HATCHING THE GREAT NIGHT RAYS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3059, 21 April 1917, Page 9

HATCHING THE GREAT NIGHT RAYS

.'■'■■•.' '.'•- — ■ '■*- -r "■ BEHIND THE SEARCHLIGHTS .- AN INTERESTING SKETCH (By "G.R.8." in the "Manchester Guardian.") ; . The battery control post in a box of :.ft room, six feet square, crowded with sandbags, telephones, three dutymen, and a subaltern on watch, and tho elaborate range-finding telescope that casts an. inquiring eye seawards through a slit iu the breastwork of sandbags. Anyone but a garrison gunner might call the place uncomfortable, but as my. friend Dale says: "It's a saloon compared with any dugrout in Flanders," and I agree wtih him; for we ; both have known Glanders, he as the controller of . two long-snouted 4.7'5, and I as a mud-walloper of the trenches in' front of him. Dame Fortune caused us to bo wounded on tho same day and brought us again, unfit for •foreign service, in the. fort overlooking .the great waterway. And here wo keep the homo fires burning—Dale behind his .telescope with a finger ever on tho firing switch (for home waters have still their little excitements), 1 on the move round sentry-posts and vulnerable points. But. we always find time for a yarn in the B.C. post. ' •The best'time to visit that aerie is about midnight, when the coastwise : ships are creeping.out in the darkness, when Dale will be in the full swing of his activities, and.when the kettle is : on -the spirit-lamp, heating for the early, morning cocoa._ You enter the tower by the .. engineer's platform, where, in darkness, warmly. wrapped sappers are swinging the levers that control the long beams of the searchlights. They do it to order of the gunner subaltern, in the B.C. post above. From here you climb by rungs set in the wall to a trap-door, which you heavo up by the shoulders, and—etiquette _ demands if you may come.in. Permission . granted, you creep over .the sleeping hrst relief and occupy a Vmbioty of the limited space tti the ledge that runs round two walls. . "Busy just now,'.' says Duke, and you look alter the spirit-lamp. Listen to Dale as he talks to the "lamp-light-ers" in the . ■ ■ - "Swing No. 1 light, I said, not No.' 2. Oh 1-. Changing carbons; are you? Well, look slippyl .The Boche might raid the place a dozen times in the night for all you fellows, would care. Ready now?' '.Well, swing No. 1. That's better.".-'! Through the slit you can see the .wide/ white beam lighting up the houses and church ; towers on the point of land to the westward. Then it slips from there on to the sea, illuminating the.whife foam of the waves that seem to dash'so wildly in the unnatural glare. • It swings further and rests on a vessel steaming slowly td the anchorage up river. On her side are painted, the colours of a neutral Power. A wisp of steam is trailing from the pipe against the funnel. Dale! glances through" the right- telescope—"Six thousand and forty," he murmurs; then repeats through the telephone to the guns, "Six thousand; 6peed, five knots. Got it?. Right!" Hβ talks again to the engineers: "Keep on her, ifcill she's past the pier'.'—and the long finger of lights. points menacingly at the rusty hull. It follows her, relentless. ■■."■• . -; ■.'.'•

But the second light is not. to be idle. "No.-2 ontide-gauge," orders Dale. 'And the stationary beam swings/round to the pier off the fort and rests-when the long, white register of the gauge is •in..view. Simultaneously,- the.long arm of the pier is lit by a hundred electric .globesj'tbp'sentryon the , end steps.into the glare of the searchlight and slopes arms; )'T,This is."st little;economical ar- : rangeihenfc ,of ours;' it shows' the height of the .tide, ;it' tests' the" lighting 'and the vigilence of the sentry. His sloped arms assures me that "All's well." Dale "rings to the battery: "Tide eighteen feet. Remember your he adds this for the benefit of the cal-~ low subaltern/in, charge of the guns. Then to the sappers: "No. 2 off tidegauge and stationary on the buoy." The slow-swinging light draws off the pier and stares inquiringly' straight ahead. The neutral tramp has travelled slow-, ly up. She is whistling mournfully, worried by the attentions of this relentless, white beam. The little pilot launch fusses to-her side. "That should do her," says Dale. "Swing No. 1 down-river again. What? Change carbons?-Oh, roW' Swing her clown to the point," he orders.- "That old tramp ought to be jolly grateful to me for lighting the way," he says to .me..-■-.'' Hear him... grunting, quite annoyed. Benevolent neutral, forsooth!" ■-:•'. He turns again to the-telescope and ■follows'.the! beam of ,No.. 1 ...down--the. river.-' /It is; resting■■oyer.the : extreme, point'of. its.Meld, of vision, converging -. with another beam from the. fort oppo- ■ Bitei ; Nothing can creep past that • harrier.-unnoticed. .-Suddenly'.- Dale speaks tome: •-.■;.■ .-• •.-.- ••'-.■

: .-"Here—quick{.-..L00k -afc the beau--jtiesl" .•: ..- •:■• .-■•■■;" Three destroyers. are: careering • up river in line, / a cable length apart. The high:curve ,of. water from their hows is etlierealised in the white light.On the leading ship a signalling-lamp *-$aleda little by the searchlight beam .-^isMoremg.rapidly. Dale reads. .-.-.' VThey want the lights out, the modest ones." Hβ' rings to the engineers. Switch off both, candles at once." In a .trice the water is-in darkness, ■ except for three faint glares from the tunnels of the rustling destroyers. '-The throb of the. gas-engines. in the fork comes more slowly, then stops The only sounds are the crash of waves on the shingle below and the rasping of the spiriWamp The three grey streaks pass swiftly and into the blackness beyond the pier. . ■~" 0 . n with.both lights," orders Dale. Swing >>o. l.tb point, again-No. 2 stationary on buoy.". Then: "Cocoa ready? Good!" He leav es tie teksbench.; rWell-that's that," he says •;•„• ,-Do you remember that day ■- at Jttooge. , ■ ■