Chapter XIV: On Night Patrol

It was the end of the afternoon, there was light in the western sky and on the winding bay astern, but ahead, leaden, still, and slightly tilted up to a grey bank of eastern cloud, lay the forsaken and beleaguered sea. The destroyer, nosing slowly through the gap in the nets by the harbour mouth, entered the swept channel, increased her speed, and trembling to the growing vibration, hurried on into the dark. High, crumbling, and excessively romantic, the Irish coast behind her died away. Tragic waters lay before her. Whatever illusory friendliness men had read into the sea had vanished; the great leaden disk about the vessel seemed as insecure as a mountain road down whose length travellers cease from speaking for fear of avalanches. "A vast circular ambush." Somehow the beholder cannot help feeling that the waters should show some sign of the horrors they have seen. But the sea has engulfed all, memories as well as living men, engulfing a thousand wrecks as completely as time engulfs a thousand years.

The dark came swiftly, almost as if the destroyer had sailed to find it in that bank of eastern cloud. There was an interval of twilight, no dying glow, but a mere pause in the pale ebb of the day. The destroyer had begun to roll. Looking back from the bridge one saw the lean, inconceivably lean, steel deck, the joints of the plates still visible, the guns to each side with their attendant crews, a machine gun, swinging on a pivot like a weather vane, the gently swaying bulk of the suspended motor dories and life boats, the four great tubes of the funnels rising flush from the plates, and crowned with a tremble of vibration from the oil flames below. And all this lean world swung slowly from side to side, rocking as gently as a child's cradle, swayed as if by some gentle force from within.

The destroyer was out on patrol. A part of the threatened sea had been given to her to watch and ward. She was the guardian, ... the avenger.

The supper hour arrived, men came in groups to the galley door, some to depart with steamy pannikins, there was a smell of good food very satisfying to children of earth. In the officer's wardroom when dinner was over, and the negro mess boys were silently folding the white cloth, securing the chairs, and tidying up, those not on watch settled down to a friendly talk. All the lights except one bulb hanging over the table in a pyramidal tin shade had been switched off. It was very quiet. Now and then one could hear the splash of a wave against the side, a footfall on the deck overhead, or the tinkle of the knives and forks which the steward was putting away in a drawer. The hanging light swayed with the motion of the ship, trailing a pool of light up and down the oaken table. Cigarette smoke rose in wisps and long, languorous oriental coils to the clean ceiling. A sailor or two came in for his orders. Hushed voices talking apart, a direction to do this or that, a respectful business-like "yes, sir," a quiet withdrawal by the only door. It was all very calm, it had the atmosphere of a cruise, yet those aboard might have been torpedoed any minute, struck a mine, crashed into a submarine fooling about too near the surface (this has happened) or been sunk in thirty seconds by some hurrying, furtive brute of a liner which would have ridden over them as easily as a snake goes over a branch. The talk flowed in many channels, on the problems of destroyers, on the adventures of other boats, on members of the crew soon to be advanced to commissioned rating, and under the thought under the words, could be discerned the one fierce purpose of these fighting lives; the will to strike down the submarine and open the lanes of the sea. Oh, the vigilance, the energy, the keenness of the American patrol! There were tales of U-boats hiding in suspected bays, of merchantmen swiftly and terribly avenged, of voices that cried for help in the night, of life boats almost awash in whose foul waters the dead floated swollen and horrible. The war of the destroyer against the submarine is a matter of tragic melodrama.

The wandering glow of the swaying lamp now was reflected from the varnished table to one keen young face, now to another. "Running a destroyer is a young man's game," says the Navy. True enough. Pray do not imagine them, as a crew of "hell-driving boys." The destroyer service is the achievement of the man in the early thirties, of the officer with a young man's vigour and energy and the resolution of maturity. After all, the Navy Department is not yet trusting vessels worth several million dollars and carrying over a hundred men to eager youngsters who have no background of experience to their energy, good-will and bravery. If you would imagine a destroyer captain, take your man of thirty-two or -three, give him blue eyes, a keen, clear-cut face essentially American in its features, a sailor's tan, and a sprinkling of grey hair. A type to remember, for to the destroyer captain more than to any other single figure do we owe our opportunity of winning the war.

