Pigboats

by Ellsberg, Edward

  He felt strangely at home as he passed down Whitehall. Uniforms everywhere, khaki, sky blue, Tommies, poilus. But, like himself, most of them moved slowly — canes, crutches, slings were everywhere. Grim war was marking London streets.

  Tom grew a little weary, hailed a taxi. The ancient driver, red-nosed, clad in a huge coat and a battered plug hat reminiscent of a coach and four, swung wide the door and carefully helped Tom in.

  “Where away, matey?” he queried in a throaty voice.

  “Grosvenor Gardens, the American Naval Headquarters. And slow now,” added Tom.

  He sank back thankfully on the worn velvet cushions. Never before had he been in London, and as they rolled along Whitehall past the Admiralty to where the Houses of Parliament stretched their vast bulk along the Thames and Westminster Abbey loomed in moss-grown stone, Tom thrilled like all Americans to his first glimpse at the background of our laws and our traditions. A sharp turn in the rickety cab and they were passing in front of the Abbey down Victoria Street. Tom craned his neck, glimpsed the dark buttresses of England’s shrine. Another mile, they drew up before a residence in Grosvenor Gardens. Tom crawled out, fumbled in his pockets, sorted out a fistful of silver and left the cabby shaking his head at the prodigality of Americans and of sailors in particular.

  “’Arf a crown tip! An’ fr’m a sober s’iler too.” He pocketed it and drove off hastily lest his fare should change his mind.

  A marine orderly, stiffly erect, with uniform gleaming in the manner of all marines, guarded the door. And like all marines he bristled perceptibly as his natural enemy, a blue-jacket, hove in sight from the cab. He asked gruffly:

  “What d’ye want, sailor?”

  Tom looked at the brass buttons, the sergeant’s chevrons, the yellow service stripes standing gaily out against the orderly’s blue coat. Assuming his roughest seagoing tone, he looked scornfully at the marine.

  “I don’t tell that to leathernecks,” he replied, and strolled on by.

  Inside the hall, the astonished sentry caught up with him, seized his sleeve.

  “None o’ that gundeck stuff around here, chief. Come clean with what you want, or you’ll find yerself on one side of a steel door with a marine walkin’ post on the other. Maybe ye’ll be more polite then.”

  Tom grinned into the bronzed face, jammed against his shoulder, leaned back on his cane, then bent his head forward confidentially.

  “I suppose it ain’t fair to take advantage even of a gyrene,” he said. “I’ll let you in on it.” He looked around with mock caution, then whispered, “Tell Admiral Sims that Tom Knowles is ready to see him now.”

  The sergeant let go his arm, stared at him angrily.

  “Say, what are you playin’ me for, sailor? Me tell Admiral Sims Tom Knowles’ ready to see — Who in hell’s Tom Knowles, anyhow?”

  “Well, he’s thankful he ain’t a gyrene fer one thing,” answered Tom. “Now shove off like a well-trained orderly an’ you’ll be surprised.” The sentry glared at him, then moved off grumbling, climbed the stairs and rapped on Commander Barber’s door. He waited a few seconds, rapped again, then peered in. The room was empty. Through the adjoining door he heard the buzz of voices; Commander Barber was in with his chief. The puzzled sergeant scratched his head, looked down the stairs. Tom smiled up aggravatingly.

  “I’ll squelch that gob,” muttered the irate orderly. He rapped on the farther door, stepped inside, carefully closed the door behind him and saluted smartly.

  The aide stopped talking; the officer at the desk looked up enquiringly.

  “Yes, Brenner, what is it?”

  “There’s a chief quartermaster below sez he wants to see you, sir.”

  “A chief quartermaster?” The admiral paused, then looked at the heap of papers on his desk. “I’m sorry, Brenner, but I’m very busy. Tell him one of the staff officers below will see him.” He turned again to Barber.

  The light of triumph gleamed in Brenner’s eyes. He saluted, about-faced snappily, opened the door again.

  A vague recollection struck the admiral. A chief quartermaster? He looked up at the rapidly retreating marine.

  “By the way, orderly, what’s that quartermaster’s name?”

