Chapter V: The Feet of the Young Men

He was nearer seventy than sixty: that is to say, he was an old man as they reckon age afloat. There was a stoop about his shoulders that hinted at the burden of his years, but his eyes, blue and direct beneath ragged white eyebrows, were young enough; and a man’s eyes are the mirrors of his spirit.

He stood on the quarter-deck of the armed yacht under his command, pacing slowly to and fro, with those craggy brows almost meeting above his great beak of a nose. There had been a day when a fleet would have trembled at the portent, and walked delicately, like Agag. That was when he was an admiral though, and the flag-lieutenant would have popped his head into the secretary’s cabin and murmured, “Blowing up for a storm--stand by!” Now, as he stalked with that unforgettable jerky stride of his up and down the narrow confine of the yacht’s poop, he was only a commander of the Royal Naval Reserve--a “dug-out” from the Retired List--with three curly rings of lace on the cuffs of a monkey-jacket cut in a style unfamiliar to the present generation.

Aft by the ensign-staff he halted, and pulled a letter out of the breast-pocket of the quaintly-cut monkey-jacket. It had come by the morning mail, a typewritten letter, on paper bearing the crest of Admiralty, and it was worded as tactfully as circumstances and the nature of the contents would allow. It referred to the strain of war under modern conditions. It reminded the Admiral that a critical stage of the world conflict had now been reached; and the two postulates, taken in conjunction, pointed to the necessity for young men being employed in all commands afloat. Their Lordships had therefore decided, with regret ... etc. etc.

That letter did what the strain of modern war had not yet done--it made the Admiral’s hand tremble: he tore it into small pieces and dropped them over the side. The stoop of his old shoulders seemed to have become suddenly accentuated. His firm mouth slackened: he looked what they said he was, an old man.

“Youth will be served,” said he, and watched the last scrap of paper float away on the tide. “I daresay they know best.... They think they do ... anyway, that’s something, nowadays.” Then he drew forth an enormous bandana handkerchief, trumpeted a blast of defiance from his historic nose, and stumped forward to the bridge to take his last command to sea for the last time.

* * * * *

It was late the following afternoon, when the yacht was upon the port bow of a convoy of merchantmen, that the look-out at the crosstrees gave tongue. The Admiral was in the chart-house, sprawling affectionately over the chart with notebook and pencil. He enjoyed having the chart-house to himself these days. The flag-captains and navigators of bygone flagships had always bored him, fussing at either elbow whenever he looked at a chart....

“Periscope port bow!” bawled the look-out, and simultaneously the alarm gongs jarred at every gun position and action station. The Admiral was beside the quarter-master in two bounds.

“There she goes, sir,” cried the officer of the watch, and indicated with outstretched finger the wicked streak of bubbles that flickered in the wake of a torpedo: it passed ahead, but through his glasses the Admiral was watching the sparkling water for the periscope’s feather.

He sighted it almost on the instant, half a mile abeam, an object no bigger than a broom-handle above the wave-tops.

Once, thirty years before, in a moment of crisis, he had acted as he did then. It was a wholly unconstitutional proceeding, but on the former occasion it had averted a collision between two battleships of the line. On both occasions it saved a few precious seconds. He grasped the spokes of the wheel with his own hands and wrenched the helm hard-a-starboard before the quartermaster realised he was at his elbow.

The officer of the watch had sprung to the telegraph, and down below the gongs were ringing madly for full speed.

The yacht’s owner had built her for speed. He was a rich man, and could afford to gratify a whim. In this case he gratified it to the utmost designer and engineers were capable of; but never till this moment had a rich man’s craze been so completely justified. Her knive-edge swan bows clove the dancing waves in twin sickles of spray as she heeled over to her helm and then steadied on the mark that was already swiftly dipping before the unexpected onslaught.

The periscope vanished thirty seconds before the yacht passed over the wash of the unseen scourge: but as it passed the Admiral jerked a lever twice, and turned, staring aft down the broken wake that had obliterated all traces of the submarine. By means of the lever he had released a couple of explosive charges, and as he stood shading his eyes from the sun, two great columns of foam leaped into the air.

“Hard-a-starboard!” he croaked, and over went the helm again. He stepped to the gun control voice-pipe: “Stand by the port guns!” and as he gave the order a greenish-brown cylindrical shape, streaked with rust and spouting oil from gaping seams, appeared in the centre of the boiling scum and foam left by the explosion. Slowly it righted itself, and the hull and conning-tower of a submarine lay on the surface with a heavy list. As the yacht swung round, the port guns opened fire: a shell burst on the armoured conning-tower, shattering the periscope and blowing great fragments of steel high into the air. Another penetrated the hull and exploded internally, clouds of vapour pouring from the rents in the shell. The coxswain steadied the wheel, heading the bows straight for the great whale-like object.

Now the cunning of an old seaman is the cunning of a grey fox. The Admiral held up his hand, and the officer of the watch jerked the telegraphs to “stop.” The stern of a vessel driven at high speed is drawn down by the thrust of the propellers. The moment the engines stop, the stern rises again and the bows dip. In this case they dipped as they struck the submarine squarely just abaft the conning-tower, and clove through the rounded hull like a hatchet through a fungus.

They had a glimpse on either bow of the halves of a submarine, still kept afloat by the buoyancy of her tanks and closed compartments. It was only a momentary glimpse--of glistening, shattered machinery and mangled bodies, of hands raised in prayer or anguish.... Then both broadsides broke out, pouring a salvo at point-blank range into those smoking segments that vanished amid the flames of bursting shell and leaping water.

They rescued one prisoner--as is not infrequently the case, the captain. Him the Admiral caused to be warmed and dried and restored with hot drinks while the yacht, assisted by two destroyers, rounded up the scattered convoy. Then the Admiral interrogated his prisoner. “You are very young,” he said at the conclusion of the interview.

The Prussian clicked his heels. “It is a young man’s war,” he said.

“So they tell me,” replied the Admiral dryly.

* * * * *

His relief was waiting on the quay beside his baggage when the yacht--her dainty bows looking like the features of a professional pugilist--tripped back to harbour. He was a young lieutenant-commander, fresh from the Grand Fleet--a contemporary, in fact, of the Admiral’s son. And early the following morning the Admiral went over the side--not as he might have done ten years earlier, with guard and band, to the shrill twitter of a pipe. He paused at the gangway, and laid his left hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

“The race is to the swift,” he said, “the battle to the strong. Good luck to you, my lad. You want a bigger gun forward, if you can get ’em to give it to you, and remember she turns quicker on port helm.... She’s a good little ship.”

“Thank you awfully, sir,” said the lieutenant-commander. “She’s a ripping little ship, and I’m only sorry I’m----”

The Admiral doffed his cap after the manner in which a forgotten naval generation saluted.

“Be damned to your sorrow, sir,” he said. “It’s a young man’s war,” and turned to descend the ladder to the dinghy that waited alongside.