Chapter IX: Part II: VI (3)

The landing at Gallipoli, under the guns of the enemy, was a triumph for the Transport Service. In the organization and disposal of the ships, the control and undertaking that placed them in sufficient numbers in condition for their desperate venture, the Department redeemed any earlier miscalculations. The efficient service of the merchant masters and seamen was equally notable. Under heavy fire from the batteries on shore they carried out the instructions given to them in a manner that was "astonishingly accurate" and impressed even the firebrands of the naval service. Strange duties fell to the merchant seamen on that day. Compelled by the heavy draught of their ships to remain passive spectators of the deeds of heroism on the beach, they saw ". . . whole groups swept down like corn before a reaper, and to realize that among these groups were men who only a short time before had bid us good-bye with a smile on their lips, was a bitter experience.

"Our vessel was used to re-embark the wounded, and we stood close inshore to make the work of boating them off less hazardous. We had three doctors on board, but no nurses or orderlies, and the wounded were being brought on board in hundreds, so it was a relief to us to doff our coats and lend a hand. We had to bury the dead in batches; officers and men were consigned to the deep together. On one occasion the number was exceptional, and the captain broke down while reading the service. . . ." It was surely a bond of real brotherhood that brought the shattered remnants of the complement she had landed earlier in the day to meet their last discharge at the hands of the troopship's seamen--their committal to the deep at the broken words of the vessel's master.

While the transport of troops in the Channel and the narrow seas was not, at any time, seriously interfered with, the movements of the larger ocean transports were not conducted without loss. _Royal Edward_ was the first transport to be torpedoed. She went down with the sacrifice of over a thousand lives. The power of the submarine had been over-lightly estimated by the authorities: measures of protection were inadequate. Improved U-boats were, by now, operating in the Mediterranean, and their commanders had quickly acquired a confidence in their power. More destroyers were required to escort the troopships.

By a rearrangement of forces a more efficient measure of naval protection was assured. Although the provision of a swift escort did not always prevent the destruction of ships, the loss of life on the occasion of the sinking of a transport was sensibly reduced by the presence of accompanying destroyers. The skill and high gallantry of their commanders was largely instrumental in averting complete and terrible disaster. As the numbers of ships were reduced by enemy action there came the need to pack the remaining vessels to a point of overloading. Boat equipment on the ships could not be other than inadequate when the certified complement of passengers was exceeded by 100 per cent. In any case, the havoc of a torpedo left little time to put the huge numbers of men afloat. With no thought of their own hazard--bringing up alongside a torpedoed vessel and abandoning the safeguard of their speed and manoeuvring power--the destroyer men accepted all risks in an effort to bring at least the manning of their charge to port.

Every casualty added grim experience to the sum of our resources in avoiding a great death-roll. Life-belts that we had thought efficient were proved faulty of adjustment and were condemned: methods of boat-lowering were altered to meet the danger of a sudden list: the run of gangway and passage to the life-apparatus was cleared of impediment. When on a passage every precaution that could be taken towards a ready alert was insisted upon. Despite the manly grumbling of the very young military officers on board, certain irksome regulations were enforced. Life-belts had to be worn continuously; troops were only allowed below decks at stated hours; systems of drill, constantly carried through, left little leisure for the officers and men. Although no formal drill can wholly meet the abnormal circumstances of the new sea-casualty, we left nothing undone to prepare for eventualities. That our efforts were not useless was evident from the comparatively small loss of life that has resulted from late transport disasters.

The system of escort varies largely in the different seas. Homeward from Canada and, latterly, from the United States the troopships are formed in large convoys under the ocean escort of a cruiser. On arrival at a position in the Atlantic within working distance of the destroyers' range of steaming, the convoy is met by a flotilla of fast destroyers who escort the ships to port. For transport work in the Mediterranean no such arrangement could be operated. Every sea-mile of the great expanse is equally a danger zone. Usually, vessels of moderate speed are accompanied by sloops or armed drifters, but the fast troopships require destroyers for their protection. The long courses call for relays, as the destroyers cannot carry sufficient fuel. Marseilles to Malta, Malta to Suda Bay, Suda Bay to Salonika--a familiar voyage of three stages--required the services of no less than five destroyers. The numbers of our escorting craft were limited: it called for keen foresight on the part of the Naval Staff and unwearying sea-service on that of the war craft to fit their resources to our demands.

In the narrow seas, with the patrols more numerous and closely linked, the short-voyage transports proceed on a time-table of sailings that keeps them constantly in touch with armed assistance. The vessels are mostly of light draught and high speed. Whilom railway and pleasure craft, they make their voyages with the exactitude of the rail-connections they served in the peaceful days. Although many of them are built and maintained (and certificated by the Board of Trade) for smooth-water limits only, the emergency of the times has given opportunity of proof that their seaworthy qualities are underestimated by the authorities. The high gales and dangerous short seas of the Channel are no deterrent to their voyages; under the pressure of the continual call for reinforcements on the Western Front, and serving the line of route from England to the Continent, to Marseilles and beyond, they stand no hindrance. They are specially the objects of enemy attention. Their high speed and rapid turning power enables them to run moderately free of torpedo attack--though the attempts to sink them by this weapon are frequent enough--but in the German sea-mines they have a menace that cannot so readily be evaded. Many have fallen victims to this danger, but the ready succour of the patrols has prevented heavy loss of life. Though armed for defence, they have not had many opportunities for gun action. Their keen stems are weapon enough, as Captain Keith considered when he drove _Queen Alexandra_ at full speed into an enemy submarine, sinking him, and nipping a piece of his shorn hull for trophy.

