Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1088 page)

By noon of July 9 we had covered 325^- miles in twenty-four hours, with never a sight of the enemy to cheer us, and had reached the limit of our ground. Here we turned, and, on a front of twenty-four miles from wing towing, swept down 250 miles South-eastward to the offing of Blacksod Bay.

‘MISSED!’

Mercifully the weather began to improve, and we had the sea more or less behind us. It was when we entered on this second slant, about three minutes after the Fleet swung round, that, as though all men had thought it together, a word went round our forecastle — ’ Missed!’ After dinner, as they were smoking above the spit-kids, the doctrine was amplified with suitable language by the foc’sle experts, and it was explained to me with a great certainty how the other side had out-manoeuvred us ‘ by means of the ‘ole in the rules.’ In other words, ‘ he had been overtook by ‘is cruiser,’ precisely as the wiser heads had prophesied; and even at that early stage of the game we had been sold.

There was no way of finding out anything for sure. A big scouting cruiser slipped off again a little before dawn of the 10th, and six or seven hours later was reported to be in sight with news of the enemy. At this point there came, as we learned later, what you might call a hitch. Some unhappy signalman, they assert, misplaced a flag of a signal whereby it was caused to be believed that a cruiser had sighted the enemy where there was no enemy. In that direction, then, the Fleet gave chase, and though the thing was abortive, the run was a beautiful example of what the new Navy can do at a pinch.

WE DISCOVERED OUR MISTAKE

Then, I suppose, we discovered our mistake about the enemy, and hurried all together for Blacksod Bay in the hope of cutting him off. Arrived at the scattered Islands near the mouth, a cruiser was sent inside to see if any one was at home, while the Flagship bade the rest of us ‘ walk foreninst her while she considered on it.’ Meteorologically the weather was now glorious — a blazing sun, and a light swell to which the cruisers rolled lazily, as hounds roll on the grass at a check. Nautically there was a good deal of thunder in the air. Everybody knew something had gone wrong, and when the Flagship announced that she was not at all pleased with the signalling throughout the Fleet it was no more than every one expected.

Now the Flagship had some fifty or sixty signalmen, and a bridge as broad as a houseboat and as clear as a ball-room. Our bridge was perhaps four feet broad; the roar of a stoke-hold ventilating-fan, placed apparently for that purpose, carefully sucked up two-thirds of every shouted order; and between the bridge and the poop the luckless signalman, for want of an overhead passage, had to run an obstacle race along the crowded decks. We owned six signalmen. After watching them for a week I was prepared to swear that each had six arms and eight cinder-proof eyes; but the Flagship thought otherwise. I heard what the signalmen thought later on; but that was by no means for publication.

HIGH-SPEED SCOUTING

Back came the cruiser with news that Blacksod Bay was empty. Meantime three other boats had been sent off to reinforce the racing cruiser whose constant business it was to keep touch with the enemy. That monster did most of our high-speed scouting, and several times at least saw something of the other side. We were not so lucky. With three second-class friends we were ordered to patrol at twelve knots an hour on a six mile beat thirteen miles to the North-east of Eagle Island, to fire a rocket if we saw anything of the enemy that night, and to stay out till we were recalled. When we reached our ground the sea was all empty save for one speck on the horizon that marked the next cruiser, also patrolling. A desolate and a naked shore, broken into barren Islands, turned purplish- grey in the sunset, and two lone lighthouses took up their duty. We tramped up and down through that marvellous transparent dusk, with more than the regularity of the Metropolitan Police. There was no lawful night, but a wine-coloured twilight cut in half by the moon-track on the still water. Unless the enemy poled in punts under the shadow of the shore and the faint mist that lay along it, he could not hope to creep round from the North unobserved. The signalmen blessed their gods — Marine ones — that they were away from the Flagship; the foc’sle and my friend the Marine assured the signalmen that they would be infallibly hanged at the yard-arm when we reached port; and we all talked things over forward as the steady tramp continued.

‘I told you so! E’s found an ‘ole in the rules an’ slipped through it,’ was the burden of our song. We must have burned more coal than would ever be expedient in War, and we saw imaginary hulls with great zeal till the glorious sunrise, cut off from the battle, peering over the nettings, wet with dew, and just as ignorant of events around us as we shall be when the Real Thing begins.

