BEHIND THE VEIL.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1919, Page 7

BEHIND THE VEIL.

THE STORY OF THE Q-BOATS.

(By "Bartimeus" in London Times." There was a day. now happily past, when the submarine scouige was broadcast upon the seas; then the country turned for its salvation to the Navy, upon which, under the good'providence of God, it had grown accustomed to rely in -moat of the crises of its history. Scientific and mechanical appliances, on a scale adequate to meet and checkmate tha outrage of unrestricted submarine warfare, could not be pro duced by pressing a .button. With workshops and laboratories yielding their output at highest pressure, the German building yards were gaining in the race. Every day brought its sickening tale of sinking and burning and minder on tho high seas, and in Whitehall offices men studied statistics and columns of figures with faces ever growing graver. The irritable tension of those days is best forgotten now. Prices rose, shipi sank, and the Navy said not a word. It was "doing its damndest" in silence, according to its wont. And not even in forecastle or wardroom did men so much as whisper what was afoot. Today the submarine remains merely as a stern corrective, curbing waste and extravagance, bracing the nation's nerve. The ingenuity of man is ;boumlless, and science has not yet said her word; hurpan courage and devoted valour alone seem to have reached a point there is no transcending.' It was these two factors which .stemmed the flood at, the moment of supreme crisis; on these tbe veil is at last lifted, and the tale now told in all simplicity and truth.

THE EARLY PHASES. [Tho methods of the German subma- | rino in its war against', /unarmed shipping gradually settled dawn to a routine which varied /but little in the early phase's of the conflict. It was the custom to attempt to torpedo at sight, on I the principle of the least said tiio soonest mended. If tho torpedo missed, as was not infrequently; the case, the suomarino broke surface a mile or so away from fhe ship and fired a shot across her bflws. The merchantmen then had two alternatives: to take t-o his heels and try to escape, or to heave to and abandon ship. In the latter case the submarine closed on the derelict to within a few hundred yards and summoned the boats alongside. At the muzzle of a revolver the captain was ordered into the submarine with his papers and the crew of his boat directed to row a party of .Gertaan sailors, bearing bombs, back to

the ship; These worthies, having placed tlie bombs in the, ship's vitals and looted the officers' quarters, returned to the submarine, propelled by the men they had robbed and whose ship they were engaged in sinking. From the German point of view ; the situation was not without its humor, and in the majority of. cases these merry Teutons saw fit, iby jeers, to share the jest with the castaways before abandoning them to. their ifateiin open - boats. In due course the bomb exploded and the ship disappeared. It is an economical method, since bombs ,cost Jess than torpedoes, and the formality of looting: the ship helped to preserve its popularity. For a while the Navy noted these methods and the little human failings of the enemy in silence. Then it drew a deep breath, and opined that thereby it had pleased the Lord to deliver the enemy into its hands. In its own peculiar phraseology, it reckoned that it "had the Hun cold." It argued that a man-of-war could be disguised as a tramp steafner and carry concealed armament. Such a vessel, by plying on i the trade routes, must inevitably meet a submarine in time, and in her character of peaceful merchantman be ordered to abandon ship. The ship might be abandoned to all outward appearances, but still retain sufficient men concealed on board to tho hidden guns when the moment came for her to cast disguise to the winds and hoist the White Ensign. Certain risks had to bo. taken for granted, of course; the almost inevitable torpedo sooner or later, the probability of a little indiscriminate shelling while the

submarine approached, the possibility of being ultimately sunk before assistance could arrive. Yet tlie odds were on the submarine being sunk first, and the rest was on the knees of the gods. Thus the Kavy argued: THE LUSITANIA GRAVES. An old collier of some 2000 tons was selected from among the shipping at the disposal of the Admiralty and taken to a dockyard port, where she unostentatiously* underwent certain structural alterations. These included disappearing mountings for guns concealed beneath hatchway covers, and masked by deckhouses which collapsed like cards at a jerk of a lever. Prom the host of volunteers, among whom were retired admirals, Captains, commanders, and

lieutenants of the Royal Navy, a young lieutenant-commander was selected and appointed in command. His officers were volunteers from the Royal Naval Reserve, ex-merchant seamen, familiar enough with the role they were (required to play, and in some cases with little' mental scores of their own which required adjustment "when . the time came. The crew was mostly from the West Country, men of Devon with one or two traditions to uphold in the matter of brave adventure. It also included Welshmen and. Irish with a pretty taste for a fight, and a few Scots, of the dour type, hard to frighten. They were picked from the Royal Navy, Fleet and Royal Reserves—merchant seamen and fishermen the last, many 01 whom had formed a nodding acquaintance with Death long before they received this invitation to a closer intimacy. In the matter of ages, they ranged between 17 and 52.