Southampton is the principal base for the smaller transports. Large vessels--the _Olympic_ and her sisters--come and go from the port, but it is by the quick turns of the smaller vessels that the huge traffic of the base is cleared. Tramping through the streets of the ancient town to turn in at the dock gates, company after company of troops file down the quayside to embark on the great adventure. The small craft are berthed at the seaward end of the docks, and the drifting white feathers at their funnel-tips marks steam up in readiness for departure. The drab-grey of their hulls and decks is quickly lined by ochre tint of khaki uniforms. There is no halt to the long lines of marching men, save on the turn of the stream to another gangway. By long practice, the Naval Transport Staff and the embarkation officers have brought their duties to a finished routine. There is not here the muster, the enumeration, the interminable long-drawn march and counter-march on the wharf-side, that is the case with the larger ocean transports. Crossing the gangway, carrying pack and equipment, the troops settle down on the decks in a closely packed mass.

Anon, with no undue advertisement, the transports unmoor from the quay and steam down Southampton Water. Off St. Helens, the night covers them and they steal out swiftly on the Channel crossing.

INTERLUDE

BUT for the flat-topped dwellings, the domes and minarets, of the town that stands in the alluvial valley, Suda Bay is not unlike a Highland loch in its loneliness and rugged grandeur. The high surrounding mountains, the lofty snow-capped summit of Psiloriti standing up in the east, the bare hill-side sloping to the water with no wooded country to break the expanse of rock and heath, the lone roadway by the fringe of the sea that leads to the wilds, are all in likeness to the prospect of a remote Sutherland landscape. The darkling shadows on the water, the play of sun and cloud on the distant uplands, completes the picture; sheep on the hill-side set up plaintive calls that echo over the Bay.

The heavy westerly gale that was reason for our being signalled in from sea has blown itself out, and the water of the Bay stands still and placid. All that is left of the furious squalls of yesterday has not strength to keep us wind-rode in the anchorage, and we cast about to the vagaries of the drift.

We were bound down from Salonika to Marseilles when ordered in. We had expected to meet the relieving escort of destroyers at the Cerigo Channel, but the bad weather had prevented them from proceeding at any but a slow speed, and there was no prospect of their arrival at the rendezvous. So we turned south to seek protection behind the booms at Suda Bay. We are a packed ship. The shortage of transports has had effect in crowding the vessels in service to a point far beyond the limits of their accommodation. We have had to institute a watch-and-watch system among our huge complement. While a proportion are seeking rest below, others crowd the upper decks, passing the time as best they may until their turn of the hammocks comes round.

The fine weather after the late gale has brought every one on deck. The doings of the ships in the anchorage have interest for the landsmen. Naval cutters and whalers are out under oars for exercise, and thrash up and down the Bay with the long steady sweep of practised rowers. Our escort of two destroyers arrives--their funnels white-crusted from the heavy weather they have experienced on passage from Malta. They engage the flagship with signals, then steam alongside an oiler to take fuel for the return voyage. A message from the senior officer is signalled to us to have steam raised, to proceed to sea at midnight.

Standing in from the Gateway, a British submarine comes up the Bay. She moves slowly, as though looking for the least uncomfortable berth in the anchorage. The oil-ship, having already the two destroyers alongside, cannot offer her a place: she will have to lie off and await her turn. We put a signal on her, inviting her people to tie up alongside and come stretch their legs on our broad decks. Instant compliance. She turns on a long curve, rounds our stern, and her wires are passed on board.

The commander of the submarine gazes about curiously as he comes on board. He confesses that he has had no intimate acquaintance with merchants' ships. The huge number of our passengers impresses him, accustomed as he is to the small manning of his own vessel. Standing on the navigation bridge, we look out over the decks below at the khaki-clad assembly. The ship seems brimming over with life and animation. There is no corner but has its group of soldiers. They are everywhere; in the rigging, astride the derricks, over the top of boats and rafts they are stretched out to the sun. Mess-cooks with their gear push their way through the crowds; there is constant movement--the men from aft barging forward, the fore-end troops blocking the gangways as they saunter aft. Noisy! Snatches of song, hails, and shouts--the interminable games of 'ouse with '_Clikety-clik_ and _blind-forty_' resounding in the many local dialects of the varied troops. High in spirit! We are the leave-ship, and they are bound home for a long-desired furlough after the deadly monotony of trench-keeping on the Doiran Front.

"Gad! What a crowd," he says. "I had no idea you carried so many. They look so big--and so awkward in a ship. Of course, on a battleship we muster a lot o' men, twelve hundred in the big 'uns, but--somehow--one never sees them about the decks unless at divisions or that. Perhaps it's khaki does it; one gets accustomed to blue in a ship."

