In the past year the Allies have been employing their own submarines in the war against the German undersea peril. This has been made possible by the perfection of the listening device before referred to by which the presence of a submarine and other details may be made known. But it is a dangerous business at best, and not largely employed, if only for the reason that patrol-vessels are not always likely to distinguish between friend and foe. We have in mind the tragic instance of the American cruiser which fired upon a submarine in the Mediterranean, killing two men, only to find that the vessel was an Italian undersea boat. Of course our deepest regrets were immediately forthcoming, and were accepted by the Italian Government in like spirit.

CHAPTER IX

Our Battleship Fleet--Great Workshop of War--Preparations for Foreign Service--On a Battleship During a Submarine Attack--The Wireless That Went Wrong--The Torpedo That Missed--Attack on Submarine Bases of Doubtful Expediency--When the German Fleet Comes Out--Establishment of Station in the Azores

When the German fleet of battleships and battle-cruisers sallies forth into the North Sea for a final fight against the British Grand Fleet, they will find American dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts ready and eager to lend the material weight of their a.s.sistance to the Allied cause. A substantial number of our capital ships, under command of Rear-Admiral Hugh Rodman, are with the Grand Fleet, and have been for some months. Both in Washington and in London a German sea offensive on a grand scale has long been regarded as a possibility, and the admiralty authorities at the Entente capitals are anxious for the supreme test, and confident concerning its outcome. We have already noted Admiral Beatty's action in a.s.signing American battleships to the place of honor in the line of sea-fighters which went forth to meet a reported German attack some time ago. It was a false report, but the honor done our naval fighters stands.

The expansion of the United States Navy has also included an enormous increase in our battleships and battle-cruisers; definite details are withheld, but it is not too much to say that we are thoroughly equipped to a.s.sist Great Britain very vitally in this respect. In the summer of 1917 Secretary Daniels announced that the Atlantic Fleet--our Grand Fleet--had been reorganized into two divisions, officially known as "forces." Battleship Force One had as commander Vice-Admiral Albert W.

Grant, and Battleship Force Two was commanded by Vice-Admiral DeWitt Coffman. Admiral Henry T. Mayo remained as commander-in-chief.

"There are," said Secretary Daniels in announcing the new arrangement--July 18, 1917--"as many battleships in commission as we ever had before; in fact, every battleship we have is in commission. The whole purpose of the new organization is to keep our battleship fleet in as perfect condition as possible, to put it in the highest state of efficiency and readiness for action."

Eventually an appreciable number of our best fighters were sent to the Grand Fleet--which, however, is by no means to be understood as implying that our own coasts are unprotected. Not at all. The Navy Department has a view-point which embraces all possible angles, and nothing in the way of precaution has been overlooked. At the same time it has been the theory of Secretary Daniels that the way to beat the submarine and the German Navy in general was to go to the base of things, "to the neck of the bottle," and this as much as anything--more, in sooth--accounts for the hundreds of war-ships of various sorts that now fly our flag in the war zone.

The orders dividing the fleet into two "forces" and despatching a representation of our greatest fighters to the North Sea was preceded by a period of preparation the like of which this country--perhaps the world--never saw. The Atlantic Fleet was, indeed, converted into a huge workshop of war, turning out its finished products--fighting men. A visitor to the fleet, writing under date of May 14, expressed amazement at the amount of well-ordered activity which characterized a day on every one of the battleships. Here were men being trained for armed-guard service on merchantmen, groups of neophytes on the after deck undergoing instruction on the loading-machines; farther along a group of qualified gunners were shattering a target with their 5-inch gun. Other groups were hidden in the turrets with their long 14 and 12 inch guns, three or two to a turret. Signal-flags were whipping the air aloft--cla.s.ses in signalling; while from engine-room and fighting-tops each battleship hummed with the activities of masters and pupils teaching and learning every phase of the complicated calling of the modern navy man.

And there were days when the great fleet put to sea for target practice and for battle manoeuvres, the turrets and broadsides belching forth their tons upon tons of steel and the observers aloft sending down their messages of commendation for shots well aimed. It is the statement of those in a position to know that never were jackies so quick to learn as those of our war-time personnel. Whether the fact of war is an incentive or whether American boys are adapted, through a life of compet.i.tive sport, quickly to grasp the sailorman's trade, the truth remains that in a very short s.p.a.ce the boy who has never seen a ship develops swiftly into a bluejacket, rolling, swaggering, but none the less deft, precise, and indomitable.

