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 Under the black ensign. 
 
 3 1924 027 832 421 
 
UNDER THE BLACK ENSIGN 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027832421 
 
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 ® SHIP SUNK BY SUBMARINE 
 
 IN ACTION WITH SUBMARINE 
 - MINED 
 
 ® DRONT 
 
 64°-i- 
 
 MAP. Shewing Principal Naval Actions and Casualities 
 
 Murman Coast, 1916-1917. 
 
Under the Black Ensign 
 
 By Captain R. S. Gwatkin- Williams 
 
 C.M.G., Royal Navy 
 
 (RUPERT STANLEY) 
 
 Author of " In the Hands of the Senussi," " Prisoners of the Red 
 
 Desert" etc., etc. 
 
 WITH MAT .AND EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. 
 :: :: PATERNOSTER ROW :: :: 
 
31^7 3 B 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Who seeks, the roar and smoke of battle, the clash of 
 mighty fleets, let him turn elsewhere — of such he will 
 find nought herein. These records are but the memoirs 
 of a " Dug-Out," of one who, although he spent four 
 years in their fulness at sea in the war zone, yet heard no 
 shot fired in anger save once. But he who would know 
 the world of the sea as the author saw it, and learn of 
 subjects so far apart and so apparently incongruous as 
 tape-worms and torpedoes, let him turn these pages. 
 Recorded in them he will find both the marvellous and 
 the merely ridiculous, yet is each incident set forth a 
 historical and unimpeachable truth. Lest the unwitty 
 should marvel at the title of this work, let it be known 
 to such that " Under the Black Ensign " is a phrase 
 intended to embrace in one heading all those little ships 
 of the late war Navy — destroyers, tugs, trawlers, 
 boarding steamers, and the like. These, though officially 
 exalted to the status of ships entitled to wear a WHITE 
 Ensign, yet in actual practice rarely did so, but flung 
 to the breeze a banner as BLACK and tattered as their 
 own grubby and insignificant piratic selves: 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Fair Head" (N.E. Ireland), "Submarine 
 
 Corner " Facing page 12 
 
 U 35 at Cartagena. The Submarine which 
 
 sank H.M.S. "Tara" , „ 40 
 
 The Officers, H.M.S. "Intrepid," 1916 . „ „ 70 
 
 H.M.S. " Intrepid " at Yukanskie, June, 1916. 
 (In Distance, " Iphigenia " and Traw- 
 lers) „ „ 100 
 
 Poop of H.M.S. " Intrepid " . . . „ ,. 120 
 
 Yukanskie, Principal Base of British Arctic 
 Squadron, showing Mine-Sweeping 
 Trawlers, Armed Boarding Steamer, etc. „ „ 150 
 
 H.M.S."Vindictive." Arctic Squadron, 1917. 
 (Later with " Intrepid," " Iphigenia," 
 etc., of Zeebrugge fame) ... „ 180 
 
 H.M.S. "Intrepid" at Yukanskie, June, 1916 „ „ 226 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 pa. as 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Fools and their follies — being the first appearance of the 
 
 " Black Ensign " in the old North Channel ... 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The arts of painting and letter writing, as " understanded " by 
 seamen. Also some comments on goats and ghosts, 
 cats and courtship 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 An asylum staffed by lunatics, followed by a voyage to the 
 
 Arctic; sea serpents, and the onus of being nobody's dog 42 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Ice and the flowers that bloom in the spring set in an Arctic 
 Eden, wherein dwelt winged dragons, Christian Com- 
 modores, and some Heathen Laps .... 58 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Of mines and mutton and autumnal fruits, of Cleo's victims 
 losing suits, of naval captains tearing hair, and, last of 
 all — a Russian bear 75 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Aurora and the winter's grip, the U Boats and the mines 
 they slip. A Swede and Russian — nerves and fight. A 
 merry concert in the night 92 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 'Tis Guy Fawkes Season, ere it flies, Arkhangel's thundering 
 to the skies ; and ships are mined, and night is day ; but 
 we go home — and lose the way m 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A playful Bruin in the night, the terrors of a " never " fight. 
 An Arctic pantomime and zoo, and what a trawlerman 
 will do 127 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Red tape, a sledge, and sabotage, while trawlers hunt the 
 Hun. A " Doc" who dotes on parasites — and snow-balls 
 for a gun 141 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Guns and torpedoes steamers hit, yet sometimes is the biter 
 bit; and though land dogs don't eat their kind, the 
 underwater do — you'll find 155 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Back at Yukanskie the rivals try to wipe each one the other's 
 eye ; while " Fritz " is hot along the ice, and swank is 
 proved a pearl of price . . . . . . 170 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 An Arctic summer, hot and cold. Some funny fishes and 
 some gold. At thrice-repeated Fate we peep, and see 
 how goats are turned to sheep 189 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Of courtly underwater knight, of blazing wreck and horrid 
 fright ; of lands wherein the cows eat fish, pf spy and 
 bear hunts feverish , 202 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Biter Bit no humour sees, and shipping leaves the frozen 
 seas; southward all keels to fair Lerwick, leaving behind 
 the Bolshevik . . . . ... . 218 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 FOOLS AND THEIR FOLLIES — BEING THE FIRST APPEARANCE 
 OF THE " BLACK ENSIGN " IN THE OLD NORTH CHANNEL. 
 
 IT was August, '14 — only eight years ago, yet 
 already the happenings of those days appear like a 
 dream in the night that is past, and their vivid realities 
 are fading into a dim ghost whose dead bones form 
 history. I was then a man of thirty-nine years of age, 
 twenty-five of which I had spent in the Royal Navy, 
 whence, having retired, I was eating the bread of idle- 
 ness in a foreign land, where I was endeavouring to find 
 work. 
 
 It was two days after the outbreak of war that I 
 reached, England, and at once hurried to the Admiralty 
 to tender my services as a volunteer for immediate active 
 employment. My reception was not encouraging. 
 Having penetrated the august portals wherein Admiralty 
 sits enthroned at Whitehall, I presently found myself 
 in the presence of an urbane and smiling civilian official, 
 who, having washed his hands repeatedly with invisible 
 soap, and ascertained the purport of my visit, proceeded 
 to disillusion my mind of the hopes that I had enter- 
 tained that my services could be of use to my country. 
 " The war," he informed me, " was going very well. He 
 did not consider it probable that any extra ships would 
 have to be commissioned, consequently the. prospects of 
 a ' Dug-Out ' such as myself of getting immediate 
 employment were, of course, absolutely nil. However," 
 he added, noticing, the way in which my countenance 
 
 9 
 
io Under the Black Ensign 
 
 had fallen, " if I liked, he would make a note of my 
 name and address and add it to the list of other ' Die- 
 Hards ' who had already tendered their services. It was 
 just possible they might be able to make use of me 
 later on." 
 
 Here the matter ended so far as I was concerned, for, 
 piloted to the door, I found myself once more in the 
 passage, my last despairing request to be allowed to 
 order uniform having been met with a peremptory 
 " No." Thoroughly disgusted, I went off to my home 
 at Portsmouth. 
 
 * • * • * 
 
 Within twenty-four hours of this interview a great 
 change had come o'er the scene. Hardly had I arrived 
 at Portsmouth when, in rapid succession, three 
 Admiralty telegrams arrived ordering me to take up 
 an immediate war appointment. I was to be Naval 
 Commander in Command of the little railway steamer 
 Hibernia, well known to passengers between Dublin and 
 Holyhead, and at the moment lying at the latter port. 
 Once more I lived. Like some inebriated comet, I 
 dashed from outfitter to trunk and boot-maker, from 
 house to railway station, bearing in my tail an ever- 
 increasing dust of parcels and impedimenta. But, in 
 spite of my best efforts, I could not get through to 
 Holyhead the same night, but spent it walking the streets 
 of London, fearful lest by over-sleeping I should miss 
 my early morning train. 
 
 Some ten days in all I spent at Holyhead, while my 
 little ship was being got ready for sea as a Fleet 
 Messenger, in company with her three sisters, Anglia, 
 Cambria, and Scotia. After much discussion' their 
 Lordships decided that all four ships were to fly the 
 White Ensign, instead of the Red as originally 
 intended, and my own ship was renamed H.M.S. Tara, 
 for there was already a battleship named Hibernia 
 figuring on the Navy List, and it was not desirable to 
 muddle her up with our insignificant selves. 
 
In the Old North Channel n 
 
 Thus the Tara and her crew became part of the Royal 
 Navy, but there was little else that in reality was Navy 
 about them. Guns were hard to come by in those early 
 days of the war, and we found ourselves saddled with 
 three very ancient 6-pdr. Hotchkiss — guns which had once 
 formed part armament of the long-deceased battleship 
 Howe. They were more than thirty years old, and the 
 rifling of their bores was worn almost smooth from their 
 years of service. Neither, by any stretch of the imagi- 
 nation, could the crew of the Tara be called fighting 
 men. Both officers and men were the railway company's 
 old employes, brought up to double strength by raking 
 in whatever human elements were available. The old 
 crew were decent, staid individuals, long in the service 
 of the company; but the fifty per cent, of novices added 
 to them were, for the most part, scallywags and corner- 
 boys, dragged up anyhow from anywhere, the riff-raff 
 of Liverpool's slums. All alike were equally ignorant of 
 firearms, and, if the truth must be confessed, were as 
 frightened of guns as a monkey of snakes. However, 
 they had for the most part been born and bred to the 
 sea, were consequently not over-prone to sea-sickness, 
 and could be sent aloft to the crow's-nest on look-out 
 duty without falling down and hurting themselves. 
 Moreover, we had a small addition of real " pukka " 
 Navy in the persons of a few Fleet Reservists— a master- 
 at-arms, a signalman, and two seamen gunners — men 
 who had for some years been in civil employment, and 
 had been rather badly bitten with the Trades Union 
 bacillus; nevertheless, they were a sheet-anchor for me 
 to hold by in all matters of discipline and preparedness 
 for war. Later on to these were added a sprinkling of 
 Scotch fishermen hastily trained as Royal Naval Reserve. 
 
 It was a proud day for me when I first took command, 
 although, like everyone else, I had as yet no uniform. 
 The dignity of my rank I asserted as well as I could by 
 donning over my mufti a sea-service cutlass, but all the 
 time unpleasantly conscious that it blended ill with my 
 
I? Under the Black Ensign 
 
 unwarlike civilian bowler hat. My own status was, in 
 any case, sufficiently, invidious, for I was in reality only 
 a kind of go-between connecting the Admiralty and the 
 railway company. I had nothing to do with the handling 
 or the discipline of the ship, a matter left entirely in the 
 hands of the master. The latter, however, was instructed 
 to carry out my orders. 
 
 Thus somewhere towards the end of August, 1914, the 
 Tara lumbered off to sea on her first voyage as a man- 
 of-war, with her heterogeneous collection of a hundred 
 officers and men. Her sides had been painted a chaste 
 but warlike grey; her holds were loaded with six times 
 their normal stowage of coal, and her speed reduced — 
 thanks to this same overloading' — from twenty-one to 
 seventeen knots. It was a great day for Holyhead, that 
 which saw our departure, for the majority of the crew 
 were local men. All the town turned out to see us go — 
 all the little Joneses and Evanses, dressed in their 
 holiday attire. Your Welshman is nothing if not 
 gallant, and there appeared to be wives and sweethearts 
 by the hundred score. 
 
 At the time of sailing our destination was unknown 
 to us, but once well out to sea, and the white lines of 
 waving handkerchiefs receding from sight, the master 
 and myself were at liberty to open the packet of sealed 
 orders which were to determine our fate. I hardly know 
 what we hoped for or expected* Whatever it was, our 
 actual orders came to us as a great disappointment, and, 
 such as they were, they were painfully short and explicit 
 — the ship was to proceed forthwith to the North 
 Channel, that strip of water separating Scotland from 
 North-East Ireland, and there to patrol until further 
 orders. When we required coal we were to proceed to 
 Lame to replenish our bunkers. 
 
 Somehow, we had persuaded ourselves that we were 
 destined for a more dramatic career than this— that, as 
 a Fleet Messenger, the Tara would at least have employ- 
 ment with the Grand Fleet, and. that, following a few 
 
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In the Old North Channel 13 
 
 short weeks of glorious excitement, we should return, 
 laden with honour and glory, to Holyhead, rainbow- 
 hued with bunting, to an accompaniment of brass bands 
 and the acclamations of the multitude. But now, having 
 read, the scales fell from our eyes; we felt ourselves to 
 be what we really were, and not as the wives and sweet- 
 hearts had thought us to be. We were a poor, con- 
 temptible little railway steamer, guyed out in the trap- 
 pings of a man-of-war — a negligible unit in the great 
 world conflagration. Good-bye, Westminster Abbey; 
 adieu, our hopes of early glory. We could imagine no 
 place further from the war than the North Channel, a 
 place which in actual mileage was as distant from Ger- 
 many as Cape Finisterre. With heavy hearts we turned 
 the ship's head to the northward and lumbered off. 
 
 Arrived in the North Channel, we found our duties, if 
 at first not as warlike as we could have wished, at least 
 sufficiently onerous. We were the only ship on that beat ; 
 in fact, for some time we were the only ship off the west 
 side of England with guns in her. Consequently we 
 had no relief. We simply stopped at sea for as long as 
 we could, and then, having come to our last ton of coal, 
 we headed for Larne,, replenished our bunkers, and then 
 rushed off to sea again. It was thus that during the first 
 f ew : months of war we actually did thirteen days at sea 
 for one day in harbour, and that during the first year we 
 steamed seventy-five thousand miles in those narrow 
 waters*-^ record, I believe, not beaten by any- other 
 warship in the Navy. 
 