A 'diversion' has been arranged for the afternoon. Dinner over, all troops are mustered to a boat drill that includes the lowering of the boats. Since leaving Salonika there has been no such opportunity as now offers. Despite foreknowledge of the time of assembly it is a long proceeding. Our complement is made up of small details--a handful of men from every battalion on the Front. Officers set to their control are drawn from as many varied branches of the service. The valued personal 'grip' of non-commissioned officers is not at our disposal. There is no such order and discipline as would be the case if we were manned by complete battalions. The routine of military movements seems dull and lifeless at sea, however efficient it may prove on land. We are long on the job.

By dint of check and repetition the grouping of the men at their boat stations is brought to a moderate proficiency. The seamen at the boats swing out and lower, and we set the boats afloat, each with a full complement of troops. Embarked, and left to their own resources--with only one ship's rating to steer--the men make a better show. The division of the mass into smaller bodies induces a rivalry and spirit of competition: they swing the oars sturdily and make progress to and fro on the calm water of the Bay.

With the boats away full-loaded, we take stock of the numbers still mustered on the deck. Considerably reduced, they are still a host. The boat deck, the forecastle head, the poop--are all lined over by the waiting men: the empty boat-chocks and the dangling falls inspire a mood of disquiet. Standing at ease, they seem to be facing towards the bridge. Doubtless they are wondering what we think of it all. The submarine's commander has been with us at our station during the muster. We look at one another--thoughtfully.

'THE MAN-O'-WAR 'S 'ER 'USBAND'

A SENSE of security is difficult of definition. Largely, it is founded upon habit and association. It is induced and maintained by familiar surroundings. On board ship, in a small world of our own, we seem to be contained by the boundaries of the bulwarks, to be sailing beyond the influences of the land and of other ships. The sea is the same we have known for so long. Every item of our ship fitment--the trim arrangement of the decks, the set and rake of mast and funnel, even the furnishings of our cabins--has the power of impressing a stable feeling of custom, normal ship life, safety. It requires an effort of thought to recall that in their homely presence we are endangered. Relating his experiences after having been mined and his ship sunk, a master confided that the point that impressed him most deeply was when he went to his room for the confidential papers and saw the cabin exactly in everyday aspect--his longshore clothes suspended from the hooks, his umbrella standing in a corner as he had placed it on coming aboard.

Soldiers on service are denied this aid to assurance. Unlike us, they cannot carry their home with them to the battlefield. All their scenes and surroundings are novel; they may only draw a reliance and comfort from the familiar presence of their comrades. At sea in a ship there is a yet greater incitement to their disquiet. The movement, the limitless sea, the distance from the land, cannot be ignored. The atmosphere that is so familiar and comforting to us, is to many of them an environment of dread possibilities.

It is with some small measure of this sense of security--tempered by our knowledge of enemy activity in these waters--we pace the bridge. Anxiety is not wholly absent. Some hours past, we saw small flotsam that may have come from the decks of a French mail steamer, torpedoed three days ago. The passing of the derelict fittings aroused some disquiet, but the steady routine of our progress and the constant friendly presence of familiar surroundings has effect in allaying immediate fears. The rounds of the bridge go on--the writing of the log, the tapping of the glass, the small measures that mark the passing of our sea-hours. Two days out from Marseilles--and all well! In another two days we should be approaching the Canal, and then--to be clear of 'submarine waters' for a term. Fine weather! A light wind and sea accompany us for the present, but the filmy glare of the sun, now low, and a backward movement of the glass foretells a break ere long. We are steaming at high speed to make the most of the smooth sea. Ahead, on each bow, our two escorting destroyers conform to the angles of our zigzag--spurring out and swerving with the peculiar 'thrown-around' movement of their class. Look-out is alert and in numbers. Added to the watch of the ship's crew, military signallers are posted; the boats swung outboard have each a party of troops on guard.

An alarmed cry from aloft--a half-uttered order to the steersman--an explosion, low down in the bowels of the ship, that sets her reeling in her stride!

The upthrow comes swiftly on the moment of impact. Hatches, coal, shattered debris, a huge column of solid water go skyward in a hurtling mass to fall in torrent on the bridge. Part of a human body strikes the awning spars and hangs--watch-keepers are borne to the deck by the weight of water--the steersman falls limply over the wheel with blood pouring from a gash on his forehead. . . . Then silence for a stunned half-minute, with only the thrust of the engines marking the heart-beats of the stricken ship.

Uproar! Most of our men are young recruits: they have been but two days on the sea. The torpedo has gone hard home at the very weakest hour of our calculated drill. The troops are at their evening meal when the blow comes, the explosion killing many outright. We had counted on a proportion of the troops being on the deck, a steadying number to balance the sudden rush from below that we foresaw in emergency. Hurrying from the mess-decks as enjoined, the quick movement gathers way and intensity: the decks become jammed by the pressure, the gangways and passages are blocked in the struggle. There is the making of a panic--tuned by their outcry, "_God!_ _O God!_ _O Christ!_" The swelling murmur is neither excited nor agonized--rather the dull, hopeless expression of despair.