"They come into the navy to fight," said one of the officers of the fleet, "and they want to get into the thick of it. We turn out qualified gun crews in three months--and that is going some." A large majority of the new men of the fleet come from farms, especially from the Middle West. More than 90 per cent of the seamen are native-born, and on any ship may be heard the Southern drawl, the picturesque vernacular of the lower East or West side of New York City, the tw.a.n.g of New England, the rising intonation of the Western Pennsylvanian, and that indescribable vocal cadence that comes only from west of Chicago.

Not only gunners were developed, but engineers, electricians, cooks, bakers--what-not? They are still being developed on our home ships, but in the meantime the fruits of what was done in the time dating from our entrance into the war to the present summer are to be noted chiefly in the North Sea, where our vessels lie waiting with their sisters of the British Fleet for the appearance of the German armada.

Let us transfer ourselves for the time being from the general to the particular: in other words, to the deck of a great American dreadnought, which, together with others of her type, has been detached from the Atlantic Fleet and a.s.signed to duty with Admiral Beatty's great company of battleships and battle-cruisers. This battleship has entered the war zone, en route to a certain rendezvous, whence all the American units will proceed to their ultimate destination in company.

It is night. It is a black night. The stars are viewless and the ocean through which the great steel hull is rushing, with only a slight hiss where the sharp cut.w.a.ter parts the waves, is merely a part of the same gloom. Aloft and on deck the battleship is a part of the night. Below deck all is dark save perchance a thin, knife-like ray emanating from a battle-lantern. The lookouts, straining their eyes into the black for long, arduous stretches, are relieved and half-blind and dizzy they grope along the deck to their hammocks, stumbling over the prostrate forms of men sleeping beside the 5-inch guns, exchanging elbow thrusts with those of the gun crews who are on watch.

The trip this far has been a constant succession of drills and instruction in the art of submarine fighting--all to the tune of general alarm and torpedo defense bells. And the while preparations for sighting the enemy have never been minimized. They involved precautions not dissimilar to those on board a destroyer or other patrol-vessel, but were of course conducted on a vastly greater scale. As suggesting an outline of measures of watchfulness, we may regard this battleship as the centre of a pie, with special watches detailed to cover their given slice of this pie. These slices are called water sectors, and each sector, or slice, extends at a given angle from the course of the ship out to the horizon. Of course as the vessel is constantly moving at a rapid rate, the centre of the pie shifts, too. In this way every foot of water within the great circle of the horizon is under constant supervision night and day by a small army of lookouts, armed with binoculars and gun telescopes.

And so our battleship goes on through the night. On the bridge all is quiet. Officers move to and fro with padded footfalls, and the throb of the great engines is felt rather than heard. The wind begins to change, and presently the captain glancing out the door of the chart-house clucks his chagrin. For the night has begun to reveal itself, thanks, or rather, no thanks, to the moon, which has torn away from a shrouding ma.s.s of clouds and sends its rays down upon the waters of the sea. It had been a fine night to dodge the lurking submarine, but now the silver light of the moon, falling upon the leaden side of the battleship, converts her into a fine target.

"Nature is certainly good to the Germans," chuckles an officer to a companion, taking care that the captain does not hear.

"Yes," comes the sententious reply. The lookouts grow more rigid, for whereas formerly they could see nothing, objects on the water are now pencilled out in luminous relief.

Deep down below the water there is a listening "ear"--a submarine telephone device through which a submarine betrays its presence; any sound the undersea boat makes, the beating of the propellers, for instance, is heard by this ear, and in turn by the ear of the man who holds the receiver.

Presently the man who is on detector watch grows tense. He listens attentively and then stands immobile for a moment or so. Then he steps to a telephone and a bell rings in the chart-house where the captain and his navigating and watch officers are working out the courses and positions.

"I hear a submarine signalling, sir," comes the voice from the depths to the captain who stands by the desk with the receiver at his ear.

"What signal?" barks the skipper.

"MQ repeated several times. Sounds as if one boat was calling another."

(The sailor referred to the practice which submarines have of sending subaqueous signals to one another, signals which are frequently caught by listening war-ships of the Allies.)

The captain orders the detector man to miss nothing, and then a general alarm (to quarters) is pa.s.sed through the great vessel by word of mouth.

This is no time for the clanging of bells and the like. The lookouts are advised as to the situation.

"I hope we're not steaming into a nest." The captain frowns and picks up the telephone. "Anything more?" he asks.

"Still getting signals, sir; same as before; same direction and distance."

Down to the bridge through a speaking-tube, running from the top of the forward basket-mast comes a weird voice.

"Bright light, port bow, sir. Distance about 4,000 yards." (Pause.) "Light growing dim. Very dim now."

From other lookouts come confirmatory words.

"Dim light; port bow."

"The light has gone."

