Three of his Majesty's armed trawlers were plunging through the sea on their lonely beat in the Western Ocean. The Hebrides lay far to the southward, and less than two days' steam ahead lay the Arctic Circle.

These cheerless surroundings, however, found no echo in the hearts of the watch below on the leading ship of the unit, who were lounging on the settees in the oil-smelling fo'c'sle discussing their prospects of long leave, for their ship was to "blow-down" for a thorough refit when they returned to harbour in less than three weeks' time.

On the deck of the same vessel two officers, standing in the shelter of the wheel-house, were sweating and shivering in patches, but also happy with the thought of the forthcoming reunion with their families and the brief enjoyment of the comforts of home after seven long winter months'

wandering, with soul-destroying monotony, over the windswept wastes of England's frontier. The watch on deck, with the exception of the helmsman and look-out, crouched under the lee of the iron superstructure, alternately swinging their arms and stamping their heavily booted feet, but they too were mentally impervious to the dismal surroundings.

Of the second ship in the line the same cheery story cannot be told. She was jealous of the first. It would be another two months at least before she would go in dock for refit; and among the watch below there were three new hands on their first voyage, two of whom would, just then, have preferred the peace and stillness of the sea bottom to the friskiness of the surface.

The third trawler was a happy little ship, for although the junior of the unit she had been very fortunate in securing a "Fritz" all to her own cheek less than three months before.

This, then, was one of the units on the Outer Hebrides and Iceland patrol during the winter of 1915, and they seemed to be the sole occupants of the leagues of water around.

It was barely eleven o'clock, Greenwich time, when they reached the last ten miles of their beat, and speed was reduced so that they would not have to turn about and begin steaming back over the course they had come until the morning watch went below at midday. This was an artful though harmless arrangement to enable those going off duty to have a meal and at least an hour's rest in peace, as on the voyage back both wind and sea would be astern and the vicious lurching of the small ship reduced to a minimum.

The time pa.s.sed slowly, as it generally did on patrol when nothing exciting was afoot, but a few minutes before the awaited eight bells the officer on duty s.n.a.t.c.hed up the binoculars, and almost simultaneously the look-out gave a warning shout which caused the attention of everyone on deck to suddenly become strained.

Away to port, less than half-a-mile distant, the thin grey tube of a periscope could be seen planing through the waves, with a fringe of white foam blowing from its base. There was a hoa.r.s.e cry down the fo'c'sle hatch for "All hands on deck!" The telegraph tinkled for "Full ahead!" A signal was made to the ships astern for concerted action. The gun was manned, and the leading trawler, now cleared for action, headed towards her under-water opponent.

The other two vessels of the unit put on speed and spread out until all three were line-abreast and about two cables apart. In this formation the chase was maintained for some twenty minutes, when a second submarine appeared above the surface away to starboard. She appeared to be a large vessel and would probably have turned the scale at 1000 tons.

It was at this early stage in the action that the mistake was made. The leading trawler immediately opened fire, but the range was considerable and the sh.e.l.ls fell short. Signalling to the other two trawlers to continue the chase of the first submarine sighted, she headed straight for the largest of the two hostile craft to engage her at close range.

While this was in progress the first submarine came to the surface and proved to be also a larger craft than had been antic.i.p.ated. The two trawlers chasing her immediately opened fire, but her superior surface speed soon placed her out of range of the comparatively small guns then carried by the trawler patrols.

Now came the surprise. Almost simultaneously the two submarines opened fire from heavy guns. The sh.e.l.ls at first fell wide, but in a moment the British officers realised that they were outranged, for whereas their sh.e.l.ls were falling short, those from the enemy whistled over their heads and ploughed up columns of white water over a cable's length astern.

To increase speed and so reduce the range became imperative, and the steam-pressure in the trawlers' boilers was raised to bursting point by the simple expedient of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down the safety valve. For some minutes it looked as though the effort would be successful, and then the range slowly increased again and "short" after "short" was registered by the gunners.