The evening waned, the officers who were to go on watch at twelve stole off to get a little sleep before being called. The navigator and the senior engineer slept on the transoms of the wardroom. A junior officer lingered beneath the solitary ever-swinging light, reading a magazine. A little hitch worked itself into the destroyer's motion, a swift upward leap, a little catch in mid air, a descent ending in a quiver. The voice of the waters grew louder, there were hissing splashes, watery blows, bubbly gurgles.

The sleeping officers had not paused to undress. Nobody bothers to strip on a destroyer. There isn't time, and a man has to be ready on the instant for any eventuality.

The door giving on a narrow passageway to the deck opened, and as it stood ajar, the hissing of the water alongside invaded the silent room. A sailor in a blue reefer, a big lad with big hands and simple, friendly face, entered quietly, walked over a transom and said:

"Twelve o'clock, sir."

"All right, Simmons," said the engineer, sitting up and kicking off the clothes at once with a quick gesture. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bunk, pulled on a coat and hat and wandered out to take his trick at the bridge.

He found a lovely, starlit night, a night rich in serenity and promised peace, a night for lovers, a poet's night. There was phosphorescence in the water, and as the destroyer rolled from side to side, now the guns and rails to port, now those to starboard stood shaped against the spectral trail of foam running river-like alongside. One could see some distance ahead over the haunted plain. The men by the guns were changing watch; black figures came down the lane by the funnels. A sailor was drawing cocoa in a white enamel cup from a tap off the galley wall. The hatchway leading to the quarters of the crew was open; it was dark within; the engineer heard the wiry creak of a bunk into which some one had just tumbled. The engineer climbed two little flights of steps to the bridge. It was just midnight. It was very still on the bridge, for all of the ten or twelve people standing by. All very quiet and rather solemn. One can't escape from the rich melodrama of it all. The bridge was a little, low-roofed space perhaps ten feet wide and eight feet long, it had a front wall shaped like a wide, outward pointing V, its sides and rear were open to the night. The handful of officers and men on watch stood at various points along the walls peering out into the darkness. Phosphorescent crests of low, breaking waves flecked the waters about; it was incredibly spectral. In the heart of the bridge burned its only light, a binnacle lamp burning as steadily as a light in the chancel of a darkened church, the glow cast the shadow of the helmsman and the bars of the wheel down upon the floor in radiations of light and shade like the stripes of a Japanese flag. The captain, keeping a sharp lookout over the bow, gave his orders now and then to the helmsman, a petty officer with a sober, serious face.

Suddenly there were steps on the companionway behind, the dark outline of some messenger appeared, a shadow on a background of shades. The sailor peered round for his chief and said, "Mr. Andrews sent me up, sir, to report hearing a depth bomb or a mine explode at 12.25."

"Was it very loud, Williams?"

"Yes, sir, I should have said that it wasn't more than a few miles away. We all heard it quite distinctly down below."

Evidently some devil's work was going on in the heart of the darkness. The vibration had travelled through the water and had been heard, as always, in that part of the ship below the water line.

Williams withdrew. The destroyer rushed on into the romantic night.

"Must have spotted something on the surface," said some one.... A radio operator appeared with a sheaf of telegrams. "Submarine seen in latitude x and longitude y," "Derelict awash in position so and so." "Gun fire heard off Cape Z at half past eleven"--it all had to do with the channel zone to the south. The captain shoved the sheaf into a pocket of his jacket.

Suddenly, through the dark, was heard a hard, thundering pound.

"By jingo, there's another," said somebody. "Nearby, too. Wonder what's up?"

"Sounded more like a torpedo this time," said an invisible speaker in a heavy, dogged voice. A stir of interest gripped the bridge; one could see it in the shining eyes of the young helmsman. Two of the sailors discussed the thing in whispers, fragments of conversation might have been overheard.--"No, I should have said off the port bow." "Isn't this about the place where the _Welsh Prince_ got hers?" "Listen, didn't you hear something then?"

From somewhere in the distance came three long blasts, blasts of a deep roaring whistle.

"Something's up, sure!"

The destroyer, in obedience to an order of the captain, took a sharp turn to port, and turning, left far behind a curving, luminous trail upon the sea. The wind was dying down. Again there were steps on the way.