"It's a sub, of course," murmurs an officer. "No craft but a submarine would carry a night light on her periscope. She must be signalling." A thrill goes through the battleship. In a minute the big steel fighter may be lying on her side, stricken; or there may be the opportunity for a fair fight.

The captain sends an officer below to the detector and changes the course of the ship. Every one awaits developments, tensely.

The wireless operator enters the chart-house.

"I can't get your message to the ---- (another battleship), sir. I can't raise her. Been trying for ten minutes."

The officer who has been below at the detector comes up and hears the plight of the wireless man. He smiles.

"In exactly five minutes," he says, "you signal again." The radio man goes to his room and the officer descends to the detector. In precisely five minutes he hears the signal which had bothered the man on detector watch. He hurries to the bridge with the solution of the incident. The wireless had become disconnected and its signals had come in contact with the detector. So there was no submarine. Everything serene. The battleship settles down to her night routine.

The dark wears into dawn, and the early morning, with the dusk, is the favorite hunting-time of the submarine, for the reason that then a periscope, while seeing clearly, is not itself easily to be discerned.

The lookouts, straining their eyes out over the steely surge, pick up what appears to be a spar. But no. The water is rushing on either side of it like a mill race. A periscope.

There is a hurry of feet on the bridge. The navigating officer seizes the engine-room telegraph and signals full speed ahead. While the ship groans and lists under the sudden turn at high speed, the ammunition-hoists drone as they bring powder and sh.e.l.l up to gun and turret. From the range-finding and plotting-stations come orders to the sight-setters, and in an instant there is a stupendous roar as every gun on the port side sends forth its steel messenger.

Again and again comes the broadside, while the ocean for acres about the periscope boils with the steel rain. It is much too hot for the submarine which sinks so that the periscope is invisible. From the plotting-stations come orders for a change of range, and on the sea a mile or so away rise huge geysers which pause for a moment, glistening in the light of the new sun, and then fall in spray to the waves, whence they were lifted by the hurtling projectiles. The sh.e.l.ls do not ricochet. "Where they hit they dig," to quote a navy man. This is one of the inventions of the war, the non-ricochet sh.e.l.l. One may easily imagine how greatly superior are the sh.e.l.ls that dig to those that strike the water and then glance. Then comes the cry:

"Torpedo!"

All see it, a white streak upon the water, circling from the outer rim of sh.e.l.l-fire on a wide arc, so as to allow for the speed of the battleship. With a hiss the venomous projectile dashes past the bow, perhaps thirty yards away. Had not the battleship swung about on a new course as soon as the vigilant lookout descried the advancing torpedo, it would have been a fair hit amidships. As it was, the explosive went harmlessly on its way through the open sea. A short cheer from the crew marks the miss, and the firing increases in intensity. The battleship so turns that her bow is in the direction of the submarine, presenting, thus, a mark which may be hit only through a lucky shot, since the submarine is a mile away. Accurate shooting even at a mile is expected of torpedo-men when the mark is a broadside, but hitting a "bow-on"

object is a different matter.

Two more torpedoes zip past, and then over the seas comes bounding a destroyer, smoke bellying from her funnels. She is over the probable hiding-place of the submarine, and a great explosion and a high column of water tell those on the battleship that she has released a depth-bomb. Suddenly a signal flutters to the stay of the destroyer. The crew of the battleship cheer. There is no more to fear from that submarine, for oil is slowly spreading itself over the surface of the ocean--oil and pieces of wreckage.

The dawn establishes itself fully. The battleship resumes her course toward the appointed rendezvous.

Our navy has always held the idea that the Germans could be routed out from their submarine bases, has believed that, after all, that is the one sure way of ridding the seas of the Kaiser's pirates for good. It may be a.s.sumed that the recent attacks of the British upon Ostend and Zeebrugge, as a cover to blocking the ca.n.a.l entrances through sinking old war-ships, were highly approved by Vice-Admiral Sims. Secretary Daniels has considered the advisability of direct methods in dealing with the German Navy. No doubt the temptation has been great, if only because of the fact that with the British and American and French navies combined, we have a force which could stand an appreciable amount of destruction and yet be in a position to cope with the German fleet. Yet, of course, that is taking chances. And:

"It is all very well to say 'd.a.m.n the torpedoes,'" said Secretary Daniels, in discussing this point, "but a navy cannot invite annihilation by going into mined harbors, and ships can do little or nothing against coast fortifications equipped with 14-inch guns.

Experience at Gallipoli emphasizes this fact. And yet"--here the secretary became cryptic--"there is more than one way to kill a cat. No place is impregnable. Nothing is impossible."