At this psychological moment a German sh.e.l.l carried away the funnel of the leading trawler and smothered her decks with smoke. When a temporary shield had been rigged it was observed that one of the other patrol ships had been crippled by a direct hit and was in a sinking condition.

It now became evident that the superior speed and gun-power of the submarines enabled them to keep out of range of the trawlers' weapons and to ply their long-range fire with telling effect.

The officer in command of the patrol at once realised the mistake he had made when opening the action, in betraying the power of his own guns before he was sufficiently close to the enemy to ensure hits, and he cursed this want of foresight which looked like costing the life of the flotilla. Given one direct hit on each of his two powerful opponents and they would in all probability have been put out of action, but instead he had only the mortification of seeing every sh.e.l.l fired fall short, while his own vessels were being battered to pieces by the long-range guns of an enemy with whom he could not close.

The withholding of fire while hostile sh.e.l.ls are bursting around is one of the many severe strains imposed on the human mind by modern war, and in anti-submarine tactics it often means the difference between victory and defeat, which, followed to its logical conclusion, is generally life or death.

One hope now remained--that by skilful manoeuvring the trawlers could be kept afloat until help arrived; but in those wastes of sea no vessel might pa.s.s for many hours, and even then not a warship.

Such is the working of Fate: the leading trawler of the unit was to have been fitted with wireless while under the approaching refit, and with its aid patrol cruisers or fast destroyers could soon have been brought to the scene of operations.

Thirty minutes later the crippled ship, the junior member, gave three defiant shrieks with her syren and slid under the surface with her colours flying. For over two hours the others manoeuvred to get one on each side of the submarines to enable them to get the few sh.e.l.ls remaining in their magazines home on the target, but so great was the disparity of both range and speed that at five in the evening nearly half their crews were dead or wounded, and a little while later the ice-cold water closed over the leading ship. Still the other fought on, but as dusk closed over the sea she too went down in this obscure fight.

No search for possible survivors was made by the submarines, which glided westwards into the smoky red afterglow, leaving the bitter cold to finish the work of death.

A big armed liner of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron had heard the distant firing and came upon the scene just before darkness finally closed over.

Four bodies were still lashed to a raft, but in all except one life was extinct.

When the doctors bent over the half-frozen form in which a flicker still lingered they shook their heads. Death waged a stern battle even for this last relic, but life triumphed, and when the agony of returning animation had ceased the sole survivor told the cruiser's mess how Trawler No. 1 had lost her refit.

CHAPTER XX

THE RAIDER

EVERYONE familiar with English history knows that it was a severe gale which destroyed the scattered and defeated units of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and that, in more modern times, it was the coming of darkness which prevented the British Grand Fleet from turning the victory of Jutland into a decisive rout. Such historical examples of the effect of the weather, and even ordinary climatic changes, on the course of naval operations could be multiplied almost indefinitely. Not only are the movements of the barometer important factors to be considered in the major operations of naval war but also in minor sea fights.

Comparatively few people are, however, aware that one of the largest and most destructive of German mine-fields was laid off the British coast during the Great War by a surface ship which escaped detection through darkness and storm.

The barometer had fallen rapidly, and clouds rolled up from the north-west in ragged grey banks which scudded ominously over a cold steely blue sky. For some days the sea had been moderately calm, but it was mid-winter and quiescence of the elements could not be expected to last. Slowly the face of the Atlantic grew lined with white. It began with a moaning wind which soon developed into a stiff gale, accompanied by heavy storms of sleet and snow.

One of his Majesty's ships coming up the west coast of Ireland found herself heading into the teeth of the gale. As the afternoon wore on the wind increased in violence and the ship rolled and plunged heavily, smothering herself in clouds of flying spume. The driving sleet made it difficult to see more than a cable's length in any direction, and when dusk closed over the storm-swept ocean the ship was headed for a sheltered stretch of water close insh.o.r.e.