The officer commanding troops has come on the bridge at the first alarm. His juniors have opportunity to take their stations before the struggling mass reaches to the boats. The impossibility of getting among the men on the lower decks makes the military officers' efforts to restore confidence difficult. They are aided from an unexpected quarter. The bridge-boy makes unofficial use of our megaphone. "Hey! Steady up you men doon therr," he shouts. "Ye'll no' dae ony guid fur yersels croodin' th' ledders!"

We could not have done it as well. The lad is plainly in sight to the crowd on the decks. A small boy, undersized. "Steady up doon therr!" The effect is instant. Noise there still is, but the movement is arrested.

The engines are stopped--we are now beyond range of a second torpedo--and steam thunders in exhaust, making our efforts to control movements by voice impossible. At the moment of the impact the destroyers have swung round and are casting here and there like hounds on the scent: the dull explosion of a depth-charge--then another, rouses a fierce hope that we are not unavenged. The force of the explosion has broken connections to the wireless room, but the aerial still holds and, when a measure of order on the boat-deck allows, we send a message of our peril broadcast. There is no doubt in our mind of the outcome. Our bows, drooping visibly, tell that we shall not float long. We have nearly three thousand on board. There are boats for sixteen hundred--then rafts. Boats--rafts--and the glass is falling at a rate that shows bad weather over the western horizon!

Our drill, that provided for lowering the boats with only half-complements in them, will not serve. We pass orders to lower away in any condition, however overcrowded. The way is off the ship, and it is with some apprehension we watch the packed boats that drop away from the davit heads. The shrill ring of the block-sheaves indicates a tension that is not far from breaking-point. Many of the life-boats reach the water safely with their heavy burdens, but the strain on the tackles--far beyond their working load--is too great for all to stand to it. Two boats go down by the run. The men in them are thrown violently to the water, where they float in the wash and shattered planking. A third dangles from the after fall, having shot her manning out at parting of the forward tackle. Lowered by the stern, she rights, disengages, and drifts aft with the men clinging to the life-lines. We can make no attempt to reach the men in the water. Their life-belts are sufficient to keep them afloat: the ship is going down rapidly by the head, and there remains the second line of boats to be hoisted and swung over. The chief officer, pausing in his quick work, looks to the bridge inquiringly, as though to ask, "How long?" The fingers of two hands suffice to mark our estimate.

The decks are now angled to the deepening pitch of the bows. Pumps are utterly inadequate to make impression on the swift inflow. The chief engineer comes to the bridge with a hopeless report. It is only a question of time. How long? Already the water is lapping at a level of the foredeck. Troops massed there and on the forecastle-head are apprehensive: it is indeed a wonder that their officers have held them for so long. The commanding officer sets example by a cool nonchalance that we envy. Posted with us on the bridge, his quick eyes note the flood surging in the pent 'tween-decks below, from which his men have removed the few wounded. The dead are left to the sea.

Help comes as we had expected it would. Leaving _Nemesis_ to steam fast circles round the sinking ship, _Rifleman_ swings in and brings up alongside at the forward end. Even in our fear and anxiety and distress, we cannot but admire the precision of the destroyer captain's manoeuvre--the skilful avoidance of our crowded life-boats and the men in the water--the sudden stoppage of her way and the cant that brings her to a standstill at the lip of our brimming decks. The troops who have stood so well to orders have their reward in an easy leap to safety. Quickly the foredeck is cleared. _Rifleman_ spurts ahead in a rush that sets the surrounding life-boats to eddy in her wash. She takes up the circling high-speed patrol and allows her sister ship to swing in and embark a number of our men.

It is when the most of the life-boats are gone we realize fully the gallant service of the destroyers. There remain the rafts, but many of these have been launched over to aid the struggling men in the water. Half an hour has passed since we were struck--thirty minutes of frantic endeavour to debark our men--yet still the decks are thronged by a packed mass that seems but little reduced. The coming of the destroyers alters the outlook. _Rifleman's_ action has taken over six hundred. A sensible clearance! _Nemesis_ swings in with the precision of an express, and the thud and clatter of the troops jumping to her deck sets up a continuous drumming note of deliverance. Alert and confident, the naval men accept the great risks of their position. The ship's bows are entered to the water at a steep incline. Every minute the balance is weighing, casting her stern high in the air. The bulkheads are by now taking place of keel and bearing the huge weight of her on the water. At any moment she may go without a warning, to crash into the light hull of the destroyer and bear her down. For all the circling watch of her sister ship, the submarine--if still he lives--may get in a shot at the standing target. It is with a deep relief we signal the captain to bear off. Her decks are jammed to the limit. She can carry no more. _Nemesis_ lists heavily under her burdened decks as she goes ahead and clears.

Forty minutes! The zigzag clock in the wheelhouse goes on ringing the angles of time and course as though we were yet under helm and speed. For a short term we have noted that the ship appears to have reached a point of arrest in her foundering droop. She remains upright as she has been since righting herself after the first inrush of water. Like the lady she always was, she has added no fearsome list to the sum of our distress. The familiar bridge, on which so many of our safe sea-days have been spent, is canted at an angle that makes foothold uneasy. She cannot remain for long afloat. The end will come swiftly, without warning--a sudden rupture of the bulkhead that is sustaining her weight. We are not now many left on board. Striving and wrenching to man-handle the only remaining boat--rendered idle for want of the tackles that have parted on service of its twin--we succeed in pointing her outboard, and await a further deepening of the bows ere launching her. Of the military, the officer commanding, some few of his juniors, a group of other ranks, stand by. The senior officers of the ship, a muster of seamen, a few stewards, are banded with us at the last. We expect no further service of the destroyers. The position of the ship is over-menacing to any approach. They have all they can carry. Steaming at a short distance they have the appearance of being heavily overloaded; each has a staggering list and lies low in the water under their deck encumbrance. We have only the hazard of a quick out-throw of the remaining boat and the chances of a grip on floating wreckage to count upon.