They sailed from Queenstown under the Red Ensign; but before, iliey left aome 'of-the ere#; trudged, as pilgrims to a shrine, and stood awhile among tlie mounds in that pathetic God's acre where the women and children of the Lusitania rest. They were then but freshly turned, those mounds, in their eloquent diversity of lengths, and men •had not begun to forget. For five weaTy months they endured the winter gales of the Atlantic, wallowing to and fro along the trade routes, outwardly a scallywag tramp, font behind her nullify "Bulwarks observing, with certain necessary modifications, the discipline and customs of his Majesty's Navy. With paint-pot and sail-cloth they improved the ship's disguise from time to time and whiled away the heart-breaking monotony of the days by inventing fresh devices to conceal their character. The ship's stewards assistant, when not engaged upon his office as "dusty boy," was ordere4 to don female attire over his uniform and recline in a prominent position on Ow poop in a deck-chair. This alluremeat yflfl caitaJatad to mi jaw

sistible bait. The navigator, whose j action station was the abandonment of ; the ship in the role of distracted master*.,, fashioned the effigy of a stuffed parroiand fastened it inside a cage which he proposed to take away with him in tho,boat, thus heightening the pathos of the J scene and whetting the blood-lust of the.] enemy. ...... {

THE TRACK OF A TORPEDO. . From time to time watchful patrols swooped down upon them, exchanged a few curt signals in the commercial code, and bade them pass on tlieir imaginary occasions. Once a cruiser, less easily satisfied than the remainder, bade the rusty-sided collier heave to, and sent an officer to boavd her; he climbed inboard at the head of armed men to find himself confronted, in the person of the "master," with a term-mate of Britannia days and a grin he is not likely to forget. Then, early one spring morning, when the daylight was stealing out of grey skies across the Atlantic waste, the track of a torpedo bubbled across the bows and passed ahead of the ship. The moment for which they had waited ,five weary 'months had come. As befitted her role of tramp steamer in the early days of the war, the ship held steadily on her way, observing the stars in their course, l ), but not otherwise interested in the universe. Inboard, however, the alarm rang along the mess-decks and saloons, and men crawled into hen-coops and deck-houses, eag.erly fingering the pistol-grips of the hidden guns. A few minutes later the submarine broke surface half a mile astern of the ship, and fired a shot across her bows. Whereupon the supposed collier stopped her engines, and lay rolling in the trough of the seas with steam pouring from her exhausts, while the crew, who had rehearsed this moment to a perfection never yet realized on the boards of legitimate drama, rushed to and fro with every semblance of panic. The captain danced from one end. of the bridge to the other, waving his arms and shouting; boats were turned out and in again amid a deliber-

ate confusion that brought blushes to the cheeks of the eu-merchant seamen called upon to play the part. A PIRATE'S FATE. In the meantime tlie submarine liad approached at full speed to -within about 700 yards, and, evidently not satisfied with the speed at which tlie ship was being abandoned, fired another shot, which pitched 50 yards short of the engine room. There was apparently nothing further to be gained by prolonging the performance for this impatient ! audience, and tlifi lieatenant-comman-der on the bridge, cap in hand, and breathless with his pantomimic exertions, blew a thrill blast on his whistle. Simultaneously the White Ensign fluttered t< the masthead, deck-houses and screens clattered down, and three minutes later the submarine sank under a rain of shells and Maxim bullets. As she disappeared beneath the surface the avenger reached the spot, and dropped a depth charge over her. A moment, after the explosiori the submarine reappeared in a perpendicular position alongside the ship, denting the s>i!gekeel as she rolled drunkenly among the waves. The after gun put five more rounds into the shattered hull at pointblank range, and, as she sank for the last time, two more depth charges were dropped in mercy to speed her passing.

The lieutenant-commander in command had personally been superintending the administering of rthe coup de grace from the stern, and, as he turned to make his way forward to the bridge for a few brief moments, the bonds of naval discipline relaxed. His men surged round him in a wildly cheering throng, straggling to be tlie first to wring him by the hand. They then mustered in the saloon, standing bareheaded while their captain read the Prayers of Thanksgiving for Victory, and called ior three cheers for his Majesty the King. They cheered as only men cun cheer in the first exultant flush of victory. But as the vessel gathered way and resumed her grim quest each man realized, deep down in his heart, that far sterner ordeals lay ahead.