Division was to be transferred to the 6th Flotilla with its base on Immingham, at the mouth of the Humber. We were finished and had unwittingly said good-bye to Dover and the hectic life of the Dover Patrol. Most of us were frankly sorry, for although it had been a life that called for the best in a man — and took the most — still it was real life and the one and only stretch of sea where one was in close and constant touch with Jerry the Hun.
The reason for our transfer was that with the new minefield laid and the installing of Lightships with their three million candle power flares, the Straits had become a shade too unhealthy even for the ubiquitous Bosche. In fact, one could safely say, after many years of experimenting, that the Straits were absolutely and effectively closed.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
LOSS OF H.M.S. “FALCON”
The North Sea was also in the process of being closed in much the same way, with the result that concentrated submarine warfare was being waged on our North Sea Convoys.
I suppose our division should have felt duly elated at being chosen to join up with the 6th and help deal with this fresh underwater effort. Perhaps it was a feather in our heavy weather caps. Anyhow it didn’t matter for if we had dismally sung our requiem to the Dover Patrol, we certainly were in good time for the opening chorus on the East Coast. They turned their submarines out on us, as the Yanks say, “Good and plenty.”