On a sudden swift sheer, _Rifleman_ takes the risk. Unheeding our warning hail, she steams across the bows and backs at a high speed: her rounded stern jars on our hull plates, a whaler and the davits catch on a projection and give with the ring of buckling steel--she turns on the throw of the propellors and closes aboard with a resounding impact that sets her living deck-load to stagger.

We lose no time. Scrambling down the life-ropes, our small company endeavours to get foothold on her decks. The destroyer widens off at the rebound, but by clutch of friendly hands the men are dragged aboard. One fails to reach safety. A soldier loses grip and goes to the water. The chief officer follows him. Tired and unstrung as he must be by the devoted labours of the last half-hour, he is in no condition to effect a rescue. A sudden deep rumble from within the sinking ship warns the destroyer captain to go ahead. We are given no chance to aid our shipmates: the propellors tear the water in a furious race that sweeps them away, and we draw off swiftly from the side of the ship.

We are little more than clear of the settling fore-end when the last buoyant breath of _Cameronia_ is overcome. Nobly she has held afloat to the debarking of the last man. There is no further life in her. Evenly, steadily, as we had seen her leave the launching ways at Meadowside, she goes down.

XIII

THE SALVAGE SECTION

THE TIDEMASTERS

IF Royal Canute, King of England and Denmark, with his train of servile earls and thanes, could revisit the scene of his famous object-lesson, he would learn a new value in the tide. Suitably, he might improve his homily by presentation of the salvage tidemasters, harnessing the rise and fall of the stubborn element to serve their needs and heave a foundered vessel to sight and service. He would note the cunning guidance of strain and effort, their exact timing of the ruled and ordered habits of the sea. As a moral, he could quote that, if tide may not be ordered to command, it can at least be governed and impressed to performance of a mighty service.

Recovery of ships, their gear and cargo, is no longer wholly an application of practised seamanship. The task is burdened and complicated by powers and conditions that call for auxiliary arts. It is true that the salvage officer's ground, his main asset, is the knowledge and ability to do a seamanlike 'job o' work' when the time and tide are opportune; he must have a seaman's training in the ways of the wind and the sea and be able properly to assess the weather conditions under which alone his precarious work is possible. A scientist of a liberal and versatile type (not perhaps exhaustive in his scope and range), he is able to draw the quantum of his needs from a wide and varied summary. Together with his medical exemplar, he has developed a technique from crude remedies and imperfect diagnoses to application of fine science. He must have a sure knowledge of the anatomy of his great steel patients, be versed in the infinite variety and intricacy of ship construction, and the valves and arteries of their power; be able to pen and plan his formulae for weight-lifting--the stress and strain of it, down to the calibre of the weakest link. A super-tidesman, he must know to an inch the run of bottom, the swirl and eddy, the value of flood and ebb and springs, for the tide--Canute's immutable recalcitrant--is his greatest assistant, a familiar _Genius maris_ whom he conjures from the deeps of ocean to do his bidding. Shrewd! He is a keen student of the psychology of the distressed mariner; again, like the medical man, he must set himself to extract truth from the tale that is told. His treatment must be prescribed, not to meet a case as presented, but as his skilled knowledge of the probabilities warrants. Tactful, if he is to meet with assistance in his difficult work, he must assume the sympathy of one seaman to another in distress. What, after all, does it matter if he agree heartily that "the touch was very light, we were going dead slow," when, from his divers' reports, he knows that the whole bottom is 'up'?

In the handling of his own men there must be a combination of rigour and reason. Salvage crews are a hardy, tempestuous race who have no ordinary regard for the niceties of law and order; their work is no scheduled and defined occupation with states and margins; they are servants to tide and weather alone; they are embarked on a venture, on a hazard, a lottery. To such men, administering, under his direction, the heroic but destructive remedies of high explosive and compressed air, there cannot be a normal allowance for the economic use of gear and material. He must know the right and judicial discount to be made that will meet the conflicting demands of the expenses department and the results committee. Above all, he must be of an infinite patience, of the mettle that is not readily discouraged. In the great game of seafaring his hand holds the king of disappointment and the knaves of frustration and discouragement. But he has other cards; he holds an ace in stability and determination.

Calm days and smooth seas may lure him to surpassing effort, to work through the tides in feverish energy, making the most of favoured opportunity. The scattered and interrupted work of months has perhaps been geared and bound, the tackle rigged and set for a final dead lift. Buoyancy is figured out and assured; the pumps are in place, throbbing and droning out, throwing steady streams from the weight of water that so long has held the foundered wreck in depth. The work has been long and trying, but an end to difficulty is in sight. Given a day or two of continued fine weather, the sea and the rocks will have to surrender their prisoner.

