AN OCEAN CONVOY

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 40, 15 August 1918, Page 10

AN OCEAN CONVOY

GUARDING THE GALLEONS

THE LITTLE SHEPHERDS

(From Our London Correspondent.)

LONDON, Hth June.

The port from which I went on a convoy with British galleons across the Atlantic cannot be named, but it is a good historio haven; and it is only one of half a dozen or more in the West Country that are bases to-day for the defence of our sea-going commerce.

In these days the terrors' of the open sea have driven most of out modest trading craft to stow their ensigns and creep along close inshore from port to port, hugging- the low-water mark, and cutting the corners in a fashion which Lloyd's and owners alike would have forbidden not so very- long ago. To-day the wise captain takes these risks and no others, keeps his eyes well skinned ahead and abeam, and his gunners on their platform. It is astonishing how well the merchant captain has fallen into the wiles of sea war. Not a man Jack of them has been reported to the Board of Trade for declining to take his ship to sea when the time came, though I am confident there is not a forecastle or a stokehold to-day that does not sport at least one of the cuff badges that indicate a ship mined or torpedoed at sea.

EYES OF DEFENCE.

It is a perfect, hot May day—just a day to visit airship and balloon stations; and thus I filled in a dozen hours or so, while one by one, in twos and in driblets, the ships for convoy crept down the coast and into the protection of the wide harbour. -1 went up a couple of thousand feet in an observation balloon, and in half an hour got some wisdom of the sky watch on our coasts, and some more admiration for our gallant band of eagles. The lieutenant was a young, pre-war R.N. officer, bearded for a change, and he had spent eighteen months in the 'live zone of Flanders and Pjcardy and the Somme. So that huntsmanship comes to him naturally. Over and over again he has dropped suddenly, as tha' kite aeronaut must, when tho Taubes come droning across. Generally, of course, our own 'planes keep guard over the helpless targets, but occasionally the Boche gets a look-in and swoops. There was one Boche, though, who circled round and round over a kite balloon at 1500 ft, and yet never attacked. And nobody yet knows the reason. A ■ thick fog drifted past below us, hiding the whole view, and I felt for the first time uncomfortably near the sky. I was well-clad in flying coat and helmet and parachute harness, and intinctively looked over the side to make sure that the parachute was there all right. The lieutenant was standing up in the car with only his cool naval uniform on. " I have- always contended," he said cheerfully, " that everyone should make a descent in a parachute. lam a great believer in it. Yet, strange to "say, I have never done it myself. It has always been forbidden, and in all my experience it has nover been necessary." And we went on to talk of cases where it was — of the tragic, fate of Basil Hallam,:for example. Down below, on all sides, the ropes hung and swayed in a. forlorn and eerie manner against tho scudding fog, and I was quite glad when the lieutenant rang up the earth on tho telephone, and so proved by presumptive evidence that we were not all alone in the world. It was a striking proof, too, for our conversation was punctuated throughout by the dot, dash, dot, of somebody's infernal wireless somewhere at sea.

We were wound slowly down, to earth again. Far below the white disks of the May day caps of the Navy marked the two lines of men ready to seize our ropes. Just for a moment or two, when they are catching hold and the balloon swings and sways near the earth, one feels some tendency to giddiness. But all these sensations have a habit of melting away when one observes, as he cannot help doing, the eternal sang froid and efficiency of these enthusiastic young Englishmen. They do so love their jobs.

AMONGST THE AIRSHIPS.

Later in the day I completed my study of the air watch by a visit to the home of half a dozen airships. When I got there the great hangars were empty, for all the ships were cruising over the narrow waters of the Atlantic. In a small room marked "Intelligence," and obviously very sacred, a young man sat sat with a' receiver to his ear, taking down wireless reports in cryptic terms of squares'and figures and letters, and "logging" all the strange sensations of the airships far out of sight over the sea. These are the things that make knowledge and warcraft. One had seen a piece of wreckage at a certain point. Another had heard an explosion near Dublin. Another had seen a fog creeping along from one square to another, and asked for instructions. The commander, a bronzed young captain, looked at his watch. "You had better tell her t» come home," he observed. And so on. .., ■

These strange, gay young people, surrounded by flowers and vegetables and camouflage and all the beauties of this, age, ' think in squares. They know without looking at the charts on the wall exactly . •where-."' each of thS, airships is and what she is likely to- see. They plot everything-^ on to the cjiarts and so, by a gradual process, certain well-defined habits of'submarines and sea. fogs and floating debris become established.

