SUBMARINE STORIES

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2707, 29 February 1916, Page 6

IIOW WE DEAL WITH THE PIRATES (By J. 8., in the "Daily Mail.") Out of the green depths, with the' suddenness of a lightning flash, death l'cso at tho . Looking down from the bridge her captain saw a glint of shining, swift-moving steel under the vessel's side. A second later a huge geyser roared skyward, cutting, as it rose, a great gap in tho destroyer's side. "Torpedoed!" exclaimed the captain, and the words wore almost choked back into his throat by the surge that threw him overboard. A signalman standing on the bridge was shot up into the air like a bolt from a catapult, turned a somersault, and fell down into the sea, where, with one hand, he instinctively grasped a floating spar, while with the. other lie wiped the blood from his face in a dazed kind of way—and cursed vigorously. Meanwhile, the captain was swimming about, with tight-set lips, trying to count the number of heads bobbing amid the waves, and from them to estimate how many of his men had gone duivn with their ship. This was chapter one of « grim war story. Chapter two opened some few days later, when the captain of the submarined destroyer walked into a certain admiral's office and said: "I want you to let me liave a trawler, sir?" "Why?" asked the admiral. "I'm going out after one.of those German submarines, and I won't come back till I've got one." "Very well; take what you want." I Out in a trawler went the captain. For some days he thrashed about the sea, sleepless, .mresting, ever vigilantly looking for the quarry he was hunting, I And, as he who seeks diligently will surely find, one morning the captain's persistence was rewarded. There was a swirl in the water on the trawler's beam, and up rose a U boat. From her conning toiver emerged a man who shouted in gnttu:.al English, "Take to your , boatsl'm going to sink your ship. I'll givo you five minutes to get clear of her." "Will you?" snapped back the captain. "Before that time's up you'll be' below." Even as he spoko there came the snarling yap of from tho trawler. As their projectiles struck the submarine she seemed to quiver as though in pain, then she rolled sideways and sank, like a whale with a death-wound. Without speaking a word the captain put his trawler about and steered for home. But before his mental vision came a picture of his own ship going down into the grave with many good men coffined in her —and he smiled. A Little Grim Humour, Fighting submarines is not always so grim a business, though sometimes an element of humour and no bloodshed characterises these encounters. Here is a case in point. f A. burly north-country skipper was bringing his ship—a littlo coasting craft—to anchor, when he saw a periscope poke up right alongside her. Putting his hands to his mouth he shouted:

"Hey, Geordie 1 Geordiel" A deck hand answored the ,hail and asked what was the matter.

"Why there's a submarino alongside us. ■ Hop over quick an' knock his eyes out or he'll sink us."

Without any hesitation Geordie seized a hammer, sprang over the ship's side, and found himself upon the con-ning-tower of a U boat. Promptly ho began to "let swing" at the periscope lens. Apparently the boat had unknowingly come up alongside the ship and tuose in her wondered where sho had got to. Cautiously the conning-tower opened and a scared faco peeped out to investigate. Geordie went for rhis too. Down went t'lie towcr-hatch; down also ttenfc the submarine and scuttled away. As Geordie scrambled back aboard his own craft the skipper calmly remarked to him: "AVell done, lad; that was a near shave, that was. A thowt she had tis that time reet enough." there was somewhat more finesse in tlio way another trawler skipper conducted an interview with a U boat though the result was equally bad for Hip enemy. _ This particular skipper was a foresco111K man. He felt pretty certain that Mime day one of von Tirpites's pirates would overhaul him, so he prepared for the occasion —and kept prepared—in a simple but effective ■ way. Screened from view by a pile of nets stood one of Ins men with the crutch 1 of a quicklira- to his shoulder—and this man was always "on watch"; as one might say, he constantly had his finger on tfie trigger.

Well that it was so, for one not particularly fino day "U » pus i lcd iler nose up and tho pirate chief in command of her began giving the usual peremptory orders to "abandon.ship." Now as it happened, our skipper was cauglit awkwardly; tho submarine lay at a point where his gun would not boar upon her. But he was a man of resourco. Pretending to bo panicstricken, he gradually, and apparently aimlessly, began to wear his ship round so that she could get a clear shot at the enemy. All the time he continued to stamp about the bridge, shouting at tho crew, and gbing a first-class impersonation of a man who had lost his head in the presence of danger. "Hurry up, hurry up! I can only give you a few more minutes," the pirate kept urging. "Can't ye soe 1 am hurrvin' 'em up all I can?" declared the skipper, who roared at his men. "Hustle along there you lubberly sea-cooks an' get out the boats, else we shall all be drowned. I never saw such a lot>o' slow, beach-combing fellows. Hustle. I tell you, hustle!" All this time his 6hip was slowly being manoeuvred into firing position. As she reached this the skipper drove at his crew with extra vigour. Then, stopping quickly by tho bridge rails, and putting his palm outward before his mouth, the skipper said in a tense aside to the man at the gun: 'Now; Tom, let go; an' if ye don't sink him I'll come down an' knock y'r head off." Tom "let go," and the result did not endanger his head. The Welsh Skipper. No matter what part of the kingdom they come from, the spirit of the plucky old sea-dogs who command the Navy's auxiliaries is the same. They are never craven. . A Welsh skipper found _ himself in charge of a vessel "sweeping" off tho coast. Suddenly a trail of smoke smudged the horizon and four destroyers came into view. "Jawl, look at that now; I'm thinking them'll be Jer-r-mans, Dafydd boy," quoth the skipper to his mate. "An' what'H we do; shy coal at 'em?" growled Dafydd through his scrubby red beard. The skipper put on full speed, but as well might a tortoise try to run away from a greyhound. Within a few minutes the flotilla- was close abeam, and tho destroyers began firing at the "sweeper" as they spun past. Splinters flow from various parts '.f her, although the markmauship was not "top line." Fast 011 her bridge stood tho skippcr, saying things that were not prayers, his Celtic blood aboil.. Tho last vessel of the flotilla slowed down. "Come alongside me," percnmtoril.v megaphoned her commanding officer to the "sweeper." "Ayo, aye," replied the skipper, throwing ud his hand in assent. And

he went alongside, though quite in a different way from what the enemy expected. Turning his ship's bows on to the destroyer he rang for ".Full speed ahead" and drove his vessel stem first into the enemy—rammed him savagely —knocking some of his gear overboard, and cutting a big hole in his plating. Much to the skipper's surprise, for he had not expected so tame a finish, the destroyer showed no fight, but made off as fast as she could. When later the skipper was congratulated upon his pluck by an officer of patrols lie replied: "Oil, that's nothin'. Indeed, but I only did what ho told me."