Chapter VI: Gipsies of the Sea

August 4th, 1914, probably found the yachtsmen of Great Britain less unprepared for war with Germany than any other civilian community in the Empire.

Men turn to the sea as a profession for a variety of reasons; but the amateur yachtsman embraced the sea as a mistress with a complete and very genuine passion. To those who seek her thus, the sea has much to tell; she will whisper a thousand secrets ’twixt dusk and dawn to the little ships resting snug in her curlew-haunted creeks, or riding lazy to a long cable in the lee of desolate sand-banks--things denied to the busy wayfarer on her wide thoroughfares.

Yachtsmen as a class are meditative folk. A man who spends his week-ends alone, or in the company of one other in a three-ton yacht, has opportunities for reflection denied to the devotees of other pursuits. He learns more than the ways of the tides and Primus stoves.

In the queer, uneasy tranquillity of the decade before the war there came in gradually increasing numbers to our east and south-east coasts an unobtrusive visitor. Few people encountered him, because he chose sequestered places to visit, but the yachtsman met him, talked much with him, and afterwards sat in the cuddy and smoked many pipes, thinking about him and his unholy thirst for information.

There were other yachtsmen, of a more restless and inquiring turn of mind, who went farther afield with lead-line and compass, “observin’ ’ow the world was made.” Where the short yellow seas stumbled across leagues of shoals, and windmills and the brown sails of barges broke the sky-line above low-lying sand-hills, they learned and saw many things. One even wrote a book about these things,[2] that he who ran might read. The trouble was that people ashore entrusted with the destinies of Empire were running about so busily that they hadn’t time to read. They were catching votes and such-like, as children snatch at falling leaves in autumn. So the yachtsman carried on yachting and cultivating the acquaintance of the slow-speaking, slow-moving skippers of the coast-wise traffic and the crab-gaited community that manned the east-coast fishing craft. Useful men to know sometimes at the pinch of a sudden crisis.

Then, with the red dawn of August 4th, 1914, came war at last, and the yachtsman pulled a deep breath of something like relief, knocked out the ashes of his pipe, and went ashore, forbearing to say “I told you so” to the harassed Whitehall officials he went in search of. This was a war of the sea, and the yachtsman clewed up his business ashore, sent his wife to stay with her mother, and placed all his knowledge of the coasts of Northern Europe and the seas between them at the disposal of the Navy.

Now the Navy was very busy. Like the yachtsman, it had not been altogether blind to signs and portents, because the sea is a wonderful conductor of electricity--and other things. But it had its own theories on naval warfare: among others it opined that, properly speaking, this was an affair of big ships and frequent battles. To fight battles you require dexterity in the use of weapons--highly scientific and technical weapons at that. They themselves had been learning to wield these weapons since they were twelve years old or thereabouts. The yachtsman’s acquaintance with lethal arms was limited to a 12-bore scatter-gun and a revolver, with which he enlivened Sunday afternoons becalmed by potting at empty bottles.

“Just wait till we’ve mopped up these fellows in the North Sea,” said the Navy--“it won’t take long--and then we’ll talk things over, old chap.”

So the yachtsman waited, and after a while the Navy found itself waiting, because the fellows in the North Sea had retired to Kiel, thumped their chests and said they were waiting too. Thus modern naval warfare developed from glowing theory into rather wearisome fact.

The yachtsman had not been altogether idle in the meanwhile. He manned every available motor-boat in the kingdom, and patrolled the coast under the White Ensign with a rifle and a rather complicated signalling apparatus. When the supply of motor-boats ran out, the wealthier yachtsmen built their own, fitted them out at their own expense, and manned them. They manned them indiscriminately: one was a captain, another was a deck-hand, and yet another club-mate the engineer. It mattered not a whit how or where a man served as long as the spray was in their faces and the dawn came up out of their beloved sea. They messed together in cheerful communism, save when they found themselves under the immediate observation of the brass-bound Navy. Then they grew self-conscious and the captain fed in splendid isolation: the deck-hand, who was his next-door neighbour in Surbiton and owned a bigger yacht, touched his cap when he spoke and called him “sir.”

The Navy noted these things and smiled--not derisively, but with affection, as men smile at dogs and children. But it was also keenly observant: it was taking the measure of these enthusiastic amateurs, without undue haste, deliberately, parting reluctantly with ancient prejudice and shibboleth. This is the Navy’s way.

The motor-boats did their work consistently well and without ostentation. They conducted an efficient examination service among the teeming coast-wise traffic of the south-east coast, through which not a needle could have been smuggled in a bargeload of hay: this was a duty for which the yachtsman was admirably suited. It required tact, for the pre-war coaster was a touchy fellow and accustomed to keep himself to himself: furthermore, it called for intimate co-operation with the Custom officers of coast and estuary ports; but these the yachtsmen had known and drunk a pot of beer with any time during the past five-and-twenty years.

