Chapter XXVIII The Way to Calais
Darby Catchpole was with Mark Redisham now for a particular reason. He had lately joined the Royal Naval Reserve, and had been appointed a signal-boy for duty on one of the mine-sweepers. In order that he might gain some experience of the work, however, he was to go for a preliminary trip with Commodore Snowling on the Dainty, which was to steam out to sea at sundown.
“I only hope we shall be going somewhere in sight of our Dreadnoughts,” he said to Mark, while they waited on the wharf for the skipper. “I should love to see a naval action.”
“Not much chance of that,” Mark told him. “We shall not see an enemy ship of any sort—except possibly a submarine. I dare say we shall only be on ordinary patrol duty, steaming to and fro along the coasts like soldiers on sentry-go. It isn’t always exciting. We don’t have an adventure every trip, unless you call it an adventure to have a green sea come over you, or to have your clothes frozen like iron plates on your back. Sometimes it’s exceedingly uncomfortable and monotonous. I hope you’ve brought some books to read. Your kit bag looks pretty full.”
“It’s full of eatables, mostly,” Darby answered. “Mother has the idea that mine-sweepers go out with no provisions aboard.”
“Here comes our old man,” Mark intimated, seeing Harry Snowling approaching from the direction of the naval base, where he had been to receive his sailing orders.
“He’s got some new charts under his arm; so I suppose we’re bound to some place where we’ve never been before. I hope it’s not up north to the Orkneys or Shetlands. We had our share of storms and snow when we went through the Pentland Firth.”
The two Sea Scouts saluted their skipper as he came swinging along with an empty pipe in his mouth.
“Right you are, bors,” he said cheerily. “Lay aboard and cast off.”
When they had cleared the harbour and were out in the blue water, Mark took his trick at the steering-wheel. The course given him was E.S.E., but after a while it was changed to south-east, the change being indicated to the three trawlers that were following by signals from the syren.
“Dessay you’re a-wonderin’ where we’re goin’, bor?” said the skipper, glancing into Mark’s face, which was lighted by the dim glow from the binnacle. “And so am I. But we’re a-sailin’ under sealed orders this trip, and shan’t know till the stroke of midnight.”
At midnight Mark and Darby were both in their bunks, and they saw the skipper come below, seat himself under the hanging lamp, break open a sealed envelope, and take out a slip of typewritten paper.
“Um!” murmured the skipper, “dunno as how they need have kep’ it a secret. Seems to me they keeps things secret just for the fun of it, sometimes—same as our Sally. You c’n goo to sleep, bors,” he added, glancing towards the bunks.
He stood up, and, quitting the cabin, went on deck, leaving the slip of paper on the flap-table, knowing that neither of the boys would look at it. He had implicit trust in them.
From the engine-room came the tinkle of the telegraph, the syren was blown, the engines stopped, and then there came the grunting of the winch and the noisy rattle of the anchor chain through the hawse hole.
“We’re anchored for the night,” said Mark, turning over on his pillow.
The Dainty was still at anchor in the early morning when the two Scouts jumped out of their bunks and climbed up on deck in their pyjamas, with towels round their necks. They opened the side gangway and put out the ladder, then stripped and dived off into the cold, clear waves, Darby leading. They swam round the nearest of the three other trawlers, shouted a “good-morning” to the watch, and had a race back, Mark being left far behind; for Darby Catchpole was by far the better swimmer.
While they were drying themselves, they looked round about them.
There were several vessels lying at anchor within sight. About a mile away was a magnificent American clipper, with four tall masts and an amazing webwork of standing and running rigging, and with the stars and stripes painted on her beautiful hull. A tug lay near her, getting up steam to tow her farther on her voyage to some North Sea port with her cargo of American timber. Farther away there were two British destroyers and a light cruiser.
Mark got into his pyjamas and went aft to get a pair of binoculars from the wheel-house; but found the skipper using them.