CHAPTER II

Entered suddenly about noon on Sunday, after the disconcerting fashion of cruisers, one of our side flying the general recall, and telling us to go down to the Flag. But when we reached that place we found neither Flag nor battle ships, but the Powerful and the Terrible, who took us under their wing — all six of us, second and third-class cruisers. Till that point we had been sizeable ships, but those two huge things dwarfed us to mean little tramps. One never gets used to the bulk and height of these berserk Campanias. Then we all began talking. Who knew anything about anything; and who had dragged who round the walls of what? Our next astern gave us one slateful of information which was rather dizzying. That a cruiser at 7.30 that morning had reported to the Battle Fleet, who had spent the night patrolling outside Blacksod Bay, ‘Enemy to the Westward.’ That the Fleet had given chase; that the Flagship had fired one gun when she came within three miles of the said enemy fifteen miles West of Blacksod Bay. That the enemy had gone in to Blacksod Bay, and, he believed, our own battleships had gone south to Bantry. (I have already explained rudely what the enemy had done.)

That was all we could then arrive at. (The Fleet will learn no more when the Real Thing arrives.) I went forward to hear the text commented on.

SEA-LAWYERS

Said the voice of unshaken experience, ‘We’ve been- ‘ad. Don’t tell me’

‘We ‘aven’t. We’ve intercepted the beggar,’ — a young sea-lawyer began. ‘‘E was rendezvousin’ back to Blacksod.’

‘What were the rules any’ow?’ a voice cut in.

‘We wasn’t fightin’ rules — we was fightin’ a man. I tell you we’ve been ‘ad. Didn’t I say so when we come round on that long slant from Rockall way? ‘E’s got round us some’ow.’

‘But look ‘ere. The signals make it out we’ve won.’

‘‘£ won’t make it out we’ve won, though. Both sides’ll claim it.’

‘That’s what they always do. When I was in         ‘

And one went on to tell of other Manoeuvres in which he had apparently taken a leading part, while we jogged Southward behind the Powerful as far as the Eastern entrance to Berehaven. But there were no battleships in Bantry Bay. They had gone on to target practice, and presently we cruisers dispersed among the headlands for the same business, with orders to rendezvous a few miles South of the Fast- net, that well-worn mile-post of the Transatlantic liner.

ALMOST INFERNAL MOBILITY

No description will make you realise the almost infernal mobility of a Fleet at sea. I had seen ours called, to all appearance, out of the deep; split in twain at a word, and, at a word, sent skimming beyond the horizon; strung out as vultures string out patiently in the hot sky above a dying beast; flung like a lasso; gathered anew as a riata is coiled at the saddle bow; dealt out card-fashion over fifty miles of green table; picked up, shuffled, and redealt as the game changed. I had seen cruisers flown like hawks, ridden like horses at a close finish, and manoeuvred like bicycles; but the wonder of their appearance and disappearance never failed. The Powerful spoke, and in ten minutes the cruiser-squadron had vanished; each ship taking her own matches and sulphur to make a hell of her own. And what that hell might be if worked at full power I could, presently, guess as we swung round a headland, and the bugles began. At this point the gunner became a person of importance (in the Navy each hour of the day has its king), and the captains of the guns separated themselves a little from the common herd. Remember, we were merely a third-class cruiser, capable, perhaps, of slaying destroyers in a heavy sea, but meant for the most part to scout and observe. Our armament consisted of eight four-inch quick-fire wire guns, the newest type — two on the foc’sle, four in the waist, and two on the poop, alternating with as many three-pounder Hotch- kiss quick-firers. Three Maxims adorned the low nettings. Their water-jackets were filled up from an innocent tin-pot before the game began. It looked like slaking the thirst of devils.

MAN-SLAYING DEVILTRIES

We found an eligible rock, the tip of a greyish headland, peopled by a few gulls — the surge creaming along its base — and a portion of this we made our target, that we might see the effect of the shots and practise the men at firing on a water-line. Up came the beautiful solid brass cordite cartridges; and the four-inch shells that weigh twenty-five pounds apiece. (The little three- pounders, as you know, have their venomous shell and charge together like small-arm ammunition.) The filled belts of the Maxims were adjusted, and all these man-slaying deviltries waked to life and peered over the side at the unsuspecting gulls. It was ‘still’ throughout the ship — still as it will be when the Real Thing arrives. From the upper bridge I could hear, above the beat of the engines, the click of the Lieutenants’ scabbards (Why should men who need every freedom in action be hampered by an utterly useless sword?); the faint clink of a four-inch breech swung open; the crisper snick of the little Hotchkiss’s falling-block; and an impatient sewing-machine noise from a Maxim making sure of its lock-action. On his platform over my head the Navigating Officer was giving the ranges to the rock.

