Standing on the port side of the bridge, I happened to be looking seaward on the port quarter, when the After look-out fired and though in the pitch blackness I couldn’t see the submarine herself, I could distinctly see the impact of the shell as it struck the hull and exploded inside. It as all over in a split second, the flash of the gun, the crash and explosion, the impact of the shell on iron and the following much smaller flash. The whole procedure was just a mental photograph, clear and distinct and I’ll take oath on a stack of Bibles a mile high that that submarine still lies in the deep water away north of St. Abbs Head.
But would that have convinced the Authorities? Not a bit of it. So I saved myself the trouble of claiming and just gave the usual, “I have the honour to report that on such and such a night at such and such a time, in alt. and long., so and so, I sank a submarine by gunfire, etc.,” all of which I’ve no doubt, raised a sympathetic smile — and, small wonder, they’d heard the tale before. They wanted PROOF.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
DESTROYER v. SUBMARINE
A few days later another Destroyer gave proof enough, and here is an example of the luck of the game. One chap may be on his toes all the time and never get his chance, whilst another comes along and simply falls over a submarine. (The War, as far as we were concerned had long since resolved itself into the state of Submarine versus Destroyer.)
The Captain of the lucky ship and I were very good friends and former shipmates and we used to knock around together a lot. The Garry happened to be lying alongside, when my pal Grant came ashore on his way to hand in his written report of how, where and when , he came to sink this submarine and capture her entire crew. Seeing the Garry alongside, he just dropped on board for a minute’s yarn. Of course, I heartily congratulated him as soon as he showed his nose in my cabin and asked him just how he had managed to ram and sink this submarine, which was quite a modern one and carried two four inch guns against Grant’s measly 12 — and 6-pounders. He shoved his report into my hand and told me to read it, when I would then know all about it.
I read all the usual preamble and trimmings, till I came to where he “sighted this submarine whilst in his position astern of the Convoy." “Astern of the Convoy?” I said. “Why you are the one, above all others, who condemns that method of following up astern. How the devil did you come to be there?”
He laughed and after swearing me to secrecy told me his tale.
It appeared some slight trouble had developed in his engine-room. The engineer came on the bridge and asked permission to stop the engines for half an hour or so. Instead of following the correct routine and making a wireless signal to the S.O. of the Division and having, perhaps, to state whys and wherefores, he said to the engineer, “Well if it’s only going to take half an hour, I’ll slip round astern of the Convoy and stop her. Get through as soon as you can and we will put her to it and pick ‘em up again and no one will be any the wiser." The repairs took a bit longer than the time stipulated and Grant got a bit anxious. It was pitch dark and there was just the horrible chance that he might lose the Convoy altogether and then he would get a sound scrubbing, if he was found wandering around looking for a Convoy when daylight broke. The result was that when the word did at last come from the engine-room that they were “ready to proceed,” Grant at once put her to twenty knots, intending to slow her down when he had run his distance to within a couple of miles of where the Convoy should be and then pick them up at an easy speed, for it was far too dark to see more than a hundred yards ahead. As it turned out, Grant’s underwater friend had heard the convoy lumbering along and as it was far too dark for him to even take a “Browning” shot, he had submerged until the ships had all passed overhead. When they were past and even the Destroyer that, as he knew, in some cases trailed out astern, would, he judged, be well out of the way, he rose to the surface intending to lie there and get a breath of fresh air till daylight.
The first thing they knew was Grant came blinding along at an absolutely unheard of speed, for a Destroyer following up a Convoy, hitting them half way between the conning tower and tail. As Grant said, he “never saw a blame thing till he was right on top of him and couldn’t have missed him if he had tried.” Grant actually went right over, doing little or no damage to the submarine. The skipper of the submarine got a horrible shock, on seeing a Destroyer shoot out of the darkness and, literally, leap over him. He fully thought that Grant’s ramming had been intentional, also that his sub. would be damaged and being unable to submerge, would be sunk by gunfire. To avoid this, he ordered the Kingston flooding valves to be opened and took to the one and only boat and sang “Deutschland ьber Alles” whilst his ship went down. Meantime, Grant, who had ripped the bottom out of his ship had just time to signal the S.O. of his Division, take to the boats and his ship went down. All he could do now was to await the coming of a Destroyer to pick them up — unaware, of course, that the submarine had opened her Kingston valves and abandoned ship. It was a perfectly calm night and as they could hear the Germans in the distance singing their song of success, Grant’s crowd retaliated by joining the marine musical comedy with “Rule, Britannia.” When the S.O. arrived on the scene and heard the row, as he said, he thought everyone had gone completely crazy. But the utter disgust of the sub. skipper can be best imagined, when a bit later on he learnt the facts of the case.
In the first place, he had surrendered to a ship, which he could have blown out of the water and in the second place he had sunk his own ship where there was no need, as Grant having ripped the bottom out of his ship had already gone down.
The very next day, “Capt. D” came along to me bubbling over with satisfaction, “There you are, my lad, Destroyer astern of the Convoy rams and sinks a submarine. Where is your ‘Theory’ now?” This went on for a good half an hour and I could see the re-adoption of the rotten old method and with it the losses in ships going up and up instead of coming down and down. There is nothing for it, I thought, so here goes.
“Now look here, sir, if I tell you something will you promise faithfully to keep it under your own cap and not let it influence your appreciation of Grant’s little effort?”
He promised and I’ll say his face was a study when I told him the inside history.
All Capt. D. said was a very heartfelt, “Well I’m damned.”
But we heard nothing more of reverting to the old method. Grant’s stock went up with a bound and he was put alongside the wharf to act as flagship whilst in port.
The grades of favour were very marked and quite distinct. That ship, highest in favour, got the wharf job and one could go ashore any time. The rest of the flotilla laid at the buoys. The next in favour nearest the wharf and so on up the line of buoys and down the scale of grace. Those farthest away, being the bad boys of the family, were not likely to forget their misdeeds or misfortunes either and the last two or three buoys came right abreast of a Fish Manure Factory.
In summer time with an off shore wind, which it usually seemed to be, you could cut the air with a knife. Not a port or a skylight could be opened. The Garry knew every grade and stage in the manufacture of fish manure. Not content with the perishing stink, those farthest up the line also got most of the odd jobs, chasing submarines. Sometimes real but more often fictitious.
Someone outside sees a porpoise and, on the off chance that it is a Tin Fish, makes a signal that they have sighted a submarine. Next thing the ship alongside the Wharf hoists “Garry and Stour. Raise full steam for full speed with all dispatch. Proceed to position so and so and search for submarine reported in that vicintity.” Off you go and so spend the best part of the day that you might with luck and good conduct have spent ashore. After being roped in for this little joy ride a couple of times, instead of spending the best part of the day searching for a submarine (if not actually fictitious, at least certain to be miles away by the time we had got down the Humber and out to sea) I evolved the plan of “sighting” the sub., dropping a packet of Depth Charges, making the necessary report and returning to our smelly buoy with everyone perfectly satisfied.