  The sergeant stopped, about-faced in surprise, saluted again.

  “Knowles, sir — Tom Knowles.”

  “Oh, Tom Knowles! Why, of course. Why didn’t you report that in the first place? So he’s out of the hospital already, Barber. Tell him to come right up!” Brenner’s mouth opened wide, then snapped to with a distinct click.

  “Aye, aye, sir.” He wheeled once more.

  At the foot of the stairs, he looked with new respect at the nonchalant chief petty officer leaning against the newel post.

  “Well, soldier, what’s the good word?”

  Brenner stiffened up; the hair on the back of his neck bristled.

  “The admiral sez he’ll see you, chief,” he growled out finally.

  “Very good, sergeant, take your post! And remember — whenever a gob’s willin’ to talk to you, step out an’ make it snappy, an’ you’ll never lose yer stripes.” Tom grinned at him, started cautiously up the stairs, leaning heavily on his cane. At the first landing, he paused, looked down to see Brenner shaking his fist at him. Tom winked back genially, and, seizing the broad mahogany bannister, continued his ascent.

  Admiral Sims stood in the open door, awaiting him. Knowles saluted and came respectfully to “Attention,” but the admiral, dropping all formality, took his arm and led him to a chair facing the fireplace in which glowed a small bed of coals.

  “Sorry it’s not warmer here, Knowles, but, with all this wartime rationing, I’m lucky to get even a few pounds for this house. And my friends in the Admiralty can’t see why I want that.” He seized the tongs, picked a large lump of cannel coal from a battered brass hod and placed it carefully in the middle of the grate, then poked the fire a bit to stir it up. Tom nodded. English ideas of warmth were queer anyway; even in peacetime a London house in winter would feel about as warm as an unheated barn to an American. If you felt cold, put on heavier underwear.

  While the admiral was engaged with the fire, and Commander Barber busied himself in dragging more chairs from the desk to the hearth, Tom looked around. He saw the drawing room of a London mansion, stripped bare of all its furnishings, lined with metal file cases evidently removed from warships; walls covered here and there with maps, charts, and graphs. Nothing but the desk and a few chairs relieved the bareness of the large room, and the incongruity between the Victorian drawing room and the seagoing furniture, stood starkly out.

  The admiral seated himself, then remembered his unfinished discussion.

  “That schedule is approved, Barber. Will you please notify Admiral Wilson that the ocean convoy will deliver the transports to his destroyers at rendezvous ‘B’ for convoy to Brest?”

  Commander Barber lifted a typed sheet from the mass of papers on the desk and went out.

  “I’m glad to see you out again so soon, quartermaster,” said the admiral warmly. “What did the doctors do to you?”

  “They took a couple of dozen stitches in my leg, sir, but aside from that nothing except make me stay in bed a week. They said my lungs were all right now.”

  “And the others?” queried his host.

  “Bill Arnold’s still flat on his back, getting treatment for gas, and he’s showing signs of T.B., admiral. The surgeons say he’ll be a hospital case the rest of his life, and that won’t be long. But the other three boys are all up again and safe.”

  “Too bad, too bad about Arnold. But you were all lucky to come through that well. You know about the E-30, the British sub which had that patrol ahead of you?”

  Tom nodded. Lieutenant Carpenter’s fate had never been far from his mind during that terrible day on the bottom.

  “You did a magnificent job, Knowles, in getting the L-20 up and bringing her back. Barber’s just turned in a full report based on an examination of
the boat, the surgeon’s data, and the survivors’ accounts. What a heroic story that would make back home! But we’ll have to keep it dark till the war’s over. Everything like that gets back to Germany right away, and we’ve got to keep them ignorant of their effect on our operations. The more mystery about our work the better.” His high-pitched voice vibrated strongly as he earnestly explained.

  “But your successful torpedo attack won’t be overlooked. The enemy battle-cruiser squadron is certainly out of action for two months, according to our confidential reports through Holland. It will take at least that long to rebuild that stern you smashed, and there’ll be no more sorties by that squadron till those repairs are completed. A very daring attack, Knowles. Since the enemy doesn’t know anything to the contrary, it will be given out that the submarine making the attack escaped wholly without injury and has returned to its base. That will make those raiders a little more anxious about going out again.”

