AT SEA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1656, 30 December 1916, Page 4

AT SEA .

CHASED BY A SUBMARINE

A TRAMP'S ADVENTURE IN THE CHANNEL.

Seen from the bridge of the tramp the head of the second engineer, as he ascended (he iron ladder towards daylight, looked like a cheap brown doormat which had suffered from the wiping of a pair of greasy boots. He emerged into (he afternoon sunshine with a sigh of satisfaction, and perched on the brassribbed skylight of his domain, nibbing his hands with a hunch ot oily cotton-waste, and screwing his eyes up, slightly dazzled as he peered over the smooth blue sea. The captain, high above all, glanced down at him benevolently, and remarked that it was lovely weather. “Lovely weather —for submarines, my son,” answered the captain. “You’d better get busy. Strikes me something’s going to happen presently. Tickle up your firemen a bit.”’

The (ramp was chugging along home on a north-east course at about 12 knots, her creamy wake stretching back until it became in the distance a faint track of darker hue than the surrounding water. So far, nothing could have been more peaceful than this voyage. But the captain felt uneasy. Right ahead, about three miles off, a sailing vessel slowly forged along, and he did not approve of the way she was steering. It had been fairly obvious that, when she had perceived him she slewed to keep broadside on; and though to a landsman she would have appeared perfectly innocent, a sailor will sniff suspicion on the breeze from half a dozen different signs. MAKING A RUN FOR IT. “Nor’-west,” he grunted. The wheel spun yound. “Nor-west it is,” said the steersman, as the tramp steadied. The other ship altered her course slightly; evidently, even with the aid of steam, he would have to fetch a tremendous circle if he wished to see all round her without going too near. The chief engineer climbed to the bridge. “All serene below ?” enquired the captain. “All serene. Pressure going up.” He pointed to the trail of dun smoke which bannered out behind. “Righto! Now we’re going to run for it. If one of old Fritz’s toma-to-cans isn’t lying doggo behind that mongrel I’m a bally German. Due west,” he said to the man at the ivheel. The chief engineer went below, but before he reached the second platform he heard the boom of a gun, and smiled. The plucky old boat was pushing through the water at a fine rate, kicking a hillock of foam from beneath her stern, and shearing from her bluff hows two clear green white-edged arches that reared and fell with a muffled uproar as she charged along. This unusual display of “frills” was the result of a few words spoken by the chief to his grimy staff, whereat they had grinned, seized oilcans, placed hoses handy for hot hearings, and stood to the gear —the .second engineer being on duty at the controlling platform. To the stokers and trimmers the chief also paid a visit, reinforcing their numbers with deck-hands, and not above taking a rake or shovel himself in an emergency, as they knew. ‘The boilers (none of your beatnifuW Bellvilles —a mass of tubes, able to do anything but talk, hut apt to do fancy tricks if fired by inexperienced persons —but simple, homely boilers, with two furnaces each, built to boil water steadily without any fuss) were humming. Working usually at a comfortable .ITOIbs,, and blowing-off at a red-marked stroke of 180, the guages now showed 225, and steam was still rising. There are ways of dealing with safety : valves known to acute chief engineers but hidden from common men. TENSE MOMENTS. Three hours of daylight remained —-it was about live o'clock. The captain paced the bridge, pulling up at port and starboard for a prolonged stare at the chasing submarine, giving thanks that he had sharply changed his course before coming within easy range. An hour and a-half went by. The submarine laid stopped shelling, apparently devoting all her energies to speed; she had overhauled a good lialf-mile. The captain mentioned this to the chief, who came up at

intervals for a look, dripping' and dirty; that worthy nodded, and quickly retired to change his men and glance at the -pressure-gunge.

Two hundred and lifty! The stoke-hole seemed an inferno; wet, half-naked bodies flashed to and fro across (he fierce glare as door after door was flung open, fed swiftly, and clanged shut. The chief took a spell at clinker-clear-ing, saw the pointers of the trembling guages creep to five pounds more, and bolted through the tunnel into the engine-room. Never had the ponderous (‘ranks whirled so dizzily round; never had the giant erossheads Hashed up and down at such a terrific rate; never had the shadows —die queer, wei.rd shadows of machinery in motion —danced into such trickery patterns on bench and hulk-head as they did now. Yet, as cooly as if they were loitering down harbour with “Slow" on the dials, the young third engineer stood with a long-nosed oil can catching the upward rush of a crosshead at its infinitessimnl moment of pause. Another hour, and the submarine took advantage of the lessened range and began firing again. The third shell just missed the funnel; the captain flinched at the wind of it. as if screamed over; the fifth carried away a deckhouse aft with a crash —luckily injuring nobody. DRAMATIC SURPRISE. “They've got us fixed, old man,” he said, as the engineer came up once more. Guess this is our last trip. Sorry to lose the old boat.” The engineer frowned, and then uttered an exclamation of surprise. The submarine suddenly ceased firing and slowed down. The captain inspected the horizon with his binoculars, and gave a shout, of relief. “Destroyer,” he said, indicating a black speck tearing towards them in a smother of white water. “Heard the guns —perhaps twenty miles off, this wind and weather. Pity there’s only half an hour of daylight left. You can ease off your bag of tricks now, old man.” Even up aloft the captain heard (he cheer when the news reached the regions below. As the destroyer raced past he smiled; the enemy submerged. The tramp kept, her course till dusk, and then steered for home, dropping anchor in Plymouth Sound next day as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. .And what happened to the destroyer and tiie submarine is “another story”—one of those stories which wc hope to lie allowed to read “after the war.”