 Our bi-monthly day in harbour at Larne was always 
 an event, both for ourselves and for the hospitable 
 inhabitants of that place. Larne, at that time, was 
 principally known to fame from the advertisement it 
 derived from the recent gun-running exploit of its 
 Orange inhabitants. r All posed as the fighting man's 
 friend, and the " bloody hand " of Ulster seemed to 
 ever extend an opened bottle of whisky. Upon the pier 
 every fisher girl, maidservant, and factory lass would 
 
14 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 be awaiting the Tara's arrival, and, as the ship came 
 alongside, an Amazon avalanche would overwhelm her 
 and carry off as prisoners the major portion of the ship's 
 company, despite sentries and every other obstacle 
 which we could devise. Truth to tell, the " shell-backs " 
 displayed little zeal in repelling this invasion, and 
 appeared nothing loth to being carried off captive; but 
 it was no light labour to extract them from the various 
 public-houses on the following' morning in time to put 
 to sea; but 8 a.m. the following day always did find 
 the old Tara at sea — a very creditable record, for the 
 reader must recollect that ninety-five per cent, of her 
 company were merchant seamen pure and simple, with 
 no training, no tradition even, of naval discipline. The 
 word was, in fact, to them meaningless, and they 
 appeared to suffer from the delusion that as soon as the 
 ship had been secured and her hawsers made fast, all 
 further tails upon them had ceased. With one accord 
 they made for the shore, and returned at their own sweet 
 will. It took both time and patience to dissuade them 
 from this course, and to make them understand that, 
 although the ship was in harbour, much was still required 
 of them; in that undefended port gun-watches and look- 
 out duties had still to be performed, and a sufficient 
 number of officers and men must remain available who, 
 in an emergency, could raise steam and even take the 
 ship to sea. 
 
 In some ways the officers were even more difficult to 
 deal with than the men, for they were quite unaccus- 
 tomed to any form of autocratic control such as is 
 necessary in a fighting service. They were loth to award 
 punishments to wrongdoers among the crew, to whom 
 they were in many instances related by blood or 
 marriage, and with whom, in the community ashore, 
 they were accustomed to mix freely. The results were 
 often perplexing, as one of these officers was at some 
 trouble to explain to me as follows : " If I, Officer A, 
 punish Seaman B, by stopping his leave or ordering him 
 
In the Old North Channel 15 
 
 cells, then the wife of B, on hearing of it, will render 
 the life of Mrs. A unendurable, for they are next-door 
 neighbours." If someone had to be punished, in 
 accordance with the law of the Navy, then, as A put it, 
 he would rather do the punishment himself. 
 
 Time and experience, however, work great changes. 
 The officers could not help but note the salutary effects 
 of such punishments as had reluctantly been given, and 
 became enthusiastic converts to a system which they had 
 at first condemned. It was not long before I had to 
 interfere to prevent the pendulum oscillating with undue 
 violence in the opposite direction. Often, without the 
 semblance of an inquiry, often without affording the 
 accused an opportunity to state his case, and, if possible, 
 without even seeing him, the officer would find him 
 guilty and pass sentence. 
 
 In this autumn of 1914 the Tara was, I believe, the 
 only ship armed with guns on the west side of England 
 between the Bristol Channel and the Pentland Firth — all 
 the real British sea forces being, of course, concentrated 
 in the Channel and North Sea. It was therefore, I sup- 
 pose, not unnatural that both we and the inhabitants of 
 Lame suffered from somewhat swollen-headed views of 
 the importance of the Tara. One of the foibles which 
 at that time became prevalent among her officers was an 
 obsession to have their pictorial merits recorded for the 
 benefit of posterity. But photography is at best a " lying 
 jade " — no " feet of the young men " linger to carry out 
 Ananias with a camera. The remembrance of those 
 photographs still causes me to smile, for the alleged like- 
 nesses of the mild-mannered and peaceful gentlemen who 
 posed for the occasion invariably depicted them clad in 
 borrowed war paint. This, for the most part, consisted 
 of a huge sea-service cutlass, a pair of immaculate kid 
 gloves, and a fierce and bloodthirsty scowl. What 
 purpose these " likenesses " were intended to serve I 
 am at a loss to explain. Possibly they were to impress 
 the sitters' even gentler appanages of the fair sex with 
 
1 6 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 the belief that their lords had become bold, truculent, 
 dare-devil warriors — for is it not a fact that the.daughters 
 of Eve love to imagine their Adams as hard, ungovern- 
 able, untamable, to all save themselves? 
 
 One of the officers* of the ship, a man not a sailor by 
 profession, had, until the outbreak of the war, been 
 employed at cinema work, and the grande passion still 
 waxed hot within him. There was much boarding work 
 to be done at the time, and, although this had nothing 
 whatever to do with his own special department, no boat 
 was ever, seen to leave the ship without his accompanying 
 her. On the blackest and stormiest of nights, in every 
 possible and impossible, kind of weather, one could 
 always rely on witnessing the entertaining spectacle of 
 this individual, strangely and weirdly clad, swinging him- 
 self by a rope up the wallowing side of some suspect 
 steamer. Between his teeth he carried, like the pirates 
 of old, the bare blade of his trusty cutlass, and in his 
 pockets, ready to hand, a brace of " barkers." It was 
 truly dramatic. 
 
 The days and months rapidly slid by, and first enthu- 
 siasms began to wane. The war seemed to be a far-away 
 affair, and it became difficult to keep alive that spirit of 
 alertness so vitally essential if patrol work is to be of 
 any use at all. In fact, we were beginning to feel dis- 
 tinctly bored^ when our mental horizon was unexpectedly 
 livened up by the Audacious striking the mine which 
 eventually sank her in our near neighbourhood. The 
 information itself came to our ken through some ship, 
 who was attempting to assist, wirelessing the whole story 
 of the mishap in plain language at the time. The in- 
 formation was* therefore, public property, and not con- 
 fined to the men-of-war on the spot* and it must have 
 been intercepted by scores of other ships, both neutral 
 and allied, within a radius of hundreds of miles. In fact, 
 within twenty-four hours, it was the talk of every public- 
 house bar in the north of Ireland, and photographs of 
 the sinking ship appeared in the American newspapers. 
 
In the Old North Channel 17 
 
 The policy of the British Admiralty in trying to hush up 
 this incident months, nay years, after all the world knew 
 about it was then, and has ever since remained, a puzzle 
 to me. Not only did their Lordships try to hoodwink the 
 public, but, apparently, they hoped to do the same with 
 the Navy itself. More than a year later the secret and 
 confidential lists giving the ships and squadrons in com- 
 mission and the names of ships lost in action still showed 
 the Audacious as in full commission. These secret con- 
 fidential lists were for " The Information of Command- 
 ing Officers Only." Could foolish, fatuous lying have 
 gone further? Its fruits were reaped later, when, on 
 the publication of the official accounts of the Battle of 
 Jutland, a wave of pessimism spread through the 
 country. Scepticism was universal, and the public dis- 
 played an undoubted tendency to accept the German 
 accounts at their face value, and to discount the British 
 ones. After the Audacious, it was felt that Admiralty 
 reports could no longer be relied upon, and for years 
 the nation lost the great moral asset of confidence in 
 the dictum of its rulers. 
 
 For us in the North Channel, however, things began 
 to liven up considerably. No longer did we feel that we 
 were entirely out of the war, and drifting mines, which 
 became fairly numerous, added a new zest to life. A few 
 trawlers were sent to assist the Tara in her patrol work, 
 their crews, formed of hardy but entirely untrained 
 fishermen. They were blissfully ignorant and, what was 
 worse, entirely contemptuous of the properties of Ger- 
 man mines. A German mine of that period was an 
 extraordinarily efficient weapon, a weapon worthy at all 
 seasons of the greatest respect, and most certainly not 
 meriting contemptuous indifference. It therein differed 
 greatly from its British contemporary, which, partly 
 owing to parsimoniousness, and partly to the humani- 
 tarian edicts of the Hague Convention, displayed an 
 amiable harmlessness towards the enemy, and was only 
 dangerous towards its friends. In fact, when being laid 
 
 B 
 
1 8 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 out, it had a reprehensible habit of blowing off the sterns 
 of the ships so engaged. 
 
 But to return to om trawlers. Their contempt for 
 mines raised my hair on more than one occasion, and 
 threw a strange light on the psychology of those doughty 
 descendants of the old sea rovers, the trawler skippers 
 themselves. One incident will serve to illustrate the 
 kind of thing which used to happen. A mine had been 
 reported as floating close inshore off Fair Head, and a 
 trawler was accordingly despatched with instructions to 
 sink it. The correct way to do this was for the vessel 
 to lie at a safe distance, and fire at the mine with a rifle 
 or small gun until it became waterlogged and sank. 
 Having despatched the trawler, I went to bed and 
 thought no more about the matter. It was, however, 
 brought to my notice once more, in a novel and disturb- 
 ing way, at an early hour the following morning. Dawn 
 was breaking, when I was aroused from my slumbers by 
 an unearthly rattling and banging almost alongside my 
 cabin. Thrusting a sleepy head through my scuttle, I 
 was at once petrified by what I saw. It was the trawler, 
 who had returned, and was even at that moment trying 
 to come alongside the Tara. But what particularly 
 riveted my attention, and froze my blood, was the fact 
 that all the racket was being caused by a mine. Hoisted 
 at the trawler's stern was a mine, and with every roll it 
 crashed into her, bending and twisting the horns. As 
 every school-miss knows nowadays, the quickest and 
 surest route to Heaven is to bend the horn of a German 
 mine. But in those days trawlermen did not know it. 
 This mine already had all its horns bent, but there 
 appears to be some particular dispensation, some pecu- 
 liar ordering of that thing which men term indifferently 
 Providence, Luck, or Fate which watches over trawler- 
 men, for, for some inexplicable reason, the mine had 
 not gone up. The trawler should have been blown to 
 matchwood, but for once the usually deadly efficient 
 German mine had failed to function. 
 
In the Old North Channel 19 
 
 Filled with undignified fury— a condition not lessened 
 by the knowledge that my features were rapidly assum- 
 ing a green and pallid hue — I sped on deck, and issued 
 peremptory commands for the instant attendance upon 
 me of the trawler skipper. That individual, I could not 
 help but observe, having secured alongside the Tara, 
 was congenially occupied in vaingloriously showing off 
 his trophy to all and sundry. I have seen a fox terrier 
 go through just the same antics when he has brought in 
 his first rat. 
 
 " Why the blank blank blazes didn't you sink the 
 blankety mine as you were ordered to ? " I roared at 
 him as he arrived in my presence. My fury and scorn 
 were, however, quite wasted on the vain and stolid 
 fellow. Touching his forelock in salute, and shifting 
 from one foot to the other in a perplexed manner, he, 
 with a self-commendatory grin, commenced: "If ye 
 please, sirre, I did carry out them orders what you 
 gi'me. I did sink the moine." " Then, if you sank the 
 mine," I replied incredulously, " what the blank blazes 
 is that object I see hanging from your stern ? " " Oo, 
 thaat ? " he replied, turning to regard his trophy with a 
 cunning and ever-widening smirk, " that is the moine 
 I sank, sirre. I sunk it by rifle-fire in haccordance with 
 your horders, but afore I sunk it, I says to myself, 
 ' That's just the very thing my old 'oman at Grimsby 
 'ud like as a hornament to 'er front rockery.' So, afore 
 we sunk the moine it were a easy thing to tie a wee bit 
 o' line to it. And, after we sunk it, thinking no harm, 
 it were a easy matter to haul it to the top again." 
 
 It has been said," Whom the gods would slay they 
 first cause to become mad "; but it struck me forcibly 
 at that time that they often appear to take a long time 
 over the job, and to derive an impish pleasure in extri- 
 cating drunks, lunies, and trawlermen from quite 
 impossible situations. Further anger or argument from 
 my side was obviously futile. Having cut the electric 
 circuit and carefully disembowelled the mine, we returned 
 
 B2 
 
20 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 it to the rejoicing trawler skipper. He, in the due course 
 of nature and in pursuance of his vow, finally planted it 
 in his " old 'oman's " front rockery at Grimsby, where 
 it may be seen even unto the present day. 
 
 One other mine stunt the Tara did, which is perhaps 
 worthy of mention here, though in pride of actual place 
 I am under the impression that the incident occurred 
 prior to that already narrated. Mines were suspected 
 to have been laid in Liverpool Bay, and the Tara was 
 despatched hot-foot by the Admiralty to search for 
 them. How the poor old ship was supposed to discover 
 the presence of a supposedly submerged invisible mine 
 by any other means than that of exploding it accidentally 
 under her bottom their Lordships omitted to explain. It 
 would almost appear that ignorance of the properties of 
 mines was not confined solely to poor uneducated 
 trawler skippers. 
 
