THE "Q" BOAT'S BIT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 75, 23 December 1918, Page 5

THE "Q" BOAT'S BIT

DARING DEATH TO SINK A U-BOAT

A "ROUTINE" INCIDENT

(By Ciair Price, with- the British Navy ■in the Mediterranean.) . [This is a good .story of a "Q"boat. Q-boats are men-of-war, especi-j ell J. equipped fox sinking U-boats, and disguised as merchantmen and sailing vessels for the purpose of decoying ..them.'to'a close range. For. three years they operated" jvith conspicuous success, but it was not until recently' . has it been permitted to mention them.] • . "' ■ She was_ a fine two-masted craft, with that striking emptiness of deck which, at first, rather flattens out a steamship'man. She spread a mainsail, foresail, jib, flyingjib, two gaff-topsails, and a staysail; and; strictly between she had_ auxiliary power for use as requisite. She was oak built and copper-fastened, with any amount of brasswork from her wheel to her cutwater, altogether a craft to gladden the heart of any sail orman who was used to eails. But along her rail she had certain deckhouses. •■■■.■

Her "old man" was a child , of 25. who; at the ripe age of 19, had been, graduated from the sailing-craft' into a.little singlescrew tramp which could squeeze out 7}, maybe 8, knots when she was well sweetened up. Her mate was a tall angular Nova Scotia blue-nose, with teeth set wide apart, who had topped off 17 years on the Newfoundland banks with six rears as a fourth officer in the Plant Line. Her boatswain was late mate of a Deal drifter, and he,wore ear-rings, one of which was in backward. All the crew rolled . when they, walked, their hands half-open as if about to clutch a lope, after the manner cf men who have spent their lives in an atmosphere' of fish and fog. Early in the war some of them had lost gear and mates and sometimes boats to enemy submarines. So for them the war was "not 3000 miles away. 100 Per Cent, Camouflage!

On the beach they wore a sufficing "J01.5.-" on their navy flat hats and they went to sea in ditty boxes instead of sea chests. But, at sea, as an integral part of the game, they wore corduroys of, yellow, red, blue and green, with broad 6carlet sashes, and when you hailed them they assumed a bastard brogue and shrugged their shoulders, pretending not to comprehend. The old man wore faded overalls, and he allowed only half his crew up topside at a time. .. For once an. enemy submarine . commander told the Q-boat captain who had mado him a prisoner of war: "I knew what you were from the first. I saw seven men on your deck before you saw me, but you sent away only six in your panic party." Well, so she went to sea.. Of course the first '.thing she ran into was the fishing-fleet of brown feluccas, their early-morning' harcarrolles lying like soft petals of Bound across the Sea. Then she came! leisurely to a black British trawler on patrol, which closed her at once and hailed the "old pan/ Now the Q-boats are nobody's business. At 6ea and at the base they come and go and no man knows of it v except the chief of staff and the rear-admiral who owns and operates this end of the Mediterranean. They' Carry no signal code (they dp. carry a number which, they can hoist when absolutely., necessary, although this morning she happened to have mislaid hers) and they enter into conversation with,nobody.

"What-ship?" asked the trawler. "No got name," said the "old man." "Where bound ?" ' "Novhaire." "Where from?" with a muttered aside about gory fishermen. "Oh, iiroun' here.'* The trawler was angry. It demanded to know istanter who the "old man" was and what he was doing at largo on its own private' ocean. "Oh, aye," said the old man, "I'm fetchin' out a bit of a.battery'with a brace o' guns thrown in,, an' if you want to fight mewi J - that ragin' gun o' yours, I'll fight. -But you , better toddle off an' keep away from me. There may be a submarine aroun' here now." , Suddenly, ,'tho^ trawler -. broke ■ into ..a. broad, knowing grin.' ■ - '.'■* "Cheerio," he -said, and toddled off. So she kept leisurely on out to sea, , with a light breeze still on her quarter and her "old man," astride his camp stool,, looking as if ho had' nothing on his niind but bread, wine and onion's. They "Crawl" to General Quarters, The rest of the day uothing happened. But the next morning, at the first crack of dawri, she went to general quarters for a very palpable periscope, cutting the Blow feather towards her dead ahead. The "old man" took station on the com-panion-way aft, his face at a. small eyeport, surrounded by his speakingtubes, telegraphs, and push-buttons for his guns which usually constitute the bridge gear. Ifs a weird place from which to run a ship; suppose a taxi chauffeur should navigate his taxi .curled up under the seat aft? Half the crew crawled on their stomachs to their action stations under the bulwarks and lay doggo about the small deckhouses. Anil the Other half, with the boatswain in charge, tumbled up' from below and crowded into the eyes of the ship, prepared to stage a life-sized imitation of a panic at sea. ■ . . .

