12 
Land & Water 
June 13, 1918 
stokin' 'board er," he replied, beginning to follow my lead 
in the matter of snugging down against the weather. 
"Wc wus far from cushy ev'n cork-screwin' long wi' the 
wind an' seas on our quart'r, for she was do'jn a doubl" back- 
acshun shuffle fit to shake yer teeth loose. She wus yawin' 
like a hook'd jwrpus ; but, still, she wus we'therin' it, wliidi 
wus. mor'n she wus up to w'en they 'gan puttin' 'er inter it. 
[est wot they did it fer I nev'r ritcl}- know'd, but sud'niy 
tlie 'elm wus shov'd 'ard ov'r, an' roun' she spun, rite roun' 
without slackin' a rev'lushun o' the enguns wot wus drivin' 
'or at mor'n twenty knots, 
"It must'a bin like divin' thru' a long green tunn'l fer 
them wot wus 'bove deck's ; only mos' o' 'em nev'r cum out 
at tothcr end. The bridge, boats, forrard gun, torpedo 
toobs, two o' the funnels — all went inter the drink. The 
one funnel wot held was knocked almost flat on the dock. 
One minnit she wus a middlin' modern destroyer tearin' 'long 
in the night ; the next slie wus a 'elpless 'ulk rollin' drunk 
in the trof o' the sea, without steam, steerin'-gear, boats, an' 
armaments, an' only 'arf 'cr 'orficers. 
" I tells you this, sir; like as I'd seed it all. Fact is, I've 
nev'r clapp'd eye on the ol' Owl — not on all or any part 
<j' 'er from just afore that big sea bashed ov'r 'er to tliis day. 
I fergot to tell you, sir, that she wus one o' the old coal 
bumeis. I wus balancin' wi' a shovel o' coal I had jest 
scooped up an' watchin' my chances fer to chuck it inter the 
furnis, w'en I felt 'er 'gin to rise hke w'en she clim'ed a 'eavy 
sea. Then there wus a 'orrible smash, an' she stops clim'in', 
an' starts to shudder all ov'r like a;frit'en'd pup. Then 
there was a bangin' on the deck an' the roar o' water comin' 
down, an rite arter that a sort o' hissin' explosion. I wus 
already keehn' sideways, an' it wus that an' the rush o' steam 
that slammed me 'gainst the sta'bo'rd bunkers. Goin' 
down in a heap in a knee-deep wash o' coal an' hot water, 
an' the rush o' sizzUn' steem — them wus the las' things wot 
I 'ave rekerlekshun uv. I got me site back two weeks arter 
in a hospital ashore, but me kumplexshun'll nev'r be the 
syme agin. 
"Wot 'appened wus this, sir. Not sat'sfied wi' pourin' 
down the funnels, or w'ere the funnels 'ad bin, the water 
tried a short-cut thni the ventilayters. That wot kum 
down the funnels blew up inter steam long as there wus 
any fires left, an' arter that it wus boilin' water. Only the 
water kumin' down the ventilayters kep' us frum bein' 
cook'd alive. Two or three stokers wus drowned or banged 
up so they croaked, an' none o' us'll ev'r be prize-winners at 
a beauty show ag'in. 
"As fer 'ow the ol' Owl liv'd out the nite, I only knows 
wot's bin tol' me. They rigg'd some kinder pully 'aul steerin' 
gear, an" in the boiler o' the funnel wot didn't carry way 
they kep' coaxin' a dribbhn' 'ead o' steem. They wus 
nev'r abl' to keep 'er 'ead to the seas fer long, tho', and far 
the mos' part the nite wus jest one long waller in the trof. 
Nothin' but the fact that she was b'ilt so as to roll to 'er 
lieam ends 'thout capsizin' made 'er ride it out till dayJite." 
In a Submarine 
To no kind of craft do things liappen more "suddenly" 
than to those which navigate beneath the sea. As I heard 
one of their officers put it recently: "There is not much 
variety in submarine life, but when it does come it is very 
' various.' " A story told me a few days ago by an engineer's 
mate — he had b?en given his commission for his part in that 
particular day's events — is fairly illustrative of the chain 
lighting actioh aboard a submarine when things do begin 
to move. 
"It was about eleven o'clock of the night following a 
rather strenuous day," he said. "We had 'strafed' and 
brought down a Zepp. that afternoon—the first, I believe, 
to be bagged by a submarine — and were headed for our 
base with seven of its crew (all we had a chance to pick up) 
as prisoners. We were running on the surface at full speed 
—not half-anxious, as you may fancy, to get back with the 
news of our good luck— when a Hun destroyer (probably 
one of a number which had responded too late to the Zepp's. 
'S.O.S.') suddenly loomed up on our starboard bow and 
opened fire with all her guns at less than a cable's length. 
" I was on watch 'midships with my motors, but so close 
was the destroyer that the ' bang-banging ' of its guns sounded 
almost overhead. There were the heavy reports of what 
were probably 'four-point-ones,' and, filling the intervals 
between these, the ' rat-a-tat ' of what rriust have been some 
kind of quick-firers of small calibre. 