The motor-boats found themselves shepherding wayward fishing fleets out of forbidden waters suddenly hedged about with incomprehensible prohibitions; they guarded them on their lawful occasions; and because they knew them and their fathers before them, knew also when to caution wrong-doers and when to confiscate nets and sails. This, it may be remarked in passing, is a wisdom not learned in paths ashore nor yet in the training colleges of the Navy. They served as tenders to the big ships and towed targets for the smaller ones. They brought battle cruisers their love-letters, and acquired both skill and cunning in sinking floating mines with rifle-fire.

Thus, in due course, was their probation accomplished. The Navy had observed it all, mostly without comment or eulogy. But when the time was ripe it produced a standardised type of motor patrol boat, armed and equipped in all respects as little men-of-war.

“Now,” said the Navy to the yachtsman, “shake hands as one of us, and then suffer us to train you for a little while--even to putting you wise about depth-charges and Hotchkiss guns--ere you have your heart’s desire.”

The yachtsmen leant an ear to the Navy Staff Instructors (wise men from a torpedo school called the “Vernon”) with eager willingness. “But where,” asked the Navy, “are the rest of you? There aren’t enough to go round the boats we’ve ordered.”

The yachtsmen, labouring at applied mechanics and the true inwardness of high-explosive bombs, said nothing. There had been a time when their numbers would have more than sufficed for all the country’s needs. But some were lying under the sandy soil of Gallipoli, or the marshes of Flanders, and others were whittling model yachts out of bits of wood in Dutch internment camps: the roll of honour in well-nigh every yacht club in the kingdom supplied the answer. The matter was not one for either cavil or regret. A man can die but once, and so long as he dies gloriously the region of discussion as to his whereabouts is passed.

Then came the oversea gipsies to fill the vacant places of those of their brethren who had finished their last long trick. From Auckland, Sydney, and Winnipeg they came; from Vancouver, Wellington, Toronto, and Montreal. They were strangers to Crouch and Solent, but the yachtsmen of England welcomed them into the mysterious indissoluble free-masonry of all sea-lovers, which under the White Ensign is called to-day the R.N.V.R.

Now, of their achievements in the Motor Boat Patrol worthier pens than mine have written. They have endured monotony--which is the lot of many in modern war--and, what is more difficult, have maintained their efficiency and enthusiasm throughout. They perform duties which are in no way connected with glory in any shape or form, and have been content to wait their turn for greater things with willing cheerfulness. And some have attained that glory, buying it lightly at the price of life.

Thus far we have attempted to record the doings of the small yachtsman--by your leave the truest of all sea gipsies. But there were others, owners of ocean-going steam-yachts and Atlantic Cup racers, whose experience of the sea differed little from that of the rugged professional. These, on the outbreak of war, proceeded to the nearest dockyard demanding guns, and men who could shoot them, in the King’s name. They got the guns and the men, and they reinforced the trawler patrol and examination service from the Shetlands to the Lizard. When it is remembered that few of these gallant sportsmen possessed masters’ “tickets”: that 300-ton yachts are not built to keep the seas in winter off the outer Hebrides, and yet kept them: when the number of losses and groundings during the period they were commanded by amateurs is compared with the subsequent tale of their achievements under the professional seamen who succeeded them--then some true insight into the value of the deep-sea yachtsmen’s work will be obtained. This is not the time to recount in detail the performances of the individual or his yacht. The Navy knows them, but the Navy, according to its wont, is silent. Some day, however, when the lawns that overlook the Solent are thronged once more, and the harbours of the Riviera again reflect the graceful outlines of these slim Amazons of the sea, smoking-room and tea tables will hear the tales--or some of them. And there will be some for ever untold, because the men who might have told them have passed into the Great Silence.

One story, however, will serve to illustrate the spirit in which the deep-sea yachtsman answered the call.

There was a certain man living overseas who at the outbreak of war was approached by his son. “I’m going over to enlist,” said the boy. Now the boy’s mother was an invalid, and this was the only son.

The father smoked in silence for a minute, considering his son’s announcement.

“No,” he replied at last, “not yet. If you are killed, your mother would die. I’ll go over first.”

His son laughed indignantly with the scorn of youth. “You’re too old, dad,” he said; “you’re fifty-five.”

“Fifty-three,” amended the older man. “Fifty-three, and I’ve got a master’s ticket.” This was a man who raced his own yacht across the Atlantic in the days of piping peace. “But I’ll act fair by you,” he continued. “I’ll go over and volunteer, and if they won’t have me I’ll come back and you can go instead--and God go with you.”

They shook hands on the deal, and the older man went.

Volunteers of fifty-three--even with masters’ tickets--were not being eagerly sought after in the Navy at the beginning of the war. The volunteer perhaps realised this, and so it happened that Whitehall accepted his age at his own estimate--forty-five.

It was older than he looked or felt; and if his clear eyes are any index to character it was the first and last lie he ever told.

His son awaited the return of the prodigal with some impatience; finally he received a letter bidding him to keep cheerful and look after his mother. His parent was at the time of writing in charge of an armed guard, nursing a leaky Norwegian windjammer through a north-easterly gale in the region of Iceland. He eventually battled her and a contraband cargo into Stornoway, and got the first bath and dry clothes he had had for ten days. He said he was very happy and doing his bit; and this I hope and believe he still is.