 However that may be, the Tara duly arrived in Liver- 
 pool Bay, and, " in accordance with plan," proceeded 
 carefully to quarter the ground, her rigging studded with 
 anxious gazers, her bulwarks ornamented with a long 
 line of outstretched necks and starting eyes. Slowly 
 and cautiously the ship moved upon her appointed 
 courses, but nothing of the rumoured mine-field could 
 at first be seen. Interest began to flag. Then, just at 
 the right psychological moment, a loud hail reverberated 
 from aloft: " Red globular object below the surface, 
 right under the port bow, sir." British mines, in those 
 days, were " red globular objects," and, for all we knew 
 to the contrary, German mines probably answered the 
 same description. Excitement was at fever heat. The 
 officer on the bridge tore at the engine-room telegraphs, 
 the steersman spun his wheel, and the ship's rail once 
 more assumed its resemblance to an animated hen-coop, 
 with its rows and rows of peeking eyes and outstretched 
 necks. A pause, then the engines began to revolve at 
 full speed astern, and the white wavelets from the back- 
 turning propellers surged round the bows, as, with 
 
In the Old North Channel 21 
 
 quickly diminished speed, we drifted towards the sphere 
 of fate. At last, from the deck, we were for the first 
 time able to see it clearly — a jellyfish. A fine, scarlet 
 fellow he /was, fully a yard in diameter, one of the 
 largest I have ever set eyes on. Four rings he had, too, 
 placed just where the horns should have been, if only 
 he could have been really a mine. Slowly he drifted past, 
 his cherry-tinted moonface seeming to smile and nod at 
 the ship in a manner that was both mocking and provo- 
 cative. He had certainly some cause for self-congratu- 
 lation, for, after all, it is not given to every jellyfish to 
 be able to claim that he has stopped a man-of-war. A 
 hoarse cry of anger broke from some three score throats, 
 but the sailors were too mortified and taken by surprise 
 to act quickly. Before one of them could find a lump of 
 coal and retaliate by dropping it on to that sneering 
 countenance, the medusa had dropped astern and drifted 
 out of sight. 
 
 As time passed reports, not only of mines, but of Ger- 
 man submarines themselves in Irish waters, became 
 increasingly prevalent. At first frankly disbelieved by 
 both officers and men of the mercantile crew, the 
 accounts became daily more circumstantial. U boat 
 hunts became the order of the day, and the lochs sur- 
 rounding the Firth of Clyde, the islands, bays and creeks 
 of the adjacent coasts became the scene of a never- 
 ending quest. Full many a whale and limpet-crusted 
 rock had cause to regret the skill of the Tara's gunners, 
 and their own superficial resemblance, under certain con- 
 ditions of light and tide, to the hated " Untersee " 
 boats. Never, at any time, were we ever rewarded with 
 an actual glimpse of the Kaiser's elusive submarines; 
 yet were they ever at hand, and more than once were we 
 able to observe their track of murder and destruction. 
 
 There came a day when the U boats appeared in Liver- 
 pool Bay itself, and, after sinking several incoming 
 liners, departed. In hot haste the Tara, the only ship 
 with guns within a radius of a hundred miles, was sent 
 
22 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 for. Disguised as a peaceful merchantman — the first in 
 point of time of all the Q boats— she wandered aimlessly, 
 but unsuccessfully, about the locality. "Fritz " had prob- 
 ably already departed, or, if he had not, he, in any case, 
 could not be induced to attack. 
 
 On another occasion three submarines were reported 
 to be taking in oil from a parent ship off Bardsey Island 
 on the Welsh coast, the said parent ship being credibly 
 reported to have cleared from Liverpool the previous 
 day. Once more the Tara flew to obey the Admiralty's 
 behest— to put the parent ship and three submarines out 
 of action. It was well for us that we never discovered 
 them, though it is doubtful if they ever had existence 
 save as a figment of the imagination. But the three 
 submarines alone would have had half a dozen long- 
 range 4-inch guns as opposed to the Tara's three worn- 
 out 6-prs., and, had we met, it is unlikely that this story 
 would ever have been written. 
 
 Gradually the fear of the submarine began to spread 
 among the coastwise shipping, and the latter's methods 
 of coping with the danger were many and varied. Some 
 owners purchased ancient field pieces, antique weapons 
 long ago consigned to limbo, many of them dating from 
 the days of the Crimean War. These they mounted as 
 best they could in their vessels' sterns. Others again, 
 and these from the Irish side, sought safety by flying 
 a green ensign — a then unrecognised symbol, but one 
 which they appeared to hope would confer immunity 
 upon them. 
 
 The constant reiteration of the cry of " wolf," a wolf 
 which we by no chance ever saw, began once more to lull 
 the Tara's crew into a false sense of security. Some went 
 so far as to openly aver their disbelief in the fact that the 
 U boats had ever visited the west side of England. Daily 
 it became more difficult to keep all hands fully up to the 
 mark and constantly on the alert. But there came a day 
 when an incident occurred which thoroughly aroused us 
 all, and finally convinced every doubter. Following a 
 
In the Old North Channel 23 
 
 particularly black and piercingly cold night, there 
 dawned one of those sweet and tranquil mornings when 
 the whole world is bathed in sunshine. It was one of 
 those blest days which occasionally come to break for a 
 few hours the black monotony of a British winter. The 
 Tara was making for Stranraer, at which place the 
 Admiralty were considering establishing a temporary 
 base for a few destroyers, and of which small craft the 
 Tara was to become the parent ship. As we approached 
 the entrance we observed a small coasting steamer with 
 her engines stopped and blowing off steam. This in 
 itself was a very suspicious circumstance, for, up till 
 then, submarines had not as a general rule sunk ships at 
 sight, but stopped them and gave the crew a chance to 
 abandon ship. This, we felt certain, was at the moment 
 taking place in the steamer we had under observation. 
 At full speed we zigzagged towards her, with the men 
 at the guns, and, as we got closer, our suspicions were 
 yet further confirmed by observing that she had got her 
 boats out. A moment later and we could make out 
 through our glasses objects which we decided were rafts, 
 spars, and smashed and overturned boats. Then sud- 
 denly we found ourselves traversing what I can only 
 describe as a veritable forest of dead bodies — grim, stark, 
 bearded men, each floating upright in his life-collar, yet 
 all dead, the water washing in and out of their mouths 
 as the commotion caused by our bow-wave reached them. 
 No need now to call on the men for alertness; it was 
 a lesson which the veriest dullard could understand. 
 Quickly our own boats were in the water in order to 
 help the small coasting steamer in the work of rescue, 
 a work in which she had been already engaged before the 
 Tara's arrival. Some twenty exhausted and half-frozen 
 beings were in all picked up still alive. They were all 
 that remained alive of the crew of the armed merchant 
 cruiser Bayano, who had cleared from Liverpool the 
 previous night with a company of some four hundred 
 officers and men. She had been torpedoed during that 
 
24 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 darkest hour of the night which precedes the dawn by a 
 submarine which remained unseen. She sank so quickly 
 that the men were literally washed out of their hammocks 
 into the icy element, and, though there were numbers of 
 boats and rafts floating about, the darkness was such 
 that the men could not see to grapple with the help which 
 lay so close at hand. Some few, however, succeeded in 
 finding the rafts, and the strongest of them were able 
 to survive the night until rescued in the morning. 
 
 Instructed by this, I caused everything that would float 
 on board the Tara to have Holmes' lights affixed. These 
 lights readily burst into flame as soon as they come into 
 contact with the water, and would insure that floating 
 rafts, etc., would be visible in the dark. My ideas on the 
 subject I transmitted to the Admiralty through my 
 senior officer. They were never acknowledged, but the 
 affixing of these lights became a standard custom in the 
 Navy, one which was the cause of the saving of many 
 lives after the Battle of Jutland. 
 
 In those early days of the war scenes such as I have 
 just recorded greatly impressed one, but, later on, all 
 seafarers became hardened to them. Corpses, floating 
 and derelict, were strewn about the ocean highways from 
 Land's End to the North Cape. In the North Sea their 
 number was legion, and they spread down the coasts of 
 Spain and Portugal, along the whole length of the 
 Mediterranean. The crews of the mine-sweeping 
 trawlers had, in fact, a nodding acquaintance with many 
 of these human derelicts, whom they regarded with 
 friendly indifference. Meeting them often, the features 
 of many of them became familiar, and, in fact, they went 
 so far as to christen some of them with pet names. The 
 following rather grim story which recurs to me is typical 
 of many such, and may give the reader an insight of 
 what passed for humour during the war. 
 
 There was a certain trawler, mine-sweeping from the 
 Tyne, I believe, who was continually encountering the 
 same poor corpse, so much so, that he was affectionately 
 
In the Old North Channel 25 
 
 known to the crew by the sobriquet of " Moike." 
 " Moike " himself, in the- life, must have been an indi- 
 vidual with a striking resemblance in feature to " Ole 
 Bill," and was ornamented with a long, trailing mous- 
 tache. His frequent appearances upon the scene began, 
 however, in the course of time to tell upon the nerves 
 of a certain old retired chief petty officer, who formed 
 one of the crew of this particular trawler. The latter's 
 shipmates were not long in noting the fact, and, when- 
 ever " Moike " was seen coming bobbing down upon 
 the bow, there was an insistent cry for Jenkins — a name 
 by which I will call the petty officer in question. " Hi ! 
 Jenkins ! 'Ere's Moike a 'arstin' for yer ! " Where- 
 upon poor Jenkins, palpably pale and ill at ease, was 
 forced to come up on deck and gaze, while " Moike," 
 with glassy eyes rolling, his long moustache washing in 
 the seas, bobbed and curvetted himself past. Humour 
 in those days was indeed apt to be of the grimmest, but, 
 such as it was, it served its purpose nevertheless. Men 
 suffering from nerves, like Jenkins, had no business to 
 be in mine-sweepers. Not long afterwards he managed 
 to get himself transferred to a shore billet. 
 
 But to resume. Shortly after the loss of the Bayano, 
 the fighting forces in the North Channel were augmented 
 by a small division of four rather antiquated destroyers 
 based on Stranraer. This augmentation, however, 
 seemed in no way to diminish the sauciness of the sub- 
 marines, and quite soon afterwards there was a fine 
 kettle of fish when it was discovered that they had 
 actually landed two officers at the entrance of the harbour 
 to prospect. It was during the night that they had 
 landed in a small collapsible boat dressed in their German 
 naval uniform. They had closely interrogated the 
 guardian of the local oyster-beds as to whether it were 
 a fact that destroyers were really now based on the place, 
 and, having found out what they wanted to know, left 
 as they had come. The keeper, though he easily recog- 
 nised his interrogators as Germans, and although he was 
 
26 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 on the telephone, did not report the matter at once, for 
 the reason that he had apparently cried " wolf " more 
 than once before, anent other suspicious happenings, 
 and was determined not to be fooled again. 
 
 It was a pity, for only a mile away two destroyers were 
 lying idle alongside the pier, and the wrath of their com- 
 mander — an individual not noted for the parliamentary 
 phrasing of his language — was great when he learned 
 too late of the visit, for by then the scent had grown 
 cold. 
 
 The commander's ruffled feelings were certainly not 
 mollified when, a few nights later, while nestling for 
 shelter under the lee of the Mull of Cantyre, the unmis- 
 takable white tracks caused by three torpedoes passed 
 like lightning under his keel. It was " Fritz's " playful 
 little way of showing that he was still there, that he felt 
 no ill-feeling, and wanted to leave a calling card in 
 person. But the ravings of that destroyer commander 
 were such that it is well for the good of humanity that 
 wireless telephony was not then in general use. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ARTS OF PAINTING AND LETTER WRITING, AS " UNDER- 
 STANDED " BY SEAMEN. ALSO SOME COMMENTS ON 
 GOATS AND GHOSTS, CATS AND COURTSHIP. 
 
 IT was during the first year of the war that the 
 fashion of painting bow-waves came into vogue. 
 In itself the idea was excellent, for, properly carried 
 out by a skilled painter, these imitation waves gave to an 
 onlooker the impression that a ship so painted, even 
 when stationary, was proceeding at a high rate of speed. 
 Consequently the chances of such a ship being missed 
 by torpedoes, or even by gun-fire, were very greatly 
 increased. But, alas for human inventions and the cun- 
 ning of man ! Ideas, in practice, are often hemmed in 
 by limitations, and this one of the bow-waves proved 
 no exception to the rule. The trouble was that, in most 
 seaports, scene-painters, unlike limpets, do not grow on 
 every rock. Like so many other things of the Navy of 
 that period, they had to be improvised. 
 
 In the case of the Tara, the dockyard painter at Holy- 
 head was the first to essay his maiden effort upon the 
 ship's forefoot. He was apparently a student of the 
 Chinese school, and the rolling white billows which he 
 limned were a masterpiece of decorative art, both 
 massive and impressive. The whole ship's company 
 lined up upon the quay to watch his progress — wide-eyed, 
 open-mouthed, profuse in their loud-spoken admiration. 
 As decorative and classic art, there could be no question 
 that it was superb. But as a representation of a real, 
 live, watery wave it was somewhat weak. It depended 
 
 27 
 
28 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 altogether too much on the imagination, and could not, 
 by any possibility, have deceived a child. 
 
 After this, our virgin effort at realism in art, 
 several successive other attempts were made by the ship's 
 own local talent. All alike, however, failed decisively in 
 their object of being convincing, though, if luridness of 
 effect had been the desideratum, Turner himself would 
 have acknowledged we were his masters. Despairing of 
 obtaining the effect I desired in any other way, I at 
 length took the matter in hand myself, and, having 
 retired to a suitable distance, I directed the pictorial 
 labours of Johnny Jones, A.B., through a megaphone. 
 The trouble in guiding a Welshman, however, was the 
 fact that, to all practical intents and purposes, I was 
 addressing him in a foreign language. Jones's know- 
 ledge of English, being extremely limited, proved un- 
 equal to the occasion, and rarely did he guess correctly 
 whether I meant right or left, up or down. However, in 
 the end, the result far exceeded my most sanguine hopes. 
 The ship appeared to be fairly throwing herself out of 
 the water in an attempt to run away with herself. The 
 optical illusion was, in fact, so good that, on our first 
 reappearance off Tor Point, the coastguard were com- 
 pletely taken in by it. They are even alleged to have 
 telegraphed up and down the coast, warning the other 
 stations that the Tara had gone mad; that she, in fact, 
 was running " amok " and could not be stopped. 
 