‘Two thousand seven hundred yards, sir.’

‘Two thousand seven hundred yards,’ — the order passed from gun to gun — ’ ten knots right deflection — starboard battery.’ The gun-captains muzzled the rubber-faced shoulder-pieces, and the long lean muzzles behind the shields shifted fractionally.

‘Try a sighting shot with that three-pounder!’

The smack of cordite is keener, and catches one more about the heart, than the slower-burning black powder. There was a shrillish gasping wail — exactly like the preliminary whoop of an hysterical woman — as the little shell hurried to the target; and a pufF of dirty smoke on the rock-face sent the gulls flying. So far as I could observe there was not even a haze round the lips of the gun. Till I saw the spent case jerked out I did not know which of the clean, precise, and devilish four had spoken.

WHEN THE REAL THING COMES

‘Two thousand four hundred,’ the voice droned overhead, and the starboard bow four-inch quick-firer opened the ball. Again no smoke; again the song of the shell — not a shriek this time, but a most utterly mournful wail. Again the few seconds suspense (what will they be when the Real Thing comes?) and a white star on the target. The cruiser winced a little, as though some one had pinched her.

Before the next gun had fired, the empty cartridges cylinder of the first was extracted, and by some sleight of hand I could not see the breech had closed behind a full charge. A Martini-Henri could hardly have been reloaded more swiftly.

‘Two thousand three hundred,’ cried the reader of that day’s lessons, and we fell seriously to work; high shriek and low wail following in an infernal fugue, through which, with no regard for decency, the Maxims quacked and jabbered insanely. The rock was splintered and ripped and gashed in every direction, and great pieces of it bounded into the sea.

‘Two thousand one hundred.’

‘Good shot. Oh, good shot! That was a water- liner. . . . That was the Marines’ three-pounder. Good! . . . Ah — ah! Bad. Damn bad! Short! Miles short! Who fired that shot?’

A shell had burst short of the mark, and the captain of that gun was asked politely if he supposed Government supplied him with three-pound shell for the purpose of shooting mackerel.

And so we went on, till the big guns had fired their quota and the Maxims ran out in one last fiends’ flurry, and target-practice for the month was over. The rock that had been grey was white, and a few shining cartridge-cases lay beside each gun.

SQUIRTING DEATH THROUGH A HOSE

Then the horror of the thing began to soak into me. What I had seen was a slow peddling-out of Admiralty allowance for the month, and it seemed to me more like squirting death through a hose than any ordinary gun-practice. What will it be when all the ammunition-hoists are working, when the Maxims’ water-jacket puffs off in steam; when the three-pounder charges come up a dozen at a time to be spent twenty to the minute; when the sole limit of four-inch fire is the speed with which the shells and cases can be handled? What will it be when the Real Thing is upon us?

And the smiling, careless faces answered with one merry accord : ‘ Hell! Every kind of Hell! But — things will happen.’

In ancient days there was an etiquette in sea battles. No line-of-battle ship fired at a frigate unless the latter deliberately annoyed her. Then she blew the frigate out of the water. What will be the etiquette next time? Suppose a cruiser met a battleship with one set of engines unusable crawling along at eight knots. Would she jackal the lame thing and tempt her into wasting ammunition? It is a risky game to play with sides no thicker than an average tea-tray; but under circumstances it might be lucrative. Would she — and a fast cruiser can do this — try to rush her by night, destroyer-fashion? At the beginning of the war she might do all sorts of things; at the end of it she would take exactly that kind of liberty which experience of the other side’s personnel had shown to be moderately safe. There is no saying what she could or could not do in heavy weather, and Navies that do not like heavy weather; tumble-home boats unused to working in a sea; a beaky and a plated Navy, with big tops that roll and strain, might suffer.