But the, periscope only circled them, standing off about 200' yards—circled them once—twice—and then dived. . "He knew what we were." So in time the "old man" called Secure and sho held' on her leisurely courso westward. ' i • ' At two bells of the afternoon watch (1 p.m. if you must know), she ' went to general quarters again for a small black speck on her. horizon dead astern. She pretended not to seo it until i.t had developed into ii craft with neither masts nor stack, but a conning tower rapidly overhauling them about* 12,000 yards away. Then the, boatswain and his half of the crew manifested the, wildest excitement. . • From his hiding-place, the "old man" ordered to lay. aloft, and they whipned buckets of 'water to the. masthead" to wet down the sails. They had a seven, knot breeze dead astern, "but. the'.submarine was in light condition, and making H knots. At 8000 yards the submarine fired. The shell exploded some 200 yards astern and the "old man," still hidden in the companionway aft,' ordered the dinghy away. • • -, The Boat Came Back. The boatswain's men camo down out of the Tigging like monkeys, piled into tho dinghy and pulled rapidly off. They lad barely left when the boatswain himself came crawling on hk. stomach aft to where the "old man" stood hiddon in the companionway, keeping his eyes on the submarine, which now was turning broadside on. "What are'you doing here?" said the "old man.""Had to corne aboard to let go tho painter, sir," said the boatswain. "Why didn't you cut the painter? . . . Nice thing for a submarine to see you come back aboard to let go the painter!"

It is just at that stage—when your panic-party has been sent away and the action bids fair to develop satisfactorily—that nerves are most likely to crack. You have to lie doggo—which means quiet—not knowing what Fritz is going to do, but knowing that in all probability he will assume you are a. Qboat and will begin shelling you. And when he beg-ins "shelling you, yon have to keep, on lying: doggo in order to let him convince himself that yon are abandoned, "and that he may safely close you to send off a boarding party with bombs, lor torpedoes are too expensive to waste on email windjammers. For the time being you are absolutely helpless. You know that if you aro unlucky enoughto catch a splinter of shrapnel in one of your- gwm jou .are done for. You know that if you catcli a splinter in your auxiliary, the chances are against you. And you know that if Frita should decide to torpedo you, your ship v;ould melt like butter; a'nd if you survive the torpedo you also know vhat to expect. The "Panic-Party's" Part. At any rate, as far ns the submarine could see, the little windjammer's crew —the panic-party (it ought to become one of the famous phrases of the wax!)—had gone off in the dinghy, and the little .windjammer was now abandoned. As

far as external appearances went, it was safe for the eubmarino to close the abandoned vessel to place its time-bombs aboard. But submarine commanders soon learn to be sceptical. They know to-day that ships are not what they seem. Of course, the "old man" couldn't take off sail for his ship was now supposed to be abandoned, so lie continued drifting away from his dinghy at about seven knots. He did start his auxiliary, trying to bring his craft about broadside on in order to bring more ptne to bear on his submarine. But his fngine wasn't strong enough to'hold her.

The submarine was then broadside on at about 6000 yards, with both gun crews plainly visible on deck and several figures on the bridge. That was what made the hair stand upon the back of the "old man's neck"—the damned insolence of these Germans walking about freely and indifferently as if their dirty business gave them a right to use England's 'seas! U-Boat Opens Fire, ' At 6000 yards the submarine opened fire, using its forward gun on the abandoned''vessel and its after gun on the panic party in .the dinghy. It got the range in a hurry, a difficult feat on a submarine's unsteady deck. Its first shell hit the sea a cable's length , astern. Its second was an over. Its third cut away, the foretopmast, and in a showering liiss of shTapne) left a humming all down the mast. Tta fourth fell at the windlass, and four of the craw lay. writhing. Its fifth holed her well forward, and a wisp nf' smoke curled up from the scuttle. Its sixth .hurled the "old man" down th« companionway, wrecking the little cabin below. Miraculously the 'oH man" got off with n twisted ankle, and afterwards remembered nothing about it, except that .the "- 1 marine was usi' l ? a ,<=Ml with a broken driving band whose silly whistling mi"'" him mutter, "Go and get vonrself oiled." Justshows how a man's brain works in air-tight compartments when he's really birsy. . . ■