Comes a darkling to windward and the sea stirs uneasily; jets and spurts of broken water appear over the teeth and spit of rocky ledges. The salvors look around with calculating eyes and note the signs of a weather break. Still, there is no slackening of effort; there may be time to complete the work before the sea rises to interfere; if anything, the omens only call for another spur to the flank, a new sting to the lash.

Beaten to the knees, the gear and tackle swaying perilously in breaking seas, the lifting-barges thundering at their curbs, the pumps groaning and protesting their inability to overcome the lap of blue water, there is no alternative but to abandon the work and return to harbour. From the beach the salvage officer may watch his labour of weeks--or months--savagely undone in an hour or two of storm and fury of the sea!

It is a great catalogue, that schedule of virtues and accomplishments. To it must be added, as a supplement, that he must be a 'made' man--made in a long hard pupilage in a stern school that appraises strictly on results. It is of little use to show that, in theory, a certain course was right and proper, when the broad but damning fact remains that the property is still in Davy Jones his locker, and likely--there to remain. Many are called, but few are chosen. The salvage service has no room for the merely mediocre officer: the right man goes inevitably to his proper place, the wrong one goes back to a junior, and less responsible, post at sea.

It is doubtful if the Naval Service could produce the type required. Their candidate would be, to a degree, inelastic. He would be an excellent theorist, a sound executant, a strict disciplinarian; but his training and ideas would fit ill to the wide range of conflicting interests, and the shutting out of all manoeuvre, however skilled and stimulating--but that of securing a maximum of result by a minimum of effort. Perhaps it was for these reasons our salvage services before the war were almost wholly mercantile and commercial. Certainly, most Admiralty efforts in this direction were confined to ports and harbours where method could be ordered and controlled by routine; their more arduous and unmanageable cases on the littoral were frequently handed over to the merchantmen--not seldom after naval efforts had been unavailing. Among the protestations of our good faith to the world in time of peace, it may be cited that we made no serious provision for a succession of maritime casualties; there was no specially organized and equipped Naval Salvage Service. True, there were the harbour gear, divers, a pump or two, and appliances and craft for attending submarine accidents, but their energies were bent largely to humane purposes--to marine first aid. Of major gear and a trained personnel to control equipment and operation there was not even a nucleus. Salvage was valued at a modest section of the "Manual on Seamanship" (written by a mercantile expert), and a very occasional lecture at the Naval College. At war, and the toll of maritime disaster rising, the need grew quickly for expert and special service. There was no longer a relative and profitable balance to be struck between value of sea-property and cost of salvage operations. A ship had become beyond mere money valuation; as well assess the air we breathe in terms of finance. No cost was high if a keel could be added to our mercantile fleets in one minute less than the time the builders would take to construct a new vessel. The call was for competent ship-surgeons who could front-rank our maritime C Threes. By whatever skill and daring and exercise of seamanship, the wrecks must be returned to service. Happily, there was no necessity to go far afield; the merchants' salvage enterprise, like the merchants' ships and the merchants' men, was ready at hand for adoption.

The Salvage Section, Admiralty, is a dignified caption and has an almost imperial address, but, camouflages and all, it is not difficult to see the hem of old sea-worn garments of our mercantile companies peeping out below the gold braid. If in peace-time they did wonders, war has made their greatest and most successful efforts seem but minor actions compared to their present-day victories. The practice and experience gained in quick succession of 'cases' has tuned up their operations to the highest pitch of efficiency. New and more powerful appliances have come to their hands; a skilled and technical directorate has liberated initiative. Strandings, torpedo or mine damage, fire, collisions--frequently a compound of two or three--or all five--provide them with occasion for every shift of ingenuity, every turn of resource. There is no stint to the gear, and no limits to invention, or device, if there is a possibility of a damaged ship being brought to the dry docks. Is it not on record that an obstinate, stranded ship, driven high on the beach, was finally relaunched on the crest of an artificially created 'spring' tide, the wash and suction of a high-speed destroyer, plying and circling in the shallows?

Many new perils are added to the risks and hazards of their normally dangerous work. Casualties that call for their service are rarely located in safe and protected waters; open coast and main channels are the marches of the Salvage Section, where the enemy has a keen and ready eye for a 'potting' shot by which he may prevent succour of a previous victim. The menace of sea-mines is particularly theirs; the run and swirl of Channel tides has strength to weigh a stealthy mooring and carry a power of destruction up stream and down. They have a new and deadly danger to be guarded against in the ammunition and armament of their stricken wards. Many have gone down at 'action stations,' and carry 'hair-sprung' explosive charges, the exact condition and activity of which are usually a matter for conjecture. It calls for a courage of no ordinary measure to grope and stumble under water amid shattered wreckage for the safety-clutch of the charges, or grapple in the mud and litter for torpedo firing-levers. This the pioneer of the divers must do, as the first and most important of his duties.