"Distress signal, sir," said the messenger from the radio room, a shock-haired lad who spoke with the precise intonation of a Bostonian.

The captain stepped to the side of the binnacle, lowered the flimsy sheet into the glow of the lamp, and summoned his officers. The message read: "S.S. _Zemblan_, position x y z torpedoed, request immediate assistance."

An instant later several things happened all at once. The "general quarters" alarm bell which sends every man to his station began to ring, full speed ahead was rung on in the engine room, and the destroyer's course was altered once more. Men began to tumble up out of the hatchways, figures rushed along the dark deck; there were voices, questions, names. The alarm bell rang as monotonously as an ordinary door bell whose switch has jammed. But soon one sound, the roaring of the giant blowers sucking in air for the forced draught in the boiler room, overtopped and crushed all other fragments of noise, even as an advancing wave gathers into itself and destroys pools and rills left along the beach by the tide. A roaring sound, a deep windy hum. Gathering speed at once, the destroyer leaped ahead. And even as violence overtook the lives and works of men, the calm upon the sea became ironically more than ever assuring and serene.

"Good visibility," said somebody on the bridge. "She can't be more than three miles away now. Hello, there's a rocket."

A faint bronzy golden trail, suddenly flowering into a drooping cluster of darting white lights gleamed for a furtive instant among the westering winter stars.

"I saw her, sir!" cried one of the lookouts.

"Where is she, O'Farrell?"

"Quite a bit to the left of the rocket, sir. She's settling by the head."

The beautiful night closed in again. O'Farrell and the engineer continued to peer out into the dark. Suddenly both of them cried out, using exactly the same words at exactly the same time, "Torpedo off the port bow, sir!"

The thing had become visible in an instant. It could be seen as a rushing white streak in the dark water, and was coming towards the destroyer with the speed of an express train, coming like a bullet out of a gun.

The captain uttered a quick word of command. The wheel spun, the roaring, trembling ship turned in the dark. A strange thing happened. Just as the destroyer had cleared the danger line, the torpedo, as if actuated by some malevolent intelligence, porpoised, and actually turned again towards the vessel. The fate of the destroyer lay on the knees of the gods. Those on the bridge instinctively braced themselves for the shock. The affair seemed to be taking a long time, a terribly long time. An instant later, the contrivance rushed through the foaming wake of the destroyer only a few yards astern, and continuing on, disappeared in the calm and glittering dark. A floating red light suddenly appeared just ahead and at the same moment all caught sight of the _Zemblan_.

She was hardly more than half a mile away. Somebody aboard her had evidently just thrown over one of those life buoys with a self-igniting torch attachment, and this buoy burned a steady orange red just off that side on which the vessel was listing. The dark, stricken, motionless bulk leaned over the little pool of orange radiance gleaming in a fitful pool; round the floating torch one could see vague figures working on a boat by the stern, and one figure walking briskly down the deck to join them. There was not a sign of any explosion, no breakage, no splintered wood. Some ships are stricken, and go to their death in flames and eddying steam, go to their death as a wounded soldier goes; other ships resemble a strong man suddenly stricken by some incurable and mysterious disease. The unhappy _Zemblan_ was of this latter class. There were two boats on the water, splashing their oars with a calm regularity of the college crews; there were inarticulate and lonely cries.

Away from the light, and but vaguely seen against the midnight sky, lay a British patrol boat which had happened to be very close at hand. And other boats were signalling--"_Zemblan_--am coming." The sloop signalled the destroyer that she would look after the survivors. Cries were no longer heard. Round and round the ship in great sweeps went the destroyer, seeking a chance to be of use,--to avenge. Other vessels arrived, talked by wireless and disappeared before they had been but vaguely seen.

Just after two o'clock, the _Zemblan's_ stem rose in the air, and hung suspended motionless. The tilted bulk might have been a rock thrust suddenly out of the deep towards the starry sky. Then suddenly, as if released from a pose, the stern plunged under, plunged as if it were the last act of the vessel's conscious will.

The destroyer cruised about till dawn. A breeze sprang up with the first glow of day, and scattered the little wreckage which had floated silly-solemnly about. Nothing remained to tell of an act more terrible than murder, more base than assassination.