 Imitation, it is said, is the sincerest form of flattery, 
 and it was not long before the Tara found herself the 
 centre of a circle of servile copyists. Fired to emulation 
 by the appearance of the Tara's bow-wave, the two de- 
 stroyers remaining to us were not long in following in 
 their "parent's" footsteps. The smaller of the two 
 was the more modest in her ambitions, for her com- 
 mander was content to smear on either bow a small, 
 white, triangular patch, which, to the uninitiated, might 
 excusably have been mistaken for the mark left by an 
 accidentally overturned tin of condensed milk. Not so, 
 
As " Understanded " by Seamen 29 
 
 however, his companion in the other destroyer, a being 
 altogether more ambitious and vitriolic of temperament, 
 and apparently dominated iby " futurist " leanings in 
 art. There was nothing of the modest violet about him — 
 far otherwise. Like the " green bay-tree " of the wicked, 
 his ship's cutwater soon shone resplendent with an 
 immense emerald expanse, which would have gladdened 
 the heart of any hungry goat. The design was pyra- 
 midal in shape, and was strangely reminiscent of a 
 meadow in June. Tradition asserts, but I know not 
 with what truth, that some unsanctified Philistine took 
 advantage of the darkness of the night, and of the super- 
 ficial resemblance of this verdant patch to the grass of 
 the field. For lo ! in the morning, when that " futurist " 
 commander arose to consider his so beautiful handicraft, 
 he found that it had been desecrated by an allusion 
 to a much-advertised meat extract. Some soulless in- 
 dividual had painted an ox engaged in the act of grazing 
 on his emerald pyramid, and to it had appended the 
 legend, " Alas ! my poor brother." 
 
 This, by the way, was also a covert allusion to 
 another event which had occurred a few days previously. 
 The destroyer in question was engaged in scouring the 
 locality for floating mines, of which there were reported 
 to be several in the vicinity. Whilst so occupied, an 
 object was sighted on the surface. Whereupon the 
 destroyer had hoisted a signal, " Enemy mine in sight " 
 — this, by the way, before confirming the matter by closer 
 inspection. A second signal followed swiftly on the 
 first, giving the further information that the mine was 
 " with .horns." Unfortunately, however, the alleged 
 mine turned out to be no mine at all, but a black bullock, 
 well distended and many days dead, which happened to 
 be floating belly up along the tideway. It was, how- 
 ever, " with horns." 
 
 A somewhat onerous duty of mine in those days was 
 the censoring of letters, and here, as in other matters, 
 the language difficulty often became acute. This was 
 
30 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 due to the fact that some ninety per cent, of the Tara's 
 crew were " Taffies " born and bred, and Welsh was the 
 ordinary medium, both for conversation and commands, 
 current on board the ship. Official Admiralty orders, 
 however, laid it down plainly that all letters for cen- 
 soring were to be written in plain English. How could 
 they carry this out was the somewhat natural question of 
 many, when, as one old " shell-back " put it, their wives 
 could understand no word of any other language but 
 their native Welsh ? 
 
 Censoring, though as a rule dull and monotonous work, 
 certainly taught me many things that I had not hitherto 
 suspected. For example, it was news to me that the 
 Tara had been engaged in the Battle of Heligoland 
 Bight and many other famous actions, in which she 
 covered herself with glory. There were other things 
 also which caused me " furiously to think." At one 
 time, it appeared that we must have a terrible bigamist 
 among our number, for by the same post I detected a 
 number of letters, all unmistakably in the same hand- 
 writing, all couched in the same endearing terms, but 
 all addressed to married ladies of different names. Such 
 a shocking state of affairs, of course, required immediate 
 investigation; but, instead of a Mormon, we only dis- 
 covered a mare's nest. The individual responsible for 
 this multitude of amatory epistles proved to be of most 
 respectable habits and above suspicion. He was but the 
 tool of his less-gifted messmates — too indolent or illit- 
 erate to write letters themselves— who, in consideration 
 of a small retaining fee, had undertaken to write their 
 letters home for them. 
 
 There was yet another ardent young correspondent, 
 from whose letters I used to derive much entertainment. 
 His real name and status I never learned, for his identity 
 was hidden under the "nom de plume " of " Loving 
 Tommy Sailor Boy." At the period when I first encoun- 
 tered these gems from the pen of our sea-going Cupid, 
 he was apparently engaged in amatory dalliance with the 
 
As " Understanded " by Seamen 31 
 
 cook-general of a resident of Lame. Each letter in turn 
 doted feelingly and in detail upon the excellences Of the 
 various dishes which she had set before him upon the 
 occasion of his last visit to her domicile. But, alas, there 
 came a day upon which a volunteer regiment in war- 
 training came to be billeted upon the town. Its attrac- 
 tions were evidently too much for Venus of the Frying 
 Pan, and she deserted Neptune in favour of Mars. I 
 gathered as much from " L.T.S.B.'s " next letter, which 
 was a sad one, and noticeable for the marked coolness 
 of its tone. In it he complained that, although he had 
 whistled and waited for two hours outside her portal, 
 she had given no sign. He also commented upon the 
 fact that there seemed to be a great many " sodgers " 
 about in the same locality, and that one of their caps was 
 hanging up on the latch of the kitchen window. A final 
 cutting epistle shortly followed this, in which "L.T.S.B." 
 made it abundantly clear that their young loves had 
 been sundered for ever. He was, however, already 
 evidently beginning to benefit by his naval training, 
 which inculcates the principle of always having spare 
 numbers trained in readiness to fill up all casualties, for 
 by the same post he had already entered into corre- 
 spondence with two other young ladies. 
 
 By the close of 1914 Larne had developed into quite a 
 considerable naval base. No longer was the Tara the 
 only " pebble on the beach," for an admiral had installed 
 himself with his staff, and there were a number of yachts, 
 trawlers, and idrifters using it as theif headquarters. 
 Many of these yachts were commanded by old retired 
 admirals and the like, some of whom were half blind 
 and deaf, but sportsmen all. They had, one and all, 
 volunteered for active service in any capacity, and, 
 though some of them were well advanced in the sixties 
 and even seventies, were now at sea once more, camou- 
 flaged as lieutenants and commanders in the Royal Naval 
 Volunteer Reserve. As such, they did yeoman service, 
 for, in spite of their physical disabilities and infirmities, 
 
32 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 they were, by reason of their experience, of immense 
 value during the first year of the war whilst the new 
 Navy was in training. Their practical knowledge of dis- 
 cipline, service customs and working conditions, of guns, 
 torpedoes, and the handling of ships in close order was 
 an invaluable asset. It was by their example of loyal 
 service that those dear old admirals did so much to in- 
 spire the new Navy. More than one of them had been 
 my captain at sea twenty years before, when I, an irre- 
 sponsible young officer, had trembled at their slightest 
 frown. But there, in the North Channel, our relative 
 positions were reversed. It was they who waited on my 
 nod, and received their orders from me, and " had the 
 honour " to " submit " their views and reports for my 
 " favourable consideration." In some measure I could 
 enter into the feelings of King Canute (I think it was he, 
 but my history is rather weak) when he found himself 
 being rowed on the River Dee by a crew of attendant 
 subject kings. 
 
 The new Navy, which came to birth with the war, was 
 formed from the toughest, but at the same time entirely 
 undisciplined material. The men who formed it had no 
 fighting instinct, and such of those who had been bred 
 in the merchant service had had instilled into them the 
 principle of safety first — safety for the crew, safety for 
 the ship, and, above all, safety for their own and their 
 owners' pockets. It did not come easy to them to 
 deliberately seek danger and court destruction, and their 
 natural instincts at the beginning of the war were the 
 grandmotherly ones inculcated by the Board of Trade. 
 A concrete example may, perhaps, better illustrate this 
 tendency : 
 
 Working from Larne were some sixty or seventy 
 drifters, whose business it was to shoot the steel-wire 
 nets spread across the North Channel for the trapping 
 of submarines. Only a very small percentage of these 
 drifters were blessed with a weapon of any kind, and, 
 even among the fortunate ones, it was often a gun of 
 
As ** Understanded " by Seamen 33 
 
 only one inch calibre. To the majority this made no 
 difference whatever, for they feared neither man nor 
 devil. But there remained a minority (who were ap- 
 parently incapable of shaking off the " safety first " 
 incubus upon which they had been weaned. One day 
 there came an urgent message that, at that very moment, 
 a submarine was lying off the entrance to Larne Har- 
 bour. Whereupon the senior officer at once signalled 
 to the drifters — the only craft available — to proceed to 
 sea and tackle her. Out they went promptly — all except 
 one. Her skipper had other views. Turning his ship's 
 nose away from the harbour mouth, he headed inland 
 in the opposite direction, and did not feel safe until he 
 had run his vessel up, high and dry, on a mud bank — 
 a position in which she remained for several days 
 subsequently. 
 
 Compare this with the action of a yacht, commanded 
 by an old navy man " dug out " for the war. She was 
 cruising off the Western Isles of Scotland. Depth- 
 charges had not then been invented and she had no guns, 
 but she managed to grapple with a submarine who hap- 
 pened to come to the surface near her. Unable to get 
 at the Huns inside, the chief engineer was lowered over 
 the side in a bowline and commenced to chop off the U 
 boat's periscope with an axe; but, unfortunately, before 
 the operation was completed, the submarine managed 
 to break away and, submerging once more, escaped. 
 
 The influx of so many vessels to Larne eventually had 
 the effect of crowding out the Tara. She had to go else- 
 where for her coal, and thereafter Campbeltown, situated 
 on the eastern side of Cantyre, became her base. At 
 Campbeltown we found the inhabitants no less friendly- 
 disposed than they had been at Larne, and, in accord- 
 ance with the time-honoured traditions of the senior 
 service, the ship's company quickly adapted themselves 
 to their changed " locale " by acquiring a completely 
 new assortment of sweethearts. It is, apparently, the 
 custom of shore-dwelling folk to assume that, because 
 
 c 
 
34 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 a sailor loves quickly and loves often, he is, therefore,, of 
 a fickle and irresponsible nature. I do not think that this 
 is really so. Such critics should remember that a sailor's 
 opportunities of courting are limited and his time short. 
 Nature abhors a vacuum, and, on board ship, the mariner 
 is situated in what, I suppose, a meteorologist would 
 describe as a " system of low pressure " — free from 
 feminine influence. Therefore, when a sailor goes on 
 shore and encounters the full force of feminine guiles, 
 atmospheric disturbances are bound to follow. Hence 
 the hurricane courtships occasionally observed — for 
 sailors are not misogynists — and she who sows the wind 
 must expect to reap the whirlwind. Blow high, blow 
 low, the sailor takes the variabilities of feminine cap- 
 rice much as he does those of the weather, and makes 
 the best passage he can under the circumstances. 
 
 At Campbeltown some of the inhabitants appeared to 
 be horrified at the rapid way in which some of these 
 affaires de cceur seemed to be progressing. One lady 
 informed me that she had questioned her maid (a damsel 
 of shy and erstwhile retiring disposition) as to how it 
 was that she had so rapidly made the acquaintance of so 
 many of the Tara's crew. The maid looked at her in 
 stupefaction: " Och, mum," she replied, "it's simple! 
 Ye could do it yersel' ! I jist gang doon tae the pier 
 and gie un the glad eye." 
 
 It was during the time that we were based on Camp- 
 beltown (that is, in the latter part of the summer of 1915) 
 that a rather curious mystery came to light. 
 
 On the western side of the North Channel is situated 
 Rathlin Island, and just to the south of the latter is 
 Fair Head, the north-east point of Ireland. Since the 
 early dawn of history Rathlin has been a kind of step- 
 ping-stone for the old freebooting Irish in their in- 
 vasions of Scotland. Upon it still stands the ruins of the 
 castle of Robert the Bruce, and at the base of the shore- 
 cliffs hard by is the historic cave in which he hid from 
 his would-be slayers, and was saved by a spider spinning 
 
As " Understanded " by Seamen 35 
 
 her web across the mouth. It was from Bruce's castle 
 that his beautiful lady-love, during her lord's absence, 
 hurled herself from the parapet into the sea to escape the 
 amorous advances of a traitorous guest. Her dead body 
 Was washed up on the Irish coast opposite, and the head- 
 land whereon it was found has been named Fair Head 
 ever since, in memory of that fair and beautiful woman. 
 During the war, however, Fair Head gained an unen- 
 viable notoriety as a centre of U boat activity, and was 
 better known to sailors as " Submarine Corner." A vast 
 tonnage of homeward shipping for Glasgow, Liverpool, 
 and that circle of English, Irish, Scotch and Welsh ports 
 which border the Irish Sea swept daily past it. The 
 great troop convoys from the United States and Canada, 
 and ships with food and munitions from the New World, 
 wheeled by in endless procession ere shaping their course 
 to the southward. To enter or leave the Irish Sea from 
 the northward all must pass the narrow portals of the 
 North Channel, and rarely was it, during the latter years 
 of the war, that some submarine was not lying in wait 
 to sink and to destroy. Well was it therefore named 
 " Submarine Corner," and there did many a homeward- 
 bound sailor obtain his first, and often his last, glimpse 
 of his native land. 
 