Before we had finished our tea the buzz of the fog spy airship purred in through the windows and melted away in tbe crisp., tramp—"left, right-left, right," of the landing party hastening oust to take her hand and lead her, evea- so gently, into her berth.

VERB SAP.

The convoy has collected itself by devious routes and -winding coasts and shallow waters, and the merchant captains are all ashore at a conference with ' the vice-admiral and the Irish lieutenant who control the security of our sea-going commerce. Convoy to-day is a science, just like raiding and trench warfare; and the first thing to do is to.see that the rank and file know the rudiments of their job. Most of them do. Very few indeed have had! no previous experience of sailing in convoy, and it is astonishing bow readily the British tramp skipper took to discipline and evolutions and keeping station when once hs found it was necessary. They ai-o all asl?«d for suggestions; and some of them give them freely enough. "Put me right in the middle, captain," says one. "I like to have a lot of ships round me."

"Well," says the rebel of the party, "I have 13£ knots, and once it's darkJFm going to let her out, whatever they* £'J.y." This is the spirit, rare enough now but not altogether undesirable, which 1 animates the captain whom we found blundering along.cm bis own in.&&,open

sea, ignoring cqnypy arid running all the risks his kind arQ heir to. The galleons arc arranged in sailing order, partly according to their cargo and partly according to there guns, for they are a defonaivs unit. A central ship is chosen for the commodore, and he hoistg his pennant at the fore and controls the internal economy of the galleons, as distinct from the escort. Wo are outward bound, and most of the bottoms are empty except for ballast. {Axiom I.) And the 6peod of the convoy is the speed of the slowest ship, or a knot less. (Axiom II.)

Early in the morning the advance patrol get to sea and become busy—aeroplanes, airships, balloons, submarine chaeeisand trawlers scouring the water north, south, east, and west to males it unhealthy for the periscopes to show up.

THE WARDROOM MESS,

I was put aboard a. chaser, and had the honour, which one can scarcely overrate, of being for some days a full member of the wardroom mess of IT.M.S. "H2 5.0.4." Ther« ™ nothing in the Navy list so herring-gutted and shallow as the "H2 5.0.4." , I saw her in her youth, when her purpose was less exalted, and she hunted the Hun on a short radius Irom another port, shipping every sea. that rode and glistening wet from morn to night. Now she is promoted and aggrandised and renumbered. She looks stacks more important and she ships stacks lees water these summer days. But there is not an inch more under her bilge, and her seaworthiness, which is beyond doubt and admiration, is a marvel. The captain lent me bis cabin, and I was comfortable to a degree, and felt every inch a, seaman in the knowledge that just beneath me was the magazine and that the water washing about all night under the floor was the reserve of oil fuel.

The H2 5.0.4 was armed to the teeth. She) had the. speed of the whole convoy, both galleons a,nd escort. In th© wardroom was a typical present-day staff. The captain "(lieutenant, R.N.R.) was formerly in the service of the White Star Line, and knew the Mediterranean and American ports almost as well as he knows to-day every inlet and rock on the western coasts. "No. 1" is also.of the R.N.R.. a smart young officer, trained in the Harrison Line. The engineer is a warrant officer, R.N. The gunner, Mr. C, is R.N., too, and saw years of service in the Pacific Islands and tho ports of -Australia and New Zealand. And finally, the midshipman is a, P. a.nd O. apprentice of five years' experience, who has spent three years of the war on the North Sea patrol and ranging the Arctic circle.

In the forecastle and the stokehold every ship of the Navy and every battle ofthe war is represented. It is queer to hear that ships "pay off" during the war just aa they have done since naval history began, turning their crews adrift to the four winds. That explains how so many men from famous ships have fetched up in this particiilar submarine chaser. There is. another reason, too, but I do not think I should say too much of that riskiest of all jobs for which men volunteer with avidity—the job on which Lieutenant-Commander Sanders (Auckland^ won Ms V.C. and on which he lost his life. Many a story I have heard in my days in this little craft, told by men who have invariably applied to go on the desperate service again.