* * * * *

It is this love of the sea and familiarity with it in all its conditions that have served the R.N.V.R. officer in moments of stress in a manner which the frequent D.S.C.’s among them testify. But there are other incidents that have passed without such recognition because they came in the plain path of duty or were incidental to the sea-gipsy’s love of adventure. One of these deserves mention, because the two great Reserve services, the R.N.R. and the R.N.V.R., joined hands in the affair and saw it through together.

Two divisions of British drifters were lying in a cross-Channel port awaiting orders to return to their base. It was in the winter, and a south-easterly gale was blowing. The subsequent meteorological records testify to its being the worst that year.

The order to return came to the senior officer of the drifters qualified by “as soon as the weather has moderated sufficiently.” The senior officer of one division was an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, and of the other a sub-lieutenant of the Volunteer Reserve. He of the R.N.R. looked at the sky and the breakers bursting in sheets of foam against the breakwater and thence to the barometer, and opined that it wasn’t good enough.

The R.N.V.R. sub-lieutenant said he was tired of harbour and guessed he’d have a bump at it. The R.N.R. sub-lieutenant damned his eyes for a fool, but made the signal for shortening cable in his own division. The gale abated slightly, and the two divisions wallowed out in line ahead through the flying scud.

In mid-Channel they encountered a 4,000-ton steamer, derelict and drifting, down by the head, before the gale. The R.N.V.R. man watched her sluggish plunge and scend in the steep wind-whipped troughs, and decided she wasn’t as bad as she pretended to be.

“Take charge of both divisions of drifters,” he signalled to his _confrère_ in the tiny flagship of the other division, “and take them into harbour. I am going to board.”

He then bade his skipper put his craft alongside the yawning derelict, and called for volunteers to accompany him. His men were no cowards, but they weren’t tired of life, and most of them had wives and families. “I’ll come,” said the cook, however.

They ran down wind under the sheering bulwarks, and the R.N.V.R. sub-lieutenant and the cook leaped at a trailing fall, climbed up it hand over hand, and tumbled on to the deserted upper deck of the steamer.

In the meanwhile, the R.N.R. sub-lieutenant had proceeded to windward, commended his command to their respective skippers, launched his cockleshell of a boat and drifted down in it, half-swamped, until he, too, was able to catch the fall, and so climbed inboard. He was in time to see the R.N.V.R. knock off the cable stoppers and let go both anchors. The drifters were swallowed by the mist and rain and proceeded to their base, calling on their gods to witness they were no cowards, but that there were limits to what a man could be expected to do for sheer love of adventure.

A swift survey of the derelict disclosed the fact that her No. 2 hold was flooded, either as the result of a mine or torpedo. On the other hand, all bulkheads were holding, and the engine-room was untouched. Said the R.N.R. man: “If we could get steam on her, I’d up killick and take this hooker into the Downs.” But three men cannot raise steam and navigate a 4,000-ton steamer without assistance, so they made themselves comfortable and waited.

Late in the afternoon a destroyer arrived, the salt spume crusting her funnels, and the handflags busy above her bridge screens.

“Prepare to abandon derelict. Will go ahead and veer a grass-line,” said the destroyer, in much the tone that a parent might adopt to an offspring who has nearly succeeded in getting itself run over by a motor-car.

“Well, now,” said the R.N.V.R. to the R.N.R., “that’s a funny thing: I’m bothered if I can read that signal. But my sight isn’t what it used to be.”

“I can make semaphore all right,” replied the R.N.R., “but when it comes to reading it I get all of a dither. ’P’raps the cook can read it.”

The cook replied at once that it was Greek to him, or words to that effect. The destroyer, accordingly, after waiting some time and growing more angry, went up to windward and anchored.

“Now,” said the R.N.V.R. to the R.N.R., “you talked a lot about your semaphore. Just make them a signal to send us a dozen engine-room ratings and an engineer officer, and we’ll raise steam and proceed to the Downs. Thank them for coming to see us, by the way. They’re getting peevish.”

The R.N.R., in terms of diplomatic suasion, signalled accordingly, and towards dusk a drenched boatload of the Royal Navy, Engine-room Department, arrived on board. Refreshed with Madeira from the captain’s saloon, they proceeded to the engine-room, filled the boilers, lit the furnaces, and had steam raised by daylight. The steamer then slipped her cables, which had become too foul to weigh, substituted an Admiralty-pattern kedge for the lost anchors, and proceeded modestly under her own steam and the destroyer’s escort to the Downs.

A month later the R.N.V.R. met the R.N.R. ashore.

“’Member that derelict we salved together,” said the R.N.V.R. “I’ve been up to London to see about salvage and all that.”

The R.N.R. brightened considerably.

“She’s worth £120,000, light,” he said.

“She is,” was the reply, in detached tones such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer might employ to outline his Budget; “but she was on Government charter. As she was salved by”--he took a long breath--“Naval officers, there ain’t any salvage.”