With skill enhanced by constant and encouraged practice, they set out to bind the wounds and raise our damaged ships to a further lease of sea-activity. So definite and sure are their methods, so skilled and rapid their execution, they steam ahead of reconstruction and crowd the waiting-room at the dry-dock gates. Lined up at the anchorage awaiting their turn, the recovered vessels may be crippled and bent, and showing torsion and distress in the list, and staggering trim with which they swing flood and ebb. They may rest, halting, on the inshore shallow flats, but, laid by for a term of repair, their day is to come again. The Salvage Section has reclaimed their rent and stranded hulls from the misty sea-Front; the Repair Section, working day and night, will hammer and bind and reframe the gaps of their steel; the Sea Section will take them out on the old stormy road, sound and seaworthy, with the flag at the peak once more.

A DAY ON THE SHOALS

THE rigger was engaged at second tucks of a five-inch wire-splicing job, and hardly looked in the direction we indicated. "Them," he said. "Them's crocks wot we don't want nothin' more t' do with! Two on 'em's got frozen mutton. High? Excelsi-bloody-or! . . . an' that feller as is down by th' 'ead--Gawd! 'e don't 'arf smell 'orrible!" A pause, while he hammered down the strands and found fault with his assistant, gave us time to disentangle the negatives of his opening. "Grain, she 'as--an' of all th' ruddy messes wot I ever see--she gets it! We 'ad four days at 'er--out there 'n th' Padrig Flats, an' she sickened nigh all 'ands! . . . Now we're well quit o' 'er, an' th' longshore gangs is unloadin' th' bulk, in nosebags an' gas 'elmets, t' get 'er a-trim for th' dry dock!"

As we passed alee of the grain-carrier there was no doubt of the truth of the rigger's assurance. Steam-pumps on her fore-deck were forcing a sickly mixture of liquid batter through hoses to a barge alongside, and the overpowering stench of the mess blew down to us and set eyes and noses quickening with instant nausea. The men on the barges were garbed in odd headgear, high cowls with staring circular eyepieces, and each carried a knapsack cylinder on his back. Clouds of high-pressure steam from the winches and pumps threw out in exhaust, and the hooded, ghost-like figures of the labourers passed and repassed in drifts of white vapour. To the hiss and rumble of machines, clamour of block-sheaves and chain and piston joined action to make a setting of _Inferno_, the scene might well be imagery for a stage of unholy rites.

Past her, we turned to the clean salt breeze again and stood on to the open sea. The salvage officer, a Commander, R.N.R., joined us at the rail. "What about that now? Sa--lubrious?" he said.

We wondered how men could be got to work in such an atmosphere, how it was possible to handle such foul-smelling litter in the confined holds.

"Oh! We go through that all right. A bit inconvenient and troublesome, perhaps, working in a restricting gas-rig; but now, the chemists have come to our assistance and we can sweeten things up by a dose of anti-stink. . . . But you won't see that to-day. Our 'bird' has got no cargo, only clean stone ballast--a soft job."

The 'soft job' had had a rough time, a combination and chapter of sea and war hazard. Inward bound from the United States with a big cargo, a German torpedo had found a mark on her. She settled quickly by the stern, but the undamaged engines worked her gallantly into a small seaport where she brought up with her main deck awash. There she was lightened of her precious load, temporary baulks and patches were clamped and bolted to her riven shell-plate, and she set off again on a short coastwise voyage to the nearest port where definite and satisfactory repair could be effected. Off the Heads, the enemy again got sights on her. Crippled, and steaming at slow speed to ease strain on the bulkheads, she made a 'sitting' target for a second torpedo, that shattered rudder and stern-post and sheared the propellor from the shaft.

"We came on her just before dark," said the commander. . . . "Some of the crew were in the boats, close by, but the captain and a Trinity pilot and others were still aboard. She was down astern to the counter and up forward like a ruddy unicorn. We got fast and started to tow. Tow?--Might as well have taken on the Tower Bridge. There was no way of steering her, and a strong breeze from the south'ard blew her head down against all we could do. . . . Anyway, we hung on, and at daylight in the morning the wind let up on us a bit, and we guided her drift--that's about all we could do--inshore, till she took the bottom on good ground a little north of the Westmark Shoal. We filled her up forrard as the weather was looking bad--a good weight of water to steady her through a gale. She's lain out there for two months now. We've had a turn or two at her occasionally--shoring up the after bulkheads and that, while we had weather chances. _Titan_ has been out at her since yesterday morning. . . . It looks good and healthy now." He cast an eye around appreciatively at the calm sea and quiet sky, the gorse-banked cliffs dimmed by a promising summer haze, at seagulls lazily drifting on the tide or becking and bowing in the glassy ripples of our wash. "Good and healthy; I like to see these old 'shellbacks' sitting low and not shrilling overhead with all sail set. . . . If this weather holds I shouldn't wonder if we get the old bus afloat on high tide to-day!"

Clear of harbour limits and heading out to the shoals, a brisk rigging of gear and tackle brings action to the decks of the salvage steamer. Already we had thought the narrow confines from bulwark to bulwark congested by the bulk of appliances, but, from hole and corner and cunning stowage, further coils and shoots and lengths of flexible, armoured hose are dragged and placed in readiness for operations. Derricks are topped up and purchases rove for handling the heavy twelve-inch motor-pumps. Hawsers are uncovered and coiled clear, stout fenders thrown over in preparation for a grind alongside the wreck. Mindful of possibilities, the engineer-lieutenant and his artificers go over the insulation of their power leads in minute search for a leak in the cables that may occasion a short circuit later on. The terminals and couplings are buffed and polished with what seems exaggerated and needless precision--but this is salvage, where sustained effort is only possible in the rare and all-too-brief union of favourable tide and weather conditions. A cessation of the steady throw of the pumps, however instant and skilful the adjustment, may mean the loss of just that finite measure in buoyancy that could spring the weight of thousands in tons. Second chances are rarely given by a grudging and jealous sea; there must be no hitch in the gear, no halt in weighing the mass.