  Admiral Sims looked quizzically at the well-built figure of the quartermaster before him.

  “I understand you hit Lieutenant Rolfe with a wrench and he died as a result?”

  “Yes, sir, but he’d gone crazy and tried to shoot me first.”

  “There’s a great deal that’s queer about what happened in that boat, Knowles. You all admit taking her out of the captain’s hands after she was sunk. Of course you know the Regulations about that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well. That’s subject to no argument — the captain of a ship, afloat or wrecked, is still responsible and the crew owe him obedience whether on the ship, in the lifeboats, or cast away on the beach. That’s the regulation — none of us, admirals or seamen, can ignore it. Now in this case the captain lost his boat in action through a bad mistake in judgment, and then undertook to try an unsafe method of bringing her up, when the crew forcibly restrained him. I’ve had Commander French in Queenstown check up on all those breakdowns which held the L-18 in port, and his report tallies with what I’ve heard from the survivors on your boat — evidently the crew of the L-18 had plenty of reason to be afraid of their skipper.” The admiral shook his grey head reflectively “Submarines are peculiar craft. I’m afraid I should dislike exceedingly having to sit on a court-martial and try to apply the ordinary rules of discipline to what went on inside the L-20, stranded in the mud with an incompetent captain, on the bottom, sixty fathoms down! Cut and dried rules don’t always fit. In this case, there’s no doubt you and your shipmates did the right thing to save the boat and what you could of the ship’s company. So it can rest at that — Lieutenant Rolfe and twenty-four members of his crew died in action with the enemy in the Helgoland Bight, and the Navy Department will notify their families to that effect. No need to smirch Rolfe’s memory and bring needless disgrace to his family by airing his faults. He’s dead — and he did his best.”

  Tom sat silent. Yes, Rolfe had unquestionably done his best. And if Rolfe nevertheless had the deaths of twenty-four men to carry, how about Lieutenant Knowlton and the men on the C-3? How could he ever expiate that mistake? And what would the strict admiral in front of him do if he ever discovered who Tom Knowles was?

  The Commander-in-Chief nodded his head solemnly. “Well, at least we’ve got the boat back, and that’s worth more than you imagine. We haven’t many submarines over here; each one is priceless to our country right now. And in addition I’m afraid the morale of our crews would have been badly shot if, on the heels of Lieutenant Carpenter’s disappearance in the E-30, the L-20 had failed to return. I don’t have to tell you how worry about her fate, imagination, and rumours over her unknown end would have affected any sister ships ordered out on that patrol. Mystery, fear, horror — they’re worse on sailors than the sight of actual death. I’ve seen seamen in action — brave as lions in the face of gunfire, utterly heedless of machine guns in a landing force; but when their shipmates sail away and then vanish utterly — that gets them all.”

  The admiral looked wearily at the charts hanging on the wall. “There’s something really new under the sun in the way of warfare now, Knowles, and we are up against it. In spite of everything we can do, the enemy submarines are winning the war. Look at this.” He rose and walked to the side wall opposite his desk. Tom followed him. The tall figure of the admiral paused in front of a chart of the British Isles. The waters around England and Ireland, the English Channel, and the coast of France were covered with thick clusters of black dots.

  “Each one of those dots represents a ship, a ship sunk on that spot by a U-boat.” Tom looked intently at the chart; the ocean floor seemed to be strewn with wrecks. “And that chart is mapping out our finish,” continued the admiral. “The U-boats are sinking ships twice as fast as we can build them. And each ship gone cuts down the food supply for the Allied armies in France, takes away their weapons and ammunition, and strengthens the position of the German army immeasurably. And if this sinking of freighters keeps up we’ll have to stop transporting our new army to France; we won’t be able to feed them on this side of the ocean. That’s the danger; the U-boats won’t attack warships or even troopships. I only wish they’d try. No, it’s freighters they’re after, just common tramps — slow, practically defenceless, easy meat for submarines. And they’re succeeding; they’re starving out England, they’re cutting off the flow of supplies to the Allied troops. A few more months like this and the Kaiser can dictate his own terms of peace!” He spoke vehemently, his eyes roving over the dotted chart, as if recalling the circumstances of each sinking. “Dots! And each one means a ship it’ll take a year to replace, loaded with thousands of tons of bread, meat, powder and shells, for the boys in the trenches. And ship and cargo at the bottom of the sea!”