Every stay and shroud whistled its own tune as the gale roared past.

Foam-crested waves hurled themselves in a white fury against the plunging, dripping sides, piling up on the port bow and racing aft in cataracts of water which threatened instant death to any luckless sailor caught in their embrace. The lashings on the movable furniture of the decks, although of stout rope, were snapped like spun-yarn, and much-prized, newly painted ventilators, boat-covers, fenders, deck-rails and other necessary adornments were swept overboard by the ugly rushes of green sea. The iron superstructure and bridge-supports resounded to the heavy blows of the water, and the ship trembled as she rose after each ghastly plunge.

The blasts of wind which struck the vessel with increasing violence had swept unimpeded over 5000 miles of ocean and carried in their breath the edge of the Arctic frost. The sleet felt warm compared with it, and the flying spray lost its sting.

The forty-eight sea miles lying between the ship and the sheltered strait seemed endless leagues, for the speed had to be considerably reduced to avoid serious damage from Neptune's guns. The minutes of twilight grew rapidly less, and with the coming of darkness a new danger threatened. The ship was approaching a rock-strewn coast with no friendly lights to guide her, and every now and then lofty ma.s.ses of black stone rose up, dimly, from their beds of foam. It was an anxious half-hour, and ears were strained for the warning thunder from surf-beaten rocks which sounded at intervals even above the roar of the gale.

Fortunately the entrance to the sheltered waterway was broad, and almost before it could be realised the sea grew calm. Although the wind still shrieked and moaned, the waves rose barely three feet high. Great cliffs, invisible in the darkness and driving sleet, protected the strait, and as the vessel picked her way to a safe anchorage closer under the lee of the land the wind lost its giant strength and the howling receded into the upper air.

Throughout the night the comparatively small warship rode safely at anchor, innocent of what was taking place out in the blackness and the storm. When morning broke the gale had lost some of its force, and streams of pale watery sunlight shone between the low-flying clouds on to a boisterous sea.

Running before the wind and sea the German raider _Frederick_, carefully disguised and loaded with several hundred mines, approached the British coast. The gale was increasing in force as darkness closed down, and heavy showers of sleet shielded her from the view of any pa.s.sing craft.

The weather was ideal for her dark purpose, which was to lay a mine-field over a stretch of sea where it was thought the Anglo-American trade routes converged.

For the first few days out from Wilhelmshaven the weather had been misty with heavy snowfalls, conditions enabling the mine-layer (and afterwards raider) to run the blockade and elude the network of patrols, not, however, without some very close shaves. On one occasion a large auxiliary cruiser pa.s.sed in a snow squall, and during subsequent movements the raider found herself in the midst of a British fishing fleet, but pa.s.sed unrecognised in the darkness. And now that she was approaching the British coast, and the scene of actual operations, the barometer again obliged by falling rapidly.

It was a wild night and very dark when the first mine splashed overboard. A snowstorm set in, and as the work proceeded heavy seas broke over the vessel, smothering her with spray, but she was comparatively a large ship, built for ocean trade. Although the darkness and the snow were conditions favourable to the laying of mines in secret, and without their aid the danger of discovery would have been great, the rising gale and the heavy seas rendered the work both difficult and dangerous, notwithstanding that these deadly weapons were so arranged as to go automatically overboard.

Before the last of her cargo had been consigned to the deep it was blowing great guns, and one sea after another was breaking over the ship. Although sheltered waters lay less than fifty miles distant, to proceed there would mean certain discovery and destruction, so all through that wild night, and for many hours afterwards, the raider sought by every means in her power to battle seawards, away from the coast and danger, heading into the teeth of the gale and out on to the broad bosom of the North Atlantic, all unknowing that but for the severity of the storm she must have been observed, probably in the very act of laying the mine-field, by the small warship riding out the north-wester in the more sheltered waters close insh.o.r.e.

It is interesting to note that it was on this mine-field a few days later that one of the largest transatlantic liners was sunk.

CHAPTER XXI