 But the mystery of which I now wish to speak has 
 nothing to do with Robert the Bruce nor his lady-love, 
 save so far as the latter gave name to the headland on 
 which her corpse was discovered. Fair Head itself is, 
 to my mind, one of the most impressive sights in the 
 world. Its giant basalt columns rise sheer from the sea 
 to a height of over six hundred feet. Its base, formed of 
 huge fallen boulders — many as big as cottages — is in- 
 describably wild, and overgrown with a tangle of whin 
 and thorn bushes. All day long the great breakers come 
 roaring past from the Atlantic. Only in exceptional 
 weather is landing possible there, and the white clouds 
 blowing low along the base of the black cliff add the 
 last touch of desolate ferocity. 
 
 C2 
 
36 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Alas that the heart of the sailor-man is generally dead to 
 so much beauty ! It was not the scenery of Fair Head that 
 first drew his attention— it was the inhabitants. Two 
 destroyers were constantly patrolling in the North Chan- 
 nel,"and they noticed, in the course of their duties, that 
 there were a large number of supposedly wild goats 
 clambering about the boulder-strewn base of the Head. 
 The billies of these alleged wild goats were remarkable 
 for their magnificent horns, and the destroyer officers 
 were at once bitten with a desire to slay one, and have 
 the trophy mounted for the ward-room mess. Needless 
 to say I was not informed at the time of this design, for 
 they, being my juniors, naturally did not desire me, their 
 senior, to know that they proposed taking an unofficial 
 holiday. 
 
 Times were quiet, no submarines were reported in the 
 vicinity, and the weather was favourable. Just as 
 dusk was falling one of the destroyers accordingly 
 lowered a boat and landed an armed party on the 
 head. 
 
 The very first shot was successful, and a billy with a 
 fine pair of horns was seen to tumble. Excitedly the 
 sailors rushed forward, scrambling over rock and bush, 
 heedless of torn clothing, anxious only to view their 
 quarry. At length they reached an overhanging shelf, 
 whence, looking down, they expected to see the carcass 
 of the goat. Body there certainly was, and the air struck 
 foul and acrid on their distended nostrils. But it was 
 not the body of a goat — a human skeleton grinned back 
 at them from empty eye sockets. Round about were 
 scattered human bones and tattered clothing, and two 
 skeleton legs lay with knees drawn up, the feet still 
 encased in rubber-soled shoes. 
 
 Night was fast falling. Whitely gleamed the bones, 
 and the organ-pipe columns of the head played eerie 
 tunes between the fitful rain-squalls. It was too much 
 for the sailors' already overwrought nerves. Like one 
 man they turned tail and fled helter-skelter for their boat. 
 
As " Understanded " by Seamen 37 
 
 Not until they were once more on board the destroyer, 
 amid lights and warmth, did they feel safe. 
 
 On the destroyer's return to harbour the matter was 
 subsequently reported to the police, who, on more than 
 one occasion, searched the locality. But so wild, iso- 
 lated and overgrown is Fair Head, to search for any- 
 thing there is like looking for the proverbial needle in a 
 bundle of hay. The terrified sailors had not noted the 
 spot exactly, and the skeleton was never ref ound. Tossed 
 by the storms, drenched by the rains, it still remains a 
 mystery. One ray of light, however, has come to me, 
 and that purely by accident. I happened to mention the 
 matter at a public lecture, and one of my audience gave 
 me a clue and showed me a Press cutting. Many years 
 before the war a certain Professor Snncox, known as the 
 " absent-minded professor," was summering in the north 
 of Ireland, and expressed an intention of visiting Fair 
 Head. From that day to this he has never been seen 
 again by any of his friends. It appears probable that 
 the skeleton of Fair Head is that of the absent- 
 minded professor, but the manner in which he met his 
 fate — whether by falling over the cliff impelled by an 
 infuriated billy goat or by being crippled by breaking 
 a leg on that rough terrain — will, I suppose, now never 
 be known. One curious fact alone emerges. From that 
 date onward the wild goats deserted their haunts around 
 Fair Head and were seen no more of naval sportsmen. 
 
 The Tara had now been employed for over a year in 
 patrolling the waters of the North Channel, and all on 
 board had quite come to regard both themselves and their 
 ship as a part of its permanent scenery. A ship at times 
 seems to be almost as much a part of Nature as the trees 
 and water, the cattle and the birds. She bends to the 
 fierce blasts, dances to the sunshine with the wavelets 
 underfoot, changes her colour with the passing clouds. 
 But though we liked the fine weather well enough, our 
 hearts were hardly in it when it came to passing a second 
 winter in those gusty waters. 
 
38 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 It was, therefore, with delighted surprise that during 
 a short refit at Holyhead we heard that the ship was to 
 proceed to the Mediterranean. Our anticipated depar- 
 ture at once led to a notable furbishing up of ancient 
 sextants and the resurrection of tattered works on navi- 
 gation. No more were we to cruise continuously in 
 pilotage waters with land always in sight. We were to 
 roam the high seas — " Heaven's light our guide " — and 
 the fixing of the ship's position would depend upon our, 
 observations of the sun, moon, and stars. That meant 
 the solving of all sorts of problems in navigation and 
 spherical trigonometry which we had well-nigh for- 
 gotten the working of. It was a science in which we 
 had, in fact, all grown rusty, and it would never do to 
 lose our way between Holyhead and Alexandria. 
 
 Thus in the late autumn of 1915 we set forth for the 
 blue skies and sunny seas of the Mediterranean, to 
 waters which we believed to be free of mines and sub- 
 marines, and a life which we anticipated would be in the 
 nature of a yachting cruise. And yet, within a month 
 the old Tara was lying at the bottom fully fifty fathoms 
 deep, twelve of our number were dead, and the rest 
 were enduring the most terrible of captivities. 
 
 No warning, no premonition had we, of what was in 
 store for us ; yet, if we had heeded them, the superstitious 
 had something to go on. The changing of a ship's name 
 is regarded as unlucky by sailors, and ours had been 
 changed from the day that the Admiralty took her over. 
 But just before the ship's loss an omen of much feller 
 import had transpired. 
 
 On leaving home waters, the Tara's crew had taken 
 with them, for the purpose of ensuring " good, luck," 
 a black cat. Where the black cat came from I cannot 
 say. It was probably " acquired " by one of the men 
 on the eve of our departure, for, like fruits, stolen cats 
 are sweetest — or, at least, they so appear to that warped 
 one-sidedness which passes for conscience among sailor- 
 men. However as that may be, and whatever may have 
 
As " Understanded " by Seamen 39 
 
 been his origin, the Tara's cat was certainly a most 
 remarkable animal. Nowhere else, even in dreams, 
 have I seen a Grimalkin who even remotely resembled 
 him. The reader is doubtless familiar with that type of 
 cat, yclept " lucky," at one time common in china shops, 
 but nowadays perhaps more familiar in black velvet 
 trappings and adorning the bonnet of an automobile. 
 What the special attributes may be which determine 
 " luckiness " in these mascots it is difficult to state con- 
 cisely. All alike, however, possess certain features in 
 common. Anfong these may be mentioned huge saucer- 
 like eyes, a demoniacal grin, an arched back, and a 
 bushy tail curved like a note of interrogation. 
 
 The Tara's cat, besides greatly excelling all his china 
 and velvet contemporaries in these essential " lucky " 
 qualities, possessed also a coat of Nubian blackness, in 
 which could be found not one single white hair. Big and 
 heavy as an Airedale terrier (my veracity on this point 
 has been questioned, but I adhere to the statement), 
 he was extremely gaunt and long of limb ; moreover, his 
 countenance was both sinister and forbidding. This 
 baleful embodiment of sin, the cat, was, in fact, so strik- 
 ing in appearance that he was a thing you were not 
 likely readily to forget; yet, despite his malign appear- 
 ance, he was, in his public conduct, a model of good 
 behaviour. His only bad habit, so far as I am aware, 
 was a trick he had of springing on to your bed unex- 
 pectedly at dead of night ; at such times his great weight 
 and diabolical aspect were apt to have a terrifying effect 
 on his somnolent victim. 
 
 However, the cat appeared to be very happy on board 
 in his own bored, weary way, and it was not until after 
 the ship's arrival at Malta that he developed as a seer 
 and filled us with uncanny forebodings as to the future. 
 The ship was just about to resume her voyage when, 
 without any apparent reason, the cat sprang overboard 
 and attempted to swim ashore. 
 
 For a moment consternation reigned among the 
 
40 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 onlookers, but a sailor and his luck are not so easily 
 parted. A boat was at once lowered and sent after the 
 errant " Tom," and, before he could reach the liberty 
 of the shore, he was seized and dragged back wet and 
 dripping. For safe custody he was thereafter confined 
 in a hen-coop in disgrace, and not released until the ship 
 was well out to sea. 
 
 The matter was soon forgotten, and, in the pleasur- 
 able excitement of our arrival at Alexandria, for a time 
 completely faded from all minds. It was only the sequel 
 that brought it to our memories, for on a Friday, a 
 few days later, the ship was torpedoed and sank in eight 
 minutes. 
 
 With her went the black cat. 
 
 Since those far-off days of 1915, many people who 
 ought to know better have told me they feel quite sure 
 that that cat knew — that he had a premonition that 
 disaster was about to overtake the ship and compass his 
 own doom, and that he tried to avoid it. I wish I could 
 believe that such psychic powers belonged to the feline 
 face, for then might I easily attain to wealth without 
 the painful necessity to work. On every sea-going ship 
 I would install a black cat, and, when my trusty agent 
 on board informed me that my omen-giver had jumped 
 overboard, I would insure that ship up to the hilt, and 
 thereby reap a rich harvest when her loss was posted at 
 Lloyd's. 
 
 But, I fear me, so facile a road to wealth is not open 
 to me, and statistics point all the other way. A casual 
 survey of my neighbour's roof, indeed, convinces me 
 that there may be another explanation of the cat's 
 strange conduct other than the psychical one. Dis- 
 cordant howls are sometimes borne to my ear at the 
 witching hour of midnight, and, in fact, I am sure that 
 there is another explanation. 
 
 My readers may have observed that, unlike the 
 "ycnng man," the " thoughts of love " of the felidse 
 are not confined solely to " the spring-time." The race 
 
• 
 
 ..'- , 
 
 <mm 
 
 ; $ 
 
 CO 
 
 c 
 
 
 | 41 
 g ^ 
 
 H 1 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 i # ,i 
 
 :. 
 
 '•V 
 
 to 
 
As "Understanded" by Seamen 41 
 
 of " Thomas Cat " has also very sharp hearing. Can 
 it be that the Tara's Grimalkin, like Shakespeare's 
 Romeo, heard his Juliet calling to him across the vasty 
 deep, or rather (to get the technique of local conditions 
 correct) through those layers of garlic and oil which 
 form the lower strata of the atmosphere of Malta ? It 
 is probable, and he, poor fellow, probably thought that 
 swimming ashore was the easiest way of making his fair 
 one's acquaintance. 
 
 The story of the captivity of the Tara's crew among 
 the Senussi of Libya I have already told in another book 
 (Prisoners of the Red Desert), and it was not until 
 St. Patrick's Day, the 17th of March, 1916, that they 
 were again set at liberty by the gallant dash of the 
 armoured cars led by the Duke of Westminster. Could 
 any fitter day of the year be found for our liberation 
 than that of the patron saint of Ireland? Hibernia was 
 the ship's baptismal name, and Tara is probably the 
 most sacred place in Ireland, for the hill of that name 
 marks the supposed resting-place of the Ark of the 
 Covenant. It was but one more link in the strange chain 
 of coincidences which I have observed as I pass along 
 life's highway. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 AN ASYLUM STAFFED BY LUNATICS, FOLLOWED BY A VOYAGE 
 TO THE ARCTIC; SEA SERPENTS, AND THE ONUS OF BEING 
 
 nobody's DOG. 
 
 FOLLOWING our release, it was in the merry 
 month of May that I once more saw the white 
 cliffs and green valleys of Old England, after a quite 
 uneventful passage home in the hospital ship Valdivia. 
 The reader may guess my feelings of joyful anticipa- 
 tion of home and full liberty after those five terrible 
 months of nakedness, starvation, and captivity in a red 
 and sterile desert — an existence which had reduced me 
 to a living skeleton, weighing only nine and a half stone 
 instead of my normal fourteen. But some weeks spent 
 happily "feeding up" in the luxurious hospitals of 
 Alexandria had already worked wonders, and I was 
 rapidly putting on weight. 
 
 But, whatever I had anticipated lay in store for me, I 
 had certainly not reckoned on the swathes of red tape 
 which then bound Admiralty hospital administration. 
 Instead of freedom, I found myself incarcerated between 
 the four walls of X. — a naval hospital so-called, but in 
 reality a dreary prison, round whose walls Marine sen- 
 tries patrolled day and night with loaded rifles and fixed 
 bayonets, lest any of the unhappy patients should 
 attempt to escape. The walls themselves, it would have 
 been thought, were sufficiently tall and forbidding, not 
 to mention its police-guarded portals, above which, in 
 
 42 
 
Nobody's Dog 43 
 
 letters of fire, seemed to be written: " Abandon hope 
 all ye who enter here." 
 
 The establishment of X, itself was ruled over by an 
 ancient naval pedagogue and disciple of ^Esculapius', 
 dignified with the rank of Rear-Admiral, but irreverently 
 referred to by his patients and victims as " Old Mouldy " 
 or " Frosty Face." On all medical subjects this austere 
 deity appeared to be hazily timid and ignorant, but on 
 the subject of saluting he was unquestionably an 
 authority. No matter how ill a patient might be, when 
 " Mouldy 's " shadow passed that way it was necessary 
 for the patient to arise and make humble obeisance. He 
 who would be this Nero's " white-haired boy " trained 
 himself to see him afar off, to salute, and to keep on 
 saluting. By such means only could any hope to reach 
 the veteran's crabbed old heart and ossified brain. 
 