"You don't fight back on a submarine in a case of this 
kind. There is just one thing to do — dive— a.nd you do it 
as if your life depended upon it (as it usually does, as a matter 
of fact). The officer of the watch set the 'rattle' going at 
the instant the destroyer's searchlights and guns flashed 
together, and ducked below, closing the hatch after him. 
"When you dive in the ordinary course of things there 
are a number of orders given. ' Flood all externals 1 ' directs 
the turning of water into the tanks ; ' Hard to dive ! ' sends 
the hydroplanes to the proper angle for a quick descent ; 
and 'See the comps are venting!' is a caution to watch 
that the air is escaping freely before the inrush of the water. 
Likewise, there are similar orders directing the shutting oft 
of the Diesel engines (by which she runs on the surface), 
and switching ofi to the electric motors which drive her under 
water. The rattle gives all of these orders at once, and its 
use also indicates that their speediest execution is a matter 
of life and death. In the danger-zone, a man, asleep or 
awake, is seldom much beyond arm's reach of the one thing 
he has to do when he hears the 'z-r-r-r' of the danger signal. 
From running quietly on the surface to submerging beyond 
danger of ramming or shell fire is hardly more than a matter 
of seconds, if no one fails in his task, which — with men 
picked for the work — practically never happens. 
" I was on watch with the Diesel engines in the after part* 
of the ship, amusing myself (as these engines require practi- 
cally no attention unless speed is to be reduced or increa.sed) 
by watching the Hun prisoners — all sitting along in a row on 
the 'board' or platform by which you get round to oil the 
machinery — gouging out tlie contents of sardine tins with 
their teeth and fingers. They were as hungry as wolves, and 
not much better mannered. 
"My hand went to the emergency levers at the sound of 
the firing, so that when the rattle was sprung, a fraction of 
a second later, I only had to throw them over to shut off my 
engines. At the same instant the Banshee-hke crescendo of 
the accelerating motors told that the underwater power had 
been thrown on, while the hiss of escaping air showed tliat 
the 'comps' were venting properly as the water flooded into 
the 'externals.' Then the deck pitched forward at a dizzy 
angle and down we plunged. 
"Two or three of the Huns spoke a few words of English, 
and as the firing started outside one of them turned round to 
me with a grimace. They set up a wild jabbering, and it was 
beginning to dawn on me that they might be getting 
ready to make trouble by starting a counter-offensive, when 
do\yn goes her nose, and tlie whole hnc of them topples over 
hke a row of nine-pins and piles up in an angle of the deck. 
Before even one of them had gained his feet, we had swooped 
down to the bottom and come to rest. 
"As a dive the thing couldn't have been done better if we 
had been 'stunting' at our leisure, but for all that, and the 
fact that we were safe from further punishment so far as the 
destroyer was concerned, I was more than afraid that we 
had only escaped danger to meet a worse one. From the j ar 
of the impact of the stuff that hit our bows I thought it was 
a hundred to one we were holed forward. In fact, I was ex- 
pecting to see the bulkhead give way under the rush of water all 
the time we were plunging to the bottom. As soon as she 
was on an even keel, the Captain rushed forward to see how 
the little thin wall of steel (which we felt sure was all that 
separated us from drowning hke rats in a trap), was holding. 
As there was no indications of its being under any great strain, 
we started to open it. To our great surprise, and stifl greater 
reUef, it swung back easily and revealed everything quite as 
usual. 
" Two men, who were seated on a spare torpedo,bowed above 
a copy of the last picture paper we had received before sail- 
ing, rose in a sort of perfunctory way and stood at attention 
as the Captain entered. Officers and men are too close together 
on a submarine to go in much for the ' externals' of discipUne. 
"'So you've not been taking any water,' said the Captain, 
his eyes roving over the bulging but unpunctured plates. 
'"Nary a drop, sir,' one of them answered. 
But wasn't it hereabouts that we were hit ? ' 
"One of them scratched his head for a bit, before saying 
that he did seem to have some recollection of a ' kind o' bangin' 
up 'bove.' Then he added, 'But we wus standin' by to fire 
our mouldie, sir, an' there want no rime for harkin' for strange 
noises.' 
" ' All right,' said the skipper with a grin, ' carry on ! ' He 
started to go and then, turning, asked as an afterthought 
what was the news that had interested them so much. 
""Taint much in the way o' news, sir,' said one of them 
holding out his paper with a grin ; "but ain't that a rippin' 
picter o" Vi'let Lorraine as Emma in 'The Bing Boys' ? " 
* ♦ ♦ ' 
These stories are all fairly typical of the way in which the 
Bntish naval officer and man meet the grim and sudden emer- 
gencies which confront them in the regular routine of their 
day's work. If I were asked to select the two most typical 
I should unhesitatingly pick the first and the last 