A drift of lazy smoke on the sea-rim ahead marks our rendezvous, where _Titan_ and a sisterly tug-boat are already at work on the wreck. A screen of motor-patrols are rounding and lining out in the offing, with a thrust of white foam astern that shows their speed. Coastwise, a convoy of merchant ships zigzag in confusing angles on their way to sea, guarded by spurring destroyers and trawler escort. Seaplanes are out, hawking with swoop and wheel for sight of strange fish. The seascape is busy with a shipping that must remind the coastguard and lightkeepers of old and palmy days when square sail was standard at sea. The Westmark Shoal lies some distance from the normal peace-time track of direct steaming courses. It lies in the bight of a bay, where rarely steamers closed the land. Sailing ships, close-hauled and working a tack inshore, or fisher craft on their grounds, had long been the only keels to sheer water in the deeps, but war practice has renewed our acquaintance with many old sea-routes and by-paths, and we are back now to charts and courses that have long been out of our reckoning.

The tide is at low-water slack, and whirls and eddies mark the run over shallows. At easy speed and handing the lead, we approach the wreck. Her weathered hull, gilt and red-rusted by exposure to sun and wind and sea, stands high and bold against the deep blue of a summer sky. Masts and rigging and cordage are bleached white, like tracery of a phantom ship. The green sea-growth on her underbody fans and waves in the tide, showing long voyaging in the crust and stage of it. She lies well and steadily, with only a slight list to seaward that marks the gradient on which she rests. Through fracture on the stern and counter, the twisted and shattered frames and beams and angles can be seen plainly. Sunlight, in slanting rays, shines through the rents and fissures of the upper deck, and plays on the free flood that washes in and out of the exposed after hold; seaweed and flotsam surges on the tide, clinging to the jagged, shattered edges of the plating, and breaking away to lap in the dark recesses. To eyes that only know the lines and mould of sightly, seaworthy vessels, she seems a hopeless and distorted mass of standing iron--a sheer hulk, indeed, fit only for a lone sea-perch to gull and gannet and cormorant. It appears idle for the salvors to plan and strive and wrestle for such a prize, but their keen eyes are focused to values not readily apparent. "A fine ship," says the commander, now happily assured that his 'soft job' has suffered no worse than a weathering on the ledge that his skill has secured her. "A job o' work for the repairers, certainly . . . but they will set her up as good as new in a third of the time it would take to build a substitute!"

We anchor at a length or two to seaward. There is not yet water alongside for our draught, but _Titan_, drawing less, is berthed at her stern and their men are taking advantage of low water to pin and tomp and strengthen the rearmost bulkhead that must now do duty for the demolished stern section. A boat from _Titan_ brings the officer in charge, and he greets his senior with no disguised relief. A serious leak has developed in one of the compartments that they had counted on for buoyancy. . . . "Right under the bilge, and ungetatable, with all that rubble in th' holds. A good job you brought out these extra pumps. We should manage now, all right!"

Technical measures are discussed and a plan of operations agreed. At half-flood there will be water for us alongside, and a 'lift' can be tried. Number one hold is good and tight, but still has a bulk of water to steady her on the ledge; number two is clear and buoyant; three has the obstinate leak; the engine-room is undamaged, but water makes through in moderate quantity. Number four--"the bulkhead is bulged in like the bilge of a cask, but that cement we put down last week has set pretty well, and the struts and braces should hold." Number five? There is no number five, most of it lies on deep bottom off the Heads, some miles away!

With his colleague, the commander puts off to the wreck, to assess the prospects, and we have opportunity to note the inboard trim of her derelict posts and quarters. Davits, swung outboard as when the last of her crew left her, stand up in unfamiliar dejection, the frayed ends and bights of the boat-falls dangling overside and thrumming on the rusty hull. The boat-deck shows haste and urgency in the litter of spars and tackle thrown violently aside: a seaman's bag with sodden pitiful rags of apparel lies awry on the skids, marking some cool and forethinking mariner denied a passage for his goods. Living-rooms and crew quarters show the indications of sudden call, in open desks--a book or two cast side, quick-thrown bedspreads, an array of clothing on a line; the range-guards in the cook's galley have caught the tilt of pots and mess-kits as they slid alee in the grounding. The bridge, with chart and wheelhouse open to the wind and spray, and sea-gear adrift and disordered, strikes the most desolating note in the abandon of it all. Tenantless and quiet, the same scene would be commonplace and understood in dock or harbour, with neighbourly shore structures to point a reason for absence of ship-life, but out here--the clear horizon of an open sea in view around, with vessels passing on their courses, the desertion of the main post seems final and complete, with no navigator at the guides and no hand at the wheel.