 This arbiter of our fates at X. appeared to run the 
 establishment on the same lines as the " Old lady who 
 lived in a shoe," and I promptly found myself deprived 
 of all liberty, my clothes taken away, and myself tucked 
 into bed. In vain did I protest that there was nothing 
 the matter with me except malnutrition — that I had 
 already been for five months a prisoner, and that I 
 wished, above all, to see my home. As well might I 
 have appealed to the winds and waves, for in an evil day, 
 and just prior to landing, some well-intentioned person 
 had affixed the fatal label " Neurasthenia " in my coat 
 lapel. As I was soon to discover, the stigma of alleged 
 neurasthenia relegated me to a status only comparable 
 with that of the witch and heretic of the Middle Ages. 
 I was an outcast, without human rights, and one to 
 whom no one dared give sanctuary or shelter — indeed, 
 little better than an unregistered lunatic. Of all at X. 
 I alone knew that neurasthenia was, in my case, merely 
 a convenient label to express starvation and weakness 
 where no other symptoms were present. Into bed I was 
 thrust, and, lest I should become too proud and haughty, 
 my feeding was reduced to half-diet. Outside the snow 
 
44 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 fell heavily, in spite of the calendar pointing to May; it 
 was bitterly cold, but no fires were allowed, for, by the 
 laws of the Medes and Persians as decreed at X., all 
 artificial heating ceased on the ist of May, no matter 
 what the temperature. 
 
 Fortunately, however, for my "mental sanity, the 
 novelty and humour of my position began to thrust 
 itself into my consciousness, or I might have committed 
 I know not what wild act. Apparently I was imprisoned 
 in what to all intents and purposes was a lunatic asylum, 
 but an asylum in which it was the staff themselves who 
 were the lunatics, and the patients the only sane persons. 
 Prior to these calmer reflections I had seriously medi- 
 tated stripping my clothes from me, climbing into a tree, 
 and assuming the arboreal habits and customs of our 
 simian ancestors by pretending to eat nuts. For, I 
 reasoned, once I could be certified as insane I should at 
 least have the rights and privileges given by the laws of 
 my country to the mentally weak. I would, at stated 
 intervals, have the right to interview a magistrate, 
 whereas, as I then was, I was merely a prisoner without 
 any right of protest. 
 
 But quiet reflection showed me a better method, and 
 one altogether more likely to succeed in obtaining the 
 liberty I so much desired. There were among the 
 victims at X. many patients who were themselves naval 
 surgeons, and, as such, presumably having a knowledge 
 of what the symptoms of neurasthenia were likely to be, 
 and also what tests it would be requisite to pass to prove 
 my innocence of the fell malady. From them I learned 
 that the more angry I got, the more certain I was to 
 be convicted; instead of anger I studied the tests — how 
 to walk straight with the eyes shut and my fingers 
 extended in an irreverent attitude from my nose, and 
 how, when shaking hands, I should give my inquisitor 
 a hearty grip divorced from mental feebleness, and one 
 which would make him regret the personal greeting. 
 
 Four days I languished thus at X. before my oppor- 
 
Nobody's Dog 45 
 
 tunity came — dreary days spent in watching the ghosts 
 of dispirited patients of an inhuman system drifting sadly 
 up and down. The patients' conversation was not inspir- 
 ing : they had, for the most part, lost count of the time 
 that they had been there themselves, and seemed to take 
 a melancholy pleasure in impressing me with the belief 
 that my own chances of freedom were hopeless, and 
 that no one else had ever yet been known to get out in 
 less than a month. But I heeded them not, and possessed 
 my soul in patience. 
 
 X. certainly was the most dreary prison ever designed 
 for the torture of sailors: there were no amusements 
 more exciting than bowls, no books except the most 
 musty and ancient of tomes, no piano, no gramophone, 
 and visitors were most sternly discountenanced. On 
 the rare occasions on which they were admitted at tea- 
 time they were charged for at prices which would nowa- 
 days rapidly bring them into the meshes of the anti- 
 profiteering committee. Food was indifferent in quality, 
 and bordered on the starvation line as to quantity. I 
 will not readily forget my first unwary request for a 
 second helping — or a second portion of bloater, in fact — 
 and its ignominious " turning down " by the bloated- 
 looking mess-man. That the days of Oliver Twist in the 
 poor-house were by no means dead was a fact to which 
 I speedily tumbled on observing the shocked and 
 scandalised expression on the faces of the smug 
 attendants, and my request for more met with a prompt 
 and uncompromising refusal. And I had rashly believed 
 that, as a full captain in the Royal Navy, my wishes 
 were not without weight ! But it was all a part of the 
 accursed soulless hospital system, bound and edged with 
 red tape, wherein the Surgeon-General acted as Grand 
 Inquisitor, and the patients were the heretics whom it 
 was necessary to mould into shape and make conform to 
 the system. 
 
 But at length the great day dawned for me — the day 
 upon which the great civilian nerve expert was due to 
 
46 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 return from his holiday, and upon which I should have 
 my first chance of a fair trial, by one who presumably 
 knew something about his job; for " Mouldy " him- 
 self, though nominally in charge of the hospital, dared 
 move neither hand nor foot without the authority of this 
 deus ex machina. Needless to say, I passed my examina- 
 tion (for which I had most carefully schooled myself) 
 with flying colours; an hour later I was speeding forth 
 in a taxi, barely controlling my joyful impulse to kiss 
 the now saluting policeman at the gate as I departed. 
 
 I had been given a month's sick leave in which to 
 recover my health and strength, but ere that period had 
 elapsed I had, by my importunity, succeeded in " wang- 
 ling " a new sea-going appointment out of the 
 Admiralty, and by the ioth of June, 1916, I was on my 
 way to join my new command, H.M.S. Intrepid, one 
 of the Arctic or White Sea Squadron. 
 
 The Princess Maud, the vessel in which I took my 
 northward passage, was a short, dumpy, and very slow 
 steamer, which at one time had been employed in taking 
 excursionists around the coastwise beauty spots of Scot- 
 land, but was then employed by the Admiralty to carry 
 and lay out the various anti-submarine booms in distant 
 parts of the world. Nine knots was her best speed, and 
 she rolled and wallowed intolerably; it was thus not 
 until a fortnight later that I got to my destination of 
 Yukanskie, on the Murman Coast of Russia, the place 
 at which I expected to find the Intrepid. 
 
 Our voyage had taken us up the East Coast of Eng- 
 land along the War Channel, a buoyed passage-way 
 three hundred miles in length, and daily swept clear of 
 enemy mines. It extended from the Thames right up 
 to St. Abb's Head in Scotland, following the windings 
 of the coast. But, in spite of every care to the contrary, 
 it could by no means be considered safe, for the sub- 
 marines had developed an annoying habit of waiting for 
 
Nobody's Dog 47 
 
 the mine-sweepers to pass, and then, having seen them 
 well on the way, of following after and depositing their 
 explosive eggs in their wake. 
 
 To one who, like myself, had not been on the East 
 Coast for years, it was interesting to note the changes 
 which war had brought to it. From Felixstowe, the 
 port of our departure, the sea was literally one great 
 ocean graveyard until past Yarmouth. In that space 
 we must have passed a hundred wrecks, some of them 
 huge vessels, many lying upon their sides on sandbanks, 
 others just showing the tips of their masts above water. 
 Yet, in spite of all this shipping mortality, the War 
 Channel itself in the day-time was as crowded with mov- 
 ing shipping as is Piccadilly Circus with wheeled traffic. 
 At night, however, the War Channel was deserted, for, 
 the buoys marking it not being lit, vessels had perforce 
 to anchor or, if possible, crawl into the nearest port, 
 lest in the darkness they should wander from the com- 
 parative safety of the passage into those areas where, 
 by reason of their not having been swept up, the mines 
 lay thick. It was at night that much of the damage by 
 submarines was then being done, they pouncing upon, 
 and sinking, the helpless steamers which had not been 
 fortunate enough to get into port and had been obliged 
 to anchor. 
 
 The Princess Maud herself anchored for the first night 
 inside the entrance to the Humber, and on a subsequent 
 night at Lerwick. It was at the latter place, then a 
 bustling minor naval base, that I heard many stories of 
 the Battle of Jutland. I cannot guarantee the truthful- 
 ness of these, but the battle was then a very recent event, 
 and fresh in all men's minds; and at Lerwick we were 
 in close and daily contact with the Grand Fleet. Among 
 many, one version given of the reason why the German 
 Fleet was caught at sea was that a convoy of seventy 
 Allied merchantmen were, at the time, on their way 
 home from Arkhangel. The Germans deemed that if 
 they could succeed in. capturing or destroying these it 
 
48 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 would be a great haul. Another, story of Jutland was 
 that when the German Fleet retired they formed their 
 destroyer divisions astern of the battle squadron. The 
 destroyers having then made a dense smoke screen, the 
 battleships were able to escape unmolested. But it was 
 a close thing, for the British destroyers, pressing on the 
 heels of their antagonists, one of them suddenly found 
 himself through the smoke screen and close to the main 
 German Fleet. It was a great chance, but one which 
 was never taken advantage of, for the destroyer in 
 question, not knowing that his leader in the Tipperary 
 was sunk, left it to the latter to report the matter, and 
 this vital error was not discovered until too late. 
 
 Another incident I also heard of — not, this time, rela- 
 tive to Jutland, but to the earlier action of the Heligo- 
 land Bight. The British were at the time engaged in 
 picking up the drowning crews of sundry sunken 
 German destroyers, and a Hun officer just rescued was 
 on board a British destroyer. The latter's commander 
 compassionately offered the shivering German a cigar- 
 ette, and the result was typical of a certain school of 
 Prussians : not only did he not accept the cigarette, but 
 he dashed it violently away with his hand, and followed 
 the action by spitting in his British saviour's face. Close 
 at hand, and witness to the deed, stood a British petty 
 officer, and the sight was too much for his insular 
 phlegm. In a flash, and before anyone else could inter- 
 pose or in any way interfere, he had seized the Hun in 
 his arms and dumped him overboard — a place from 
 which history does not relate that he was subsequently 
 re-salved. 
 
 But to resume our voyage in the Princess Maud. 
 After leaving Lerwick we proceeded on our northerly 
 course in perfect, cloudless weather, entering the Arctic 
 Circle at i p.m. on the 21st of June, and this lovely 
 weather we carried with us right around the North Cape. 
 The transparent clearness of the atmosphere up there 
 was wonderful : far away to the westward towards Ice- 
 
Nobody's Dog 4^ 
 
 land one could faintly make out the distant sheen and 
 glimmer of ice. The sea was as blue, or bluer, than the 
 Mediterranean, glassily calm, and dotted everywhere 
 with the black glass floats and other impedimenta which 
 had broken adrift from the submarine nets employed in 
 home waters, borne thither on the warm bosom of the 
 Gulf Stream. One branch of the Gulf Stream sets past 
 England right towards the north of Norway, taking the 
 flotsam of the English coasts with it. Drifting mines 
 were accordingly 'common objects off the North Cape; 
 wreckage and bodies from Jutland occurred there for 
 many months afterwards, having drifted more than a 
 thousand miles. Marine life was also numerous, and 
 we passed many schools of whales and porpoises, of 
 which the dorsal fin, just showing above water, gave one 
 at times an unpleasant shock by their uncanny resem- 
 blance to the periscope of a submarine — an effect accen- 
 tuated by the white feather of spray by which they were 
 accompanied. His majesty the sea serpent did not 
 personally come our way, but, from what I saw of the 
 habits of the northern seals, the frequent reports of the 
 sighting of the monster in Norwegian waters are 
 capable of explanation. An old dog seal, open mouthed, 
 white fanged, fierce eyed, with long, sinuous neck and 
 serpentine head stretched high out of the water, is, as 
 it moves along, sufficiently like to the legendary sea 
 monster, even without the aid of an excited seaman's 
 imagination and the clouds of vapoury breath which the 
 animal ejects into the cold air. But when, in addition, 
 as is usually the case, the old dog seal is accompanied 
 by the black, writhing coils of his attendant harem, the 
 latter diving and reappearing in a long string close 
 behind him, the illusion is so perfect as to be absolutely 
 terrifying. 
 
 It was on the 22nd of June, 1916, that we reached our 
 furthest point north, some thirteen hundred miles nearer 
 the Pole than London and three hundred and thirty miles 
 north of the Arctic Circle. The midnight sun was by 
 
 D 
 
50 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 then beginning to become somewhat of a nuisance, for 
 we all found difficulty in sleeping with the day god 
 blazing brilliantly through cabin scuttles; it made one 
 feel like a naughty child put to bed in the daytime for 
 punishment! The temperature itself remained mod- 
 erate, ranging somewhere round about forty-four 
 degrees throughout the twenty-four hours. In pursu- 
 ance of the usual plan for eluding submarines, the ship 
 was kept far out, out of sight of land, giving it a berth 
 of two hundred miles. It was thus that we passed right 
 round Norway without sighting it, and, after thus round- 
 ing the North Cape, we spent twenty-four hours in one 
 of those dense blankets of fog so prevalent in high lati- 
 tudes : there being also a strong east-running current of 
 unknown and variable strength, navigation became very 
 difficult and a matter for the most part of guess work. 
 Eventually, the fog lifting, we managed to find our 
 destination, Yukanskie, and arrived there safely without 
 further incident at 5 p.m. on the 24th of June. At 
 Yukanskie I found my ship, the Intrepid, awaiting me, as 
 also her sister, the Iphigenia, together with a yacht, some 
 armed boarding steamers, trawlers and colliers — in fact, 
 the greater part of that heterogeneous force known as 
 the British Arctic Squadron. 
 