  He paused, moved briskly along to the next chart, a map divided into squares with a heavy black line drawn across, full of humps and hollows. “Look at that curve, it shows graphically the total number of tons sunk each month by U-boats.” The curve had reached a hollow in November, then in December started sharply up again. “We thought we had them for a while with our convoy system and our mystery ships. But the U-boat commanders have solved that — they’re working farther out at sea where the convoys break up; they’re getting the stragglers, and they’ve put the mystery ship out by not exposing themselves to gunfire. Those U-boats are strangling us to death, defeating our armies in France without even bothering a troopship. And the worst of it is that there’s never more than ten or a dozen U-boats at sea at once. The Germans can’t keep any more than that actually out on the ocean lanes. And with all our thousands of patrol boats, submarine chasers, destroyers, whatnot, we can’t catch up with only ten active U-boats! Perhaps the minefields which we’ll be ready to lay off Scotland next summer to block off the North Sea may bottle them in. But at the rate our ships are going, it’s a question whether we’ll ever last till next summer!”

  He paused, then finished abruptly, “We’re already straining every resource; that northern mine barrage is our last card. You men in our own submarine and destroyer patrols have got to hold the U-boats back till that’s laid.” He pointed grimly to the chart. “If that line of tonnage losses doesn’t take a sharp dip downward — and soon — we’re all sunk!” He placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder and added more quietly: “You’ve done a good job, Knowles. When you get back to Queenstown, tell your shipmates on patrol what I’ve said. It’s up to them!”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” replied Tom gravely. Admiral Sims offered his hand; the interview was evidently over. But Tom ignored the outstretched fingers, looked anxiously at the grey-bearded face, the drawn eyes. Would an enlisted man get a hearing? The admiral dropped his hand, looked at his visitor in surprise.

  Tom hastily pulled his thoughts together, burst out eagerly:

  “Admiral, while we were stuck in the mud off Helgoland, we did lots of thinking; it was a fine place for that, anyway. And I thought of a new way of fighting U-boats.” He watched the admiral’s face minutely, but his heart sank as the admiral n
odded perfunctorily, letting his eyes wander back to the desk covered with urgent papers. Tom was ignorant that each mail from America brought to the Commander-in-Chief hundreds of such suggestions, that a special board in Washington did nothing but consider the thousands of solutions to the U-boat menace which flooded in from all over the country. And the U-boat menace was still unsolved.

  Admiral Sims brought his eyes back and faced him again, courteous, seemingly attentive.

  “All right, quartermaster, briefly now, what’s your scheme?”

  “Submarines are our best weapons against U-boats; they’re the only enemy the U-boat can’t see first.” The admiral pricked up his ears and looked sharply at the chief petty officer before him. Sound strategy that, at any rate. Tom continued hurriedly, lest the interview be suddenly terminated by some interruption: “A sub can use the U-boat’s strongest weapon — make an unseen attack upon its unsuspecting victim. And on a U-boat, one hit is fatal.”

  “I agree with you, Knowles, but unfortunately we have only a few dozen submarines and they’re all very slow, especially submerged. Now if all our thousands of speedy patrol boats never see a U-boat more than once a month, what chance will twenty or thirty slow subs have of catching up with them?”

  “That’s the point, admiral,” burst out Tom earnestly. “Fix it so our subs won’t have to catch up with them; make the U-boats come to where our subs are. Remember the Trojan Horse? When the Greeks couldn’t lick the Trojans, they fooled them! Give me an old tramp for a decoy, let her tow me submerged in the war zone, and the first sub that attacks her will be my meat. He’ll never know what hit him!”