10 
LAND & WATER 
March 8, 1917 
even by the little over two, as seems actually to be the 
case to-day. I have often considered whether, according 
to what seemed to be the principles of na\'al science, it 
was sound policy to put guns into merchant ships, if 
by doing so we in any way Umited our capacity for 
organised and systematic attack on the forces that were 
hunting them. "Speaking broadly, to take guns out of a 
warsliip and put them into several merchant ships would 
look like the heresy of dispersal. True dogma would 
seem to lie in a concentration of force. But this is not 
the kind of question in which theory is altogether a 
safe guide. [For if by " concentrating force " you under- 
stand the putting of many guns into one ship, then, 
against submarines, little would seem to be gained by so 
doing, because, if skilfully handled, one gun tnighi be as 
effective as many, and, given adequate crews and train- 
ing, the arming of merchantmen, so long as they are in 
the danger zone, is equivalent to the multiplication of 
your anti-submarine forces— for the hunting of sub- 
marines, like most other forms of fishing, depends for 
its success largely upon the employment of the right 
bait. A merchantman capable of destroying a sub- 
marine acts both as lure and as destroyer. Still it must 
be admitted that the shifting over of these proportions 
throws new light upon the problem 
The Gounter-Attack 
But by far the most interesting Ught on the whole 
campaign was the figures Sir Edward Carson gave 
of the progress of our attack on the submarines. In the 
first 18 days of February there were more than two 
encounters a day between armed merchantmen, trans- 
ports, destroyers, patrols, aircraft— and the " hidden " 
enemy. The First Lord was gi\'ing his reason for pub- 
hshing no, estimate of the number of submarines de- 
stroyed and, to show the difficulty of making an estimate, 
he picked out from these 40 encounters nine repre- 
sentative of the different stages of probability that 
attached to each report. Of these nine, the first was an 
absolute certainty, the second a virtual certainty, and 
the probability that two submarines were sunk in the 
third seemed very highly probable indeed. Of the 
fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh there were possibilities, 
and perhaps high possibilities, but no evidence of cer- 
tainty. The eighth and ninth were cases in which an 
airship and an aeroplane had dropped bombs on the 
spot where the submarine had been seen. It seems 
almost unreasonable to suppose that, out of these nine 
cases referring to ten boats, less than four were certainties. 
And if the cases were representative that would give 16 
for the first 18 days of February. It is liighly improbable 
that Germany can be building submarines at a greater 
rate than eight or nine in this period, so that if only half 
of the " highly probables " are certainties, submarines 
are being destroyed at least as fast as they can be built. 
Now this is extremely cheering, and for two reasons. 
The 40 encoimters of whicli we were told, did not include 
a single case of submarines either running upon mines 
or being Avrecked by the ordinary hazard of the sea. 
And it is quite imp6ssible to suppose that our mining 
activities have not yet reached the stage when, at least 
sometimes, an underwater boat is not caught by our 
fields. And if that stage has not been reached it certainly 
soon must be. So that in the mine we have a means of 
keeping our waters freer of the pirates, not alluded to 
in the First Lord's statement, still no doubt largely 
undeveloped, but obviously capable of an indefinite 
increase both of extension and of efficiency. But the 
extension of our means of attack is not hmited to in- 
creasing our mine fields. Patrol boats, faster and more 
seaworthy than submarines, armed with sufficient force 
to sink almost at sight, and far better equipped with the 
means of detecting the submarine's presence, and of 
communicating with consorts for combined operations, 
can clearly be built much moi-e cheaply and far more 
quickly than can submarines. It is not then to the 
mine only that we have to look for redoubling the perils 
of the sea to this redoubtable enemy. It seems to stand 
to reason that our force along both lines must grow, and 
if at a minimum to-day we can counteract the enemy's 
efforts to add to his submarine strength, we must soon, 
and increasingly in the future, bring about a marked 
reduction of his force. Nor is it necessary to point out 
that from such a reduction a diminution of our losses 
niust ensue. 
Two final points of great interest are these. If wc 
include sailing vessels, trawlers and the small fry of the 
sea there are 134 vessels of all kinds sunk in the period 
reviewed by the First Lord. Of the small craft only ci 
very small proportion would escape, so that perhaps wc 
shall not be far wrong in supposing that certainly not 
more than 160 attempts were made, and of these a high 
proportion must have been attacks from below the surface 
and without warning. If these numbered 40, or a 
quarter of the total, it would mean that there were 120 
surface attacks made by submarines and 40 surface 
attacks made on submarines. It is surely very significant 
that, on one in four of the occasions when the submarine 
comes to the surface to do its work, it is exposed to the 
risk of gunfire, of the ram, or of the bomb. It certainly 
gives one a vivid idea of the ubiquity and the vigilance of 
our offensive, and we are to remember that it is a growing 
offensive, growing in numbers and in efficiency. How 
long will the moral of the U boat crews and of the cap- 
tains keep at the necessary level for effect under this 
strain ? 
Lastly, these statistics of attack should give pause to 
those who maintain that the submarine is destined to 
drive the surface ship off . the sda on account of its 
invisibUity. They are a final proof that, to be efficient 
the submarine must do the bulk of its w'ork as a surface 
ship. Its invisibility then is an advantage that 'has 
clear limits. Arthur Pollen 
On the Tigris 
By J. A. Higgs- Walker 
This vivid sketch of life on the Tigris refers to events 
which happened in Mesopotamia about twelve mo7tths ago. 
ALONG day — a day of interminable, relentless 
heat, of choking dust, of seemingly endless toil ; 
in retrospect, a memory of parched mouth, 
.empty water-bottle, chattering, stupid native 
drivers, frightened excited mules. The long march 
from " the camp of the Liquorice Factory " in the early 
morning, the dusty, congested road — a road hastily 
constriicted some weeks pre\aously, its surface already 
ground into a grey-white powder, lying some inches deep. 
The weary waiting on the bund. The endless chain of 
cooUe stevedores, piling higher and higher boxes of 
ammunition, bales and bags of fodder, cases of rations. 
And all this under an utterly inexorable sun — at present 
only the sun of the early Mesopotamian spring, yet 
exhausting enough in its intensity ; but merely a fore- 
taste of the fevered days when men would rise up wearily 
after suffocating nights and curse the first rays of dawn. 
To those who have spent all their days in England, the , 
words " sun " and " heat," can have only a verbal 
significance ; they are figures of speech, and nothing 
more ; occasional slight discomfort to the city dweller, 
a much prayed-for blessing to the farmer, an exceptional 
asset at a garden-party or fete. But the summer sun 
of Mesopotamia is a deadly, implacable enemy, destroying 
by its force, maddening in its monotony. A man may 
achieve perfect recovery from fever ; but when the sun 
strikes, his stroke is swift and sure, from which there 
is no escape. Such is the summer. And Evirope knows 
no so-called " heat wave," to equal the heat of the 
Mesopotamian spring. 
Under the sun the bund is busy right up to the very 
moment of the river-transport's arrival — by which time 
the stores are piled in enormous dumps. There are 
three companies of British infantry lying exhausted 
and dusty in the inadequate shade of a few palm-trees, 
and a few dozen mules and horses are standing about 
(stoically in the case of the one, irritably in the case of 