 Yukanskie, at that time the main British base in North 
 Russia, is a rock-strewn anchorage enclosed between 
 three small islands and the mainland, the whole nestling 
 under the lee of Svyatoi Nos (pronounced " sweaty 
 nose "), a prominent headland of the Murman Coast 
 marked on most atlases. Inhabitants of that barren 
 land there were none, except for small migrating bands 
 of Laps who came up to the coast for the fishing in the 
 summer, and retreated once more into the interior during 
 the winter; the bare, sterile, rolling, low granite hills 
 stretch from there for nearly ten thousand miles east- 
 ward along the whole northern breadth of Siberia, and 
 are known as " tundras " or " bad lands." 
 
 In spite of its unprepossessing appearance, however, 
 
Nobody's Dog 51 
 
 Yukanskie, thanks to the war, had become a place of 
 some considerable strategical importance, for it is close 
 to the Gorla or gullet which leads to the Gulf of Ark- 
 hangel. Since the outbreak of war the Germans had 
 constantly sown the Gorla with mines, and it was the 
 business of the Arctic Squadron, and of the British mine- 
 sweeping trawlers in particular, to keep a passage 
 constantly swept free for shipping. 
 
 To Yukanskie, during the period each year that Ark- 
 hangel was free from ice (generally from July to the end 
 of November), the whole sea-borne trade of Russia con- 
 verged fanwise. It was there that ships received their 
 orders, and were swept or convoyed to Arkhangel and 
 the other White Sea ports. Day and night the shipping 
 came and went during those short golden summer 
 months, and was boarded, searched, questioned and 
 instructed. Many hundreds of ships passed through each 
 season, laden for the most part with coal, guns, muni- 
 tions and every species of warlike stores; many whose 
 single cargoes were valued even so far back as 1916 as 
 being worth £2,000,000 each. It was only the old 
 Intrepid and the other units of the British Arctic Squad- 
 ron who made this traffic possible, for, by keeping open 
 the mouth of Arkhangel by which Russia received her 
 war food, they enabled her still to keep going as a 
 combatant. 
 
 Through damage caused by stranding and collision, 
 through fog and faulty navigation, through stress of 
 tempest, ice, mine, submarine and treachery, not to men- 
 tion the ordinary defects to hull and machinery insepar- 
 able from the navigation of a ship at sea, this vast allied 
 merchant fleet was continually in need of the most urgent 
 repairs. Neither at Arkhangel nor anywhere else within 
 a thousand miles could such repairs be made good on 
 that desolate coast line — it was only due to the presence 
 there of the Intrepid, Iphigenia and other vessels of the 
 British Arctic Squadron that these ships were able to be 
 patched up sufficiently to face the return journey home. 
 
 D2 
 
52 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Besides these duties to merchant ships, the Intrepid and 
 
 her sister acted also as floating batteries in places like 
 
 Yukanskie, where there were no shore defences, and had 
 
 to keep prepared also to put to sea at short notice to 
 
 tackle possible hostile raiders. They moreover kept in 
 
 repair the rest of the Arctic Squadron, which included 
 
 four armed boarding steamers (henceforth the reader will 
 
 recognise this class of vessel by its service designation, 
 
 A.B.S.), two yachts, sixteen trawlers, not to mention 
 
 colliers and various small fry. The A.B.S.- in those 
 
 waters were of great value for patrol work, to meet and 
 
 convoy incoming ships, to rescue them from submarine 
 
 attack, and to succour the crews of those which had been 
 
 torpedoed. The trawlers' work was to keep the War 
 
 Channel, a channel a hundred miles long in the shallow 
 
 waters of the Gorla, swept clear of mines at all 
 
 times and at all seasons; later on, they were also 
 
 employed escorting and sweeping through convoys, 
 
 the round journey each time, from the Norwegian 
 
 Fiords to Arkhangel and back, being roughly a 
 
 thousand miles. 
 
 It was truly a herculean task, but never for one moment 
 did that little British Arctic Squadron fail — through the 
 nightless, mosquito-haunted summer of five weeks, 
 through the long darkness, storms, and fearful cold of 
 the endless winter this little squadron ever kept the sea. 
 It was the fable of old JEsop exemplified yet once again, 
 the fable in which the mouse, by gnawing the meshes, 
 freed the lion (in this case a bear) from the net that held 
 him. It was this little weak off-shoot of the British Navy 
 that, by its persistence and its ability to " keep on keep- 
 ing on," gave to the Russian bear the freedom of the 
 seas, and kept open his northern ports to the whole world 
 when every land frontier was barred. It was the British 
 Arctic Squadron which kept Russia in the war for at least 
 twelve months longer than she could possibly otherwise 
 have done, and thus had a very vital effect on the whole 
 world's history. Yet who in England has ever heard of 
 
Nobody's Dog S3 
 
 the late Arctic Squadron ? — not one man in a thousand, 
 I imagine — and now it is at the bottom of the sea. 
 
 In far away England Their Lordships of the Admiralty 
 had certainly but the vaguest notions of the Squadron's 
 needs and conditions — I suppose the units of which it was 
 formed were too insignificant to merit close attention; 
 for I have actually received official communications from 
 them addressed to Yukanskie, Japan. It was even not 
 unknown for reliefs for the North American Station to 
 be sent to us by mistake. It was also a case apparently 
 of " out of sight, out of mind," and anything in the way 
 of officers and men was considered good enough for us 
 in those far northern waters: we became the dumping 
 ground of all the drunks and ne'er-do-wells whom nobody 
 wanted at home. I do not blame Their Lordships in this 
 matter, for they truly had an uphill fight to keep the 
 Grand Fleet and other important squadrons fully manned 
 and efficient with first-rate personnel. Poor little waifs 
 and strays such as ourselves, being nobody's children, 
 had to be grateful for anything that was left over, and we 
 were apt to have our most insistent demands disregarded. 
 But the fact remained — from first to last, the Arctic 
 Squadron was consistently starved and overlooked in 
 many essential things; however, I will add (lest the 
 reader come to regard us as bad workmen who abused 
 our tools) that we always kept our tails up and Russia in 
 the war. 
 
 At the distance at which we were living from England 
 at Yukanskie, every little need had to be thought out 
 and provided for months ahead; for, though nominally 
 we were in telegraphic communication with home, in 
 practice telegrams generally took nearly a week on the 
 way, and, on receipt, were found to have become so dis- 
 torted in transit (almost certainly by enemy agents) as 
 to be wholly, or in great part, undecodable. This would 
 entail a further delay while a repetition was being 
 obtained, and this, again, would be followed by a month 
 or more of waiting whilst a suitable ship was being 
 
54 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 selected and loaded with the stores required. On her 
 way to the Murman Coast perhaps one out of every 
 three of such ships would be sunk; this, of course, 
 entailed the whole process being gone through again, 
 and was often greatly complicated by our not having 
 heard of the loss of the original vessel. In several 
 instances the second ship with such urgently needed 
 stores was also torpedoed and sunk, and on one occasion 
 it occurred for the third time. 
 
 Such delays were harassing; we were, in fact, living 
 again in the Nelsonic era, thanks to the inefficient tele- 
 graphic service maintained by the Russians, many of 
 whom were unquestionably in German pay. Again and 
 again mails, urgent stores, and the latest secret cyphers 
 were, through submarine activity, sunk and lost en 
 route for us; the crews of sunken ships were often 
 thrown on our hands, and had to be clothed, fed, and 
 housed by us. These and similar other unexpected 
 causes more than once reduced the Arctic Squadron to 
 the direst straits for provisions, so that we had little 
 more than a week's supply in sight, and no other food 
 that we could rely upon obtaining closer than England. 
 But this Nelsonic era had its good points as well as its 
 bad ones : the individual upon, the spot came to rely 
 more and more upon his own judgment, and to wait less 
 and less upon that dim and distant authority of the 
 Admiralty — an authority which with many in the Navy 
 has come to usurp the functions of the Deity. 
 
 It must be remembered that the British Navy were 
 aliens in a none too friendly Russia. During the first 
 year of the war they had tried to work in conformity 
 with Russian ideas and methods, but, long ere this, hard 
 and bitter experience had taught them the futility of the 
 effort. The Russians themselves, though brave, kind- 
 hearted, romantic, and always hospitable, were about as 
 practical in the administration of their sea affairs as a 
 girls' Sunday-school class might reasonably have been 
 expected to be. The Russian senior officers were super- 
 
Nobody's Dog 55 
 
 sensitive, steeped in pride and prejudice, mostly incom- 
 petent, and prone to hard drinking. Lower down in the 
 scale, all Russians alike appeared to have an ingrained 
 distaste for the sea, and the common seamen, though 
 vastly patient, displayed all the slowness and lack of 
 savoir faire characteristic of oxen. For countless 
 generations Russia had been accustomed to regard the 
 winter months as a time for festivity, and not for work; 
 their idea was to wage war for a few months in the 
 summer, only — a notion which clashed, inevitably, with 
 the more active and strenuous British temperament. 
 Moreover, no one could be trusted; the most patriotic 
 and capable Russians often had German names, while 
 those with Russian patronymics were often nothing but 
 German spies and paid agents. As for the country we 
 were in, the Murman Coast was practically unsurveyed, 
 and our charts were little better than caricatures of the 
 real conformation of the coastline; the men who did 
 the surveying must have done the greater part of it in 
 their homes, inspired by imagination and liberal potions 
 of vodki. Waste and inefficiency were chronic. I will 
 give but one typical instance. For the landing of rail- 
 way materials it became necessary to construct a pier 
 at Murmansk. The necessary timber for this was not, 
 however, for the moment available, but there was in 
 the river lying a steamer waiting to discharge a cargo 
 of motor-cars. She was made to discharge her motor- 
 cars overboard to make the foundation of the pier ! 
 
 Another of our difficulties in 1916 was that a great 
 many neutral ships were also plying to North Russia, 
 and the masters of some of these, especially such as 
 brought munitions from the United States, were any- 
 thing but free from the suspicion of being in German 
 
 pay. One notable instance was that of the C , which 
 
 in June was proceeding with a cargo of motor-cars for 
 Arkhangel. Her master was already reputed to have 
 lost four ships during the war, and, having arrived 
 on the Murman Coast, he continued to act up to his 
 
56 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 reputation. His first two attempts to smash the C in 
 
 the ice were, however, unsuccessful, for they were frus- 
 trated by the vigilance of the British trawlers, who 
 headed her off. The third time he had better luck, and 
 managed to get his ship firmly ashore ; this accomplished, 
 he and his crew landed in their boats, amply provided 
 with tents and provisions, and waited to be rescued. It 
 was at least strange, if this were really an accident, how 
 well he and his men came prepared for it. 
 
 The way in which all Russian news was being tapped 
 at that time and forwarded to Germany was also illu- 
 minating. The British Commodore happening to arrive 
 one day in his yacht, I asked him, in the course of con- 
 versation, whether a certain steamer, which I knew had 
 grounded at Kem, had been floated off. The Commo- 
 dore appeared surprised at my question, and asked how 
 I had heard of the casualty, which he had been trying to 
 keep secret. His astonishment was even greater at my 
 reply, which was to the effect that I had read it in the 
 official German war news made by wireless on the 
 preceding day. 
 
 From the foregoing the reader will realise that in 1916 
 the British were in a very delicate situation in North 
 Russia, a situation which required the greatest tact and 
 most careful handling. The Russians were intensely 
 jealous and suspicious of us, yet, at the same time, the 
 country required every ounce of help which England 
 could render, for their own sea administration in the 
 Arctic was totally inefficient — smothered by red tape and 
 prejudice, honeycombed by intrigue, undermined by 
 German money. Of themselves the Russians just then 
 were not capable of doing anything, and if anything was 
 to be done at all it had to be done by the British, and 
 in the British way, for the two administrations could no 
 more coalesce than oil and water. 
 
 Gradually the more patriotic and far-seeing of the 
 Russians began to see this themselves, and during the 
 course of the war England took over the whole manage- 
 
Nobody's Dog 57 
 
 ment of the shipping at Arkhangel — a matter which, 
 during the first year of the war and before this arrange- 
 ment had been come to, was chaos twice confounded. 
 In that first winter of the war more than a hundred British 
 vessels were icebound there from November to the 
 following July, and the discharge of all cargoes was a 
 slow and painful process. 
 
 Besides Arkhangel the British also established their 
 base at Yukanskiej at the entrance to the White Sea, 
 and from it plied the British trawlers, who, by their mine- 
 sweeping, alone made traffic practicable. True, the 
 Russians also had> mine-sweepers, but in practice they 
 proved so inefficient that they were only allowed to play 
 at looking for mines in waters in which it was thought 
 improbable that mines would be found. 
 
 Thus it was that Russian authority waned and that of 
 Britain extended in those waters north of the Arctic 
 Circle; and such, more or less, was the state of affairs 
 when I arrived on the scene at Yukanskie in the Princess 
 Maud on the evening of the 25th of June, 1916. Need- 
 less to say, I did not then know these facts which I have 
 just set forth; it was a matter of many months and of 
 painful incidents before I found them out. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ICE AND THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM IN THE SPRING SET IN 
 AN ARCTIC EDEN, WHEREIN DWELT WINGED DRAGONS, 
 CHRISTIAN COMMODORES AND SOME HEATHEN LAPS. 
 