Be remembered, too, that about the .time the rest of his foremast, came crushing down into the sea to trail alongside in a tangle of rigging, he became badly scared about a pin-noint of smoke on hie horizon abeam. There have been occasions when well-intentioned surfaoe craft have come messiner about to rescue boats which, above all were never intended to be rescued. If von ever happen to be present when a O-bont is tliui rescued, vou will overhear the "old man" on his deck exnrpss a few thanks to his rescuers, which he has come, on deck for the_ exmreee purpose of expressing. But in less than a minute the pinpoint of smoke disappeared. Meanwhile the dinghy was catching it too. The panic-party had pulled lijV preservers over their heads and the sail over the life preservers, and was sticking it out. But the "old mnn" didn't wnrry about his panic-party-. He was willing to lose every man he had, nrovided only that there was one gun layer left to Mm. 'So he kept waiting," convinced, he said to-night, that Fritz didn't have enough shells to sink him. As for whatever else might have entered his head he remembered nothing except that when he heard the clock in hie wrecked cabin tinkle once for 1.30, he thought, "Thafa a couple o' bob as good as saved." There really wasn't.anything to do, however, but to keep on waiting, watching the flash of. the submarine's guns and wondering where that one was going to. That held true until, when, he had drifted some 2000 yards from his dinghy, it suddenly became apparent that the submarine, zigzagging now ahead and now astern 'to keep itself broadside on, was manoeuvring to fetch the dinghy alongside. That made the "old man" suck hie teeth.

For the submarine's first inquiry of the panic-party would be a demand for the ship's papers. That would give the game away at once. The panic-party had no papers. . ' Obviously, the "old man" did not want to lay' his cards on the table until he had his enemy at as close a range as possible, say, 400 yards, at which the long deck-length of a submarine forms a target good enough to,gladden the.heart of any gun-layer. Of course, the instant he exposed his guns his submarine'would attempt to escape by diving. But it takes a half-minute to stow guns, secure hatohes and submerge, and in a halfminute at 400 yards it doesn't take an extraordinary, gun-layer to put two, or maybe three shells into a , submarine. And a. submarine with two or three shell holes in its thin tin 6kin is as dead as Coney Island in December. However, in order to keep the , submarine from fetching the ; panic-party alongside, it was neoessary on this occasion to accept worse than a 2000-yard range. It was a slim chance, but there was no way out of it. ' The dingiiy was now over 2000 yards astern and the submarine, which had suddenly ceased fire, was 200 yards still astern.

Then the "old man" did . his little quiok change. AH at once and in. a twinkling the white ensign fluttered- to the peak of the abandoned vessel, a deckhouse aft fell to pieces, a brand new naval gun reached through her ancient oak bulwarks, and the last of the Mohicans approached her little role in the tragicomedy of submarine-warfare.' "Damn it, fire! You,may hit him!" the old man yelled to , his mussy gun-layer. But his gun-layer wouldn't fire until he had his target. Tor 10 immortal, everlasting seconds, during which the "old man" almost worked himself into a stroke of apoplexy, he fooled-with his elevation. Then he tried a shot to see how he was, ,the. shell exploding at the base of the conning tower. Two wounded men.of the crew clambered up'onto; the rail at the sky-flogging crack of the gun, with yells of "H'roor! Give 'em beans!" In the dinghy far astern the. panic-party threw.back its sails and life-preservers, shrieking -with glee at the sight of two , gun crews and the' bridge gang all trying to jam themselves at once <lown the small conning tower hatch.. ' The gun-layer's second- sjgst—not ©sen the crack of doom could i\Jive hurried' that monumental] gun-layer one split fraction of a second—struck 'fairly in the middle of the conning tower. "It must have caught 'em all goin' down." Alroady the submarine , was awash forward, submerging with all possible speed, , but' when the second shot hit her. a violent screw disturbance- was visible at her stern. Apparently she wns trying to come up again, for nlreyly the sea must have bi>on nouring into her.

"Strafed." The third shot took her just abaft the' conning tower, whore the charts eay the magazine is located. It caused an explosion which' sent huge plates of eteel and the bodies of men, their arms and legs flying out at impossible angles, revolving grotesquely, high into the air— a sickening epectacle which made the "old man" feel weak at the stomach. But as for the crew, that was the stuff to give 'em! After that, the gun-layer had no more target. He stood up leisurely, leaned both elbows on the rail, contemplated the wreck-age-littered area of sea which constituted his handiwork, and then turned about, grinning from ear to ear. "I—strafed him." Meanwhile, the mate had nipped below and made the engine go.- They stood about to pass ovor the spot, but where a fine new German submarine hud been lying,, there was now only wreckage, pieces of wood which looked as if they might' have come from a chart table, bits of clothing, even tarn letters out of sailors' lockers. So the "old man" fetched the dinghy alongside and from that time on he had his hands more than ever full. His own crew was already in a state of hysteria, and his panic-party came aboard in a wildly insane condition. He had four seriously wounded men, a dozen badly knocked About with shrapnel, his sails were ripped and slashed to shreds, his foremast was gone, and he was afire forward. And before he had time to say Jack Eobinson ho was entertaining a deputation to ask for an extra lot of rum. "No!" ho 6nid. "We're not out of the woods yet. Get these men below a couple of hands. Get a stream into the fo'c'stle and one watch man the main pumps. Cut away that topmast alongside and let's have this stuff aft here cleared away." So he brought them back to earth and on his little engine fill aped a course for the prosaic business of getting back home.