“Look slippy and get your warm clothes on, bor,” said Snowling. “I expect I shall want you, soon as it’s light enough, to do a bit of signallin’.”
Mark and Darby were both quickly dressed. They returned on deck munching some of Mrs. Catchpole’s home-made currant cake. All four of the mine-sweepers were by this time getting up steam.
“Keep your eye on the light cruiser yonder,” ordered the skipper, “and be ready to take down her semaphore message when she starts signallin’.”
The two boys waited very patiently for about half an hour, when at length the semaphore on the cruiser’s bridge began to move.
“What’s he a-sayin’?” Harry Snowling asked.
“He says: ‘How old are you?’” Mark answered. “Tell him ninety-nine,” the skipper gravely pursued, giving his ship’s number.
Mark spelt out the reply with his flags, knowing that the inquiry and the expected response were merely preliminary. There was a pause; then again the semaphore was worked, and Darby read the message:
You will proceed at once to the position marked Z on your chart, and begin operations, working in parallels from N.E. to S.W. Please repeat.
Mark repeated the message, doing it much quicker then the semaphore had done. The skipper then signalled to his consorts to lift their anchors, and in a very little time the flotilla of mine-sweepers was steaming away between the Forelands and the Goodwins and across the Straits.
The position marked on the chart was to the southward of the British mine-field and off the Belgian coast.
Other trawlers joined in the work of sweeping for explosive mines which were believed to have been laid by the enemy from boats sent out secretly from Zeebrugge and Ostend. For a long time none were found, but as the searchers drew nearer to the Belgian coast one after another was brought up and exploded. On the second day three were exploded by the Dainty and her sweeping partner, the Veronica, and Darby Catchpole realised by experience that mine-sweeping was in actuality a sternly-strenuous, arduous, and exceedingly hazardous calling.
As they worked nearer and nearer to the Belgian coast, ominous sounds came to them across the intervening sea; sounds that told them of the ceaseless warfare on the land. The air was filled with the deep-throated booming of heavy guns, the bursting of high-explosive shells and of shrapnel.
With an almost superhuman effort, the Germans were attempting to make themselves masters of the coast and seaports of Northern France. They had concentrated enormous forces of men and heavy artillery, and were making a tremendous forward movement with the intention of getting round the Allies’ left flank and cutting off their communications with England and the Channel.
If, by taking Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, they could command the Straits of Dover, an invasion of Great Britain would, they believed, be simple. They might lay a double field of mines across from shore to shore with a clear way between, through which their crowded transport barges could pass under cover of their batteries of enormous guns.
It was the narrowest part of the straits, between Calais and Dover, which they most earnestly coveted. Calais was their great objective, and they had begun to boast of the victory which they felt certain they must soon achieve. They were already in possession of the Belgian coast. Their trenches were dug close to the sea, supported by their big guns concealed among the sand dunes. From the sea itself there could be no danger, since the water was too shallow to admit of British battleships coming within range, and, besides, the sea was thickly sown with German explosive mines.
It was in counting upon the shallowness of the water off the coast that they made their great mistake. No Dreadnought could come within range, it is true; but there are other vessels than Dreadnoughts capable of carrying heavy guns, though perhaps the Germans had not thought to find them off Nieuport.
The crew of the mine-sweeper Dainty had had their curiosity aroused by the sight of three peculiar-looking steamers flying the White Ensign, which came to anchor near them one Saturday evening.
Darby Catchpole was particularly interested in them. They were small vessels, of hardly more than a thousand tons. Their low hulls and their upper works, including the funnel and ventilators, were oddly painted in grey and white to confuse the eye and add to their invisibility.
“They look like river craft,” said Darby. “I shouldn’t wonder if they drew no more than four feet of water, even with the weight of their guns.”
He was right about their being river craft. They had been built for the Brazilian Government for use in shoal water. Their sides were heavily armoured. Each mounted an armament of two 6-inch guns, two howitzers, four 3-pounders, and six quick-firing guns, and she could discharge a ton and a half of metal every minute.
These were the ships—monitors they were called—with which the British Navy was prepared to prove that the waters off the Flemish coast were not too shallow to admit of heavy guns coming within range of the German trenches. With their shallow draught they could defy the enemy’s submarines, whose torpedoes were set to run about twelve feet below the surface, and they could move to and fro, confusing the aim of the Germans’ heavy artillery.
The monitors were supported by several old cruisers, gunboats, and destroyers, French as well as British, and, much to the surprise of Harry Snowling and his crew, the trawlers also were ordered to take their part in the operations. They formed the advance guard to search for hostile submarines or possible mines, and to spy out the positions of the German batteries by drawing their fire, while the Allies’ aeroplanes made observations from the air.
Suddenly the three monitors, coming within range, opened fire with their 6-inch guns and howitzers, and it was then that the Germans had the surprise of their lives.
Steaming backward and forward parallel with the coast, the ships kept up a constant cannonade, dropping their lyddite shells with precision into the enemy’s trenches, smashing their batteries and spreading havoc and destruction.
The Germans brought down their heaviest guns to the shore and returned the fire in an attempt to drive off the ships. But all their efforts against moving targets were in vain.
They sent out submarines from their hiding places in the Belgian canals; but these, too, were of no avail. The crushing cannonade from the British ships could not be silenced, and there was no alternative but for the Germans to abandon their positions and evacuate a large extent of the country, after suffering terrible losses in material and men.
In the course of this bombardment of the enemy’s right flank, the British trawlers were active in sweeping for mines sown by the German submarines. This was perilous work, as it brought the little vessels into the zone of fire. Only one of them, however, was hit, and this happened to be the Dainty.
An enemy aeroplane had been flying over the ships, trying to drop bombs on them. Mark Redisham and Darby Catchpole were watching when they saw a French monoplane rise from the Allies’ lines beyond a point of the land and give chase to the German Taube.
The two machines circled about like a pair of swallows, mounting and descending, swooping this way and that. The pursuit lasted fully half an hour when at length the Taube made a determined dash at the monoplane as if to ram it.
Very dexterously the French pilot swerved and ranged his machine up beside his adversary, the expanded wings almost touching. Four spurts of fire were seen. Then the monoplane ascended in a spiral, while the Taube began to drop, quivering like a wounded bird.
Plunging sideways, it turned over and fell down, down with a splash into the sea, midway between the Dainty and the land.
Skipper Snowling put on full steam and steered towards it, to rescue the pilot if he should still be alive.
Immediately one of the German heavy guns on the shore opened fire upon the trawler. Snowling altered his course and bore outward. This saved his boat from the first shell, which fell astern; but a second, from a smaller gun, crashed into her frail hull, and that was the end of her.
In a cloud of smoke and escaping steam Darby and Mark found themselves struggling to swim clear of the wreckage. Neither of them was hurt. They both wore their safety collars and life-belts, and both were good swimmers. But what of their shipmates?
One of the deck hands came to the surface and Darby grabbed at his arm.
“All right, bor,” the man cried, shaking the water from his hair. “Look arter yourself. Make for the monitor that’s bearin’ down on us.”
Mark and Darby swam about for a while and soon discovered the skipper trying to raise the cook’s head above water.
“He’s done for,” said Snowling. “We can only leave him, poor fellow. But Tom Beckett’s behind you, see if you can help him and keep him afloat.”
The monitor was close at hand now, firing her howitzers landward as she approached. She dropped a boat, and five of the Dainty’s crew were picked up. Eight were either drowned or killed. The survivors were transferred to the Veronica and taken home to Haddisport, while the ships continued their bombardment of the enemy’s batteries, although already there was reason to believe that the German plan of seizing Dunkirk and Calais had been successfully frustrated.
The Royal Navy had proved once again the truth of the old saying that it can go anywhere and do anything. But it was soon to prove in a yet more signal manner that Britain’s sovereignty of the seas was no mere idle boast, but a glorious reality.