 I TRUST the reader will not have been carried away by 
 anything that I have said, or which may follow, with 
 the belief that, because I speak little of Murmansk or 
 Arkhangel, that therefore those places had little to do 
 with the scheme of things, and that the whole British 
 Arctic Squadron' existed solely under my command at 
 Yukanskie — for this would be exactly opposite to the 
 truth. The actual facts were far otherwise, for not only 
 was there a Commodore acting as senior naval officer 
 in North Russia and living for the most part on shore 
 in Arkhangel, but there was also an officer senior to 
 myself at Murmansk. The latter commanded the old 
 British battleship stationed there and such cruisers and 
 smaller craft as from time to time came within his juris- 
 diction. He had duties at least equally as onerous as 
 my own, and ones, moreover, far more harassing to carry 
 out, for at Murmansk he was daily in contact and combat 
 with Russian officialdom, the pains of which I was to a 
 great degree spared in my role of Senior Naval Officer 
 at Yukanskie — or S.N.O.Y., the letters by which my 
 office was most generally known. 
 
 As S.N.O.Y. I was in fact but the third senior in the 
 Arctic Squadron, a squadron which, owing to the diffi- 
 culties of communication, had little coherence. This 
 entailed that the senior officer on the spot had to a great 
 
 58 
 
Christian Commodores 59 
 
 extent to work independently of the others. Hence in 
 this book I speak not of the squadron as a whole, but 
 merely of that major portion of it which came directly 
 under my own personal control. 
 
 At the time of my arrival at Yukanskie there was not 
 then a great deal of snow remaining there. Yet, as I 
 learned, only some three weeks previously the whole 
 harbour had been a solid frozen expanse of grinding, 
 driving ice-floes — the ships of the squadron, with steam 
 up and all their anchors out, had been dragged helplessly 
 hither and thither by the ice pressure, and had been in 
 great danger of being driven ashore or of having their 
 bottoms torn out on the numerous and uncharted 
 submerged rocks. 
 
 Yukanskie, my home to be for many months, certainly 
 was not an inviting looking place. Low bare granite 
 hills stretched their rounded, featureless forms to the far 
 horizon in all directions; not a tree was visible, not a 
 house, and vegetation was confined to a few grey and 
 rusted lichens peeping through the snow, with, in the 
 more sheltered hollows, a few dwarf and depressed- 
 looking yews and birches: these had been crushed flat 
 by the weight of winter ice, and were now trying to 
 recover themselves. 
 
 But though vegetation was so scant, bird life was 
 already a prominent feature of the landscape. Overhead 
 long V-shaped flights of geese were wending their way 
 northward, and the little brown and white snow buntings 
 flitted and chirped on every boulder. Along the shore 
 the brown goose-like eider-duck, accompanied by her 
 handsome black and white drake, was everywhere 
 numerous. There also the pretty little black guillemots 
 made merry, while from every hand a myriad skuas, 
 herring, and other gulls descended on us and fought for 
 the offal which was thrown overboard. The eggs of 
 these birds, I was informed, had already served to make 
 excellent omelettes for the sailors in this land where no 
 poultry farms are. Landing, I found in the pools where 
 
60 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 the snow had melted that caddis and dragon-fly larva: 
 were already moving about, not to mention numerous 
 small shining water-beetles. 
 
 Nature was already awaking from her ten months' 
 winter sleep. 
 
 On board the Intrepid herself I found I had a contented 
 and well-disciplined ship's company of some two hundred 
 souls — men who for the most part had volunteered for 
 the Arctic Squadron. To the regular Navy man the 
 Arctic was a change from the putrefaction of Scapa Flow, 
 the deadly inactivity, dull monotony, and yet insistent 
 preparedness of the Grand Fleet. Occupation with us 
 never needed to be looked for, for work was over- 
 abundant, and, with their homes so far away, it was 
 easier to settle down and make the best of things. With 
 the delights of town life so distant, there were no heart 
 burnings, no contentious strivings for shore leave, such 
 as were inevitable with our fleets in home waters — where 
 civilisation and its attractions were ever present to 
 sight, yet rarely attainable owing to the exigencies of 
 service. 
 
 Here on the Murman Coast were neither women nor 
 public -houses, and, with the disappearance of these twin 
 temptations of sea-faring youth, the punishment list had 
 also dwindled to near vanishing point. The trawler 
 crews did not even have a rum ration, and year in, year 
 out, through periods of the most ferocious cold and 
 exposure, remained perforce teetotallers. Day and night 
 the great proportion of the Squadron's crews were 
 laboriously working in shifts — coaling, watering ship 
 from the boats, hoisting out and transferring cargoes, 
 together with the drills, boat work, small arm exercise, 
 painting, general cleaning and spit and polish which form 
 the ordinary life of a man-of-warsman. It is a life, 
 indeed, of which it can be even more truly said than that 
 of woman that the " work is never done." 
 
 On board the ship I found installed an abnormal 
 number, of pets, the most numerous of which wese 
 
Christian Commodores 61 
 
 several parti-coloured specimens of the local Lap dog, 
 a mongrel and much mixed breed. 
 
 But she who undoubtedly took first place in the sailors' 
 affections was the ship's cat. Your sailor is ever a 
 sportsman, and to those with sporting instincts the cat 
 introduced just that element of chance to his life which 
 meant so much. And the reason? It was that pussy 
 was of the feminine sex, capricious and uncertain in all 
 her ways, and much addicted to the procreation of 
 kittens. Need I add that no better subject for the run- 
 ning of a sweepstake was ever devised by man than the 
 date, hour, and locality of the next feline " happy event," 
 nor than the number, sex, and markings of the kittens. 
 
 The pros and cons of this abstruse subject were studied 
 eagerly by all on board; and, in fact, nearly every one 
 of the lower-deck messes had rigged up a sumptuous 
 nesting box for Madame Chat, and prodigally squan- 
 dered canteen kippers in an effort to secure her favour, 
 for there were none but would have considered it an 
 honour and of good omen had Tabitha selected their 
 own special sanctum in which to fulfil her destiny. 
 
 It was somewhat later on, in the last few days of 
 summer, that we were enabled to add yet another form 
 of pet to our menagerie : the newcomers were the little 
 Arctic lemmings, or " lemons," as the sailors invariably 
 styled them. 
 
 A lemming is a bright, fat, cheerful little rodent, not 
 far removed from the guinea-pig in appearance, if not 
 by descent, only it is much smaller, with a short, shrew- 
 like tail and adorned with the prettiest of black-and-tan 
 coats with a cream-coloured underside. 
 
 None of us had ever seen a lemming previous to the 
 late summer of 1916, and then somebody found one 
 hanging on to a fender which had been put over the 
 side preparatory to coaling ship. The next day three or 
 four more were found in the same way, and this was 
 followed by a report from an individual who happened 
 to go on shore that the little animals were simply 
 
62 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 swarming there. The report proved to be correct; there 
 were literally millions and millions of them, and they were 
 obviously migrating - . A strange sight it was, for these 
 small animals, only slightly larger than a dormouse, 
 appeared to be impelled by some instinct which caused 
 them to heed no obstacle. Boldly they swam wide rivers, 
 and countless thousands of them put out to sea and 
 perished ; it was such as these that we had found clinging 
 to the fenders we had put over the ship's side, and the 
 ship was half a mile from the shore. At Yukanskie 
 itself, the river which lay to the east of us was a hundred 
 yards wide, yet in places it was nearly choked by their 
 dead bodies. 
 
 As I was also in the Arctic during the following 
 summer of 1917, I looked forward to learning more of 
 these lemmings and their strange ways ; but, to my sur- 
 prise, and in spite of the most careful search, I could 
 not come across a s.ingle one of them. The only traces 
 of their presence which I could discover were in the 
 immense number of pellets of fur and bones ejected by 
 the owls which had eaten them. This suddenness with 
 which the lemming appears from apparently nowhere, 
 and then again as suddenly disappears, was well known 
 to the ancients, and was the cause of a great deal of 
 superstition being attached to them. While the snow 
 still lies anywhere its surface is fairly riddled by holes 
 and burrows, these, as we soon discovered, having been 
 made by Master Lemming in his efforts to get at the 
 roots and berries underneath, upon which he feeds. At 
 such time as there is snow the lemming, with his bright 
 coloured markings, is very conspicuous, for, unlike his 
 North American cousin, he does not turn white in 
 winter. When surprised on the surface he becomes 
 more guinea-pig-like than ever, for, instead of escaping 
 quietly, he rushes around in circles, squeaking excitedly, 
 so that it is almost impossible to overlook him. Once 
 caught, the lemming in a very few hours becomes tame, 
 and makes the prettiest of pets imaginable, sitting up 
 
Christian Commodores 63 
 
 on his haunches and eating after the manner of a 
 squirrel. Unfortunately, however, he is an inveterate 
 fighter, and if two are put into the same cage their com- 
 panionship is quickly ended by a fierce duel, which 
 results in the death of one or both of them. For some 
 reason the lemming is very difficult to keep in captivity. 
 I possessed two which lived for longer than any of the 
 others on board; in fact, I succeeded in getting them 
 back to England with me and in keeping them there a 
 further three months, then, although apparently in the 
 best of health and spirits, they in turn died suddenly 
 without any visible preliminary illness. 
 
 As for the strange migrating habits of the lemming, 
 I inquired of the British Museum as to whether there 
 were any accepted explanation of it. Apparently there 
 was none. But one official, less cautious than the others, 
 suggested that it may possibly be a relic of that dim 
 and distant past when Europe was still joined to North 
 America by a bridge of land passing through Iceland. 
 In those distant epochs of the world's history the lem- 
 ming may have acquired a habit of migrating westward 
 at certain seasons of the year, and this habit, having 
 become an instinct, still continues, although for ages 
 this land bridge has disappeared. Some instinct cer- 
 tainly does compel them to commit suicide in millions 
 by swimming out to sea, although nowadays this instinct 
 is apparently of no more use than the human appendix, 
 that other inconvenient relic of long-vanished ages. 
 Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that the 
 lemming now only inhabits the extreme north-west 
 corner of Europe, although there is no visible reason 
 why it should not flourish equally elsewhere, and its fossil 
 remains are common in Britain. 
 
 With the end of June the Arctic spring commenced 
 suddenly to blaze forth ; in those granite fastnesses where 
 previously there had been visible nothing but snow, with 
 an outcrop of lichen-covered boulders, there magically 
 appeared a wealth of flowers. The islands in a few nights 
 
64 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 became pink with flowering mountain azaleas, dwarf 
 shrubs only an inch or, two in height, while bilberry, 
 cloudberry, and wild raspberry blossomed in profusion. 
 The yellow pansy, the blue of the dog and also of the 
 bog-violet spangled the grass which had sprung up, and 
 many varieties of scarlet and purple vetches made sterile 
 patches to glow with colour. In the damper parts large 
 and delicate pale green ferns thrust themselves forth 
 from beneath sheltering boulders, and the watercourses 
 shone golden with king-cups and the spherical flowers of 
 ranunculus as large as small tulips. 
 
 But the most conspicuous of all the plants at first were 
 sundry clusters of asparagus-like shoots, which, to our 
 unbotanically instructed eyes, appeared to be lilies-of-the- 
 valley. Eagerly the men dug them up, and, having duly 
 replanted them in boxes on board, awaited a rich floral 
 bouquet. Never before were there such giant lilies-of- 
 the-valley; they grew at the rate of a foot a week for 
 five weeks, and then, having reached maturity, flowered. 
 But the flowers were not lilies, but small green " con- 
 thaptions," as verdant as the leaves of the plant itself and 
 rather less interesting and conspicuous looking than 
 those of the common dock weed. Truly had the moun- 
 tain laboured and brought forth a mouse : the disgusted 
 sailors promptly consigned them to " the ditch," or, in 
 other words, dropped them overboard. 
 
 With the flowers came also flies and spiders, which, 
 before the snow was fully melted, could be seen in their 
 myriads nimbly skating over its surface ; these were also 
 shortly followed by magnificent-looking bumble-bees of 
 three or four species, and later on by dragon-flies. 
 
 In general, during the short Arctic summer, the 
 weather was calm and cool, broken by lengthy periods 
 of fog and Scotch mist. But on the 1st of July the sun 
 shone forth in a clear sky and it got considerably warmer, 
 and the first butterflies appeared. By the 6th of July the 
 thermometer had risen as high as 84 degrees in the shade, 
 and, though the temperature of the sea was not as yet 
 
Christian Commodores 65 
 
 much above freezing point, all the officers who could get 
 away indulged in a bathing picnic. 
 
 Such as it was, however, this picnic was the last for 
 many weeks, for a new and unexpected enemy had 
 appeared on the scene — an enemy more ruthless and rest- 
 destroying than ever the Kaiser's U boats. It was the 
 Arctic mosquito. 
 
 A few days previously to this we had noticed a few 
 mosquitoes sitting aimlessly about on the rocks, but as 
 they had not attempted to molest us in any way we had 
 taken little heed. The reason for this forbearance on 
 their part was that these were the harmless males who 
 hatch out several days in advance of the females, and, 
 unlike the latter, are content with the honey of flowers 
 and do not bite human beings. 
 
 But during the first week of July the female mosquitoes 
 also commenced to put in an appearance, and in countless 
 myriads swarmed everywhere. Having personally spent 
 many years in tropical climates, I was inclined to regard 
 with contempt insect pests which might occur elsewhere, 
 but I soon found I had cause to alter such views. Com- 
 pared with the Arctic mosquito, his tropical cousin is as 
 a harmless, unenterprising lamb to a hungry devouring 
 lion, and, whereas the timid tropic insect confines his 
 malarious ministrations mainly to the hours of darkness, 
 the Arctic fiend holds high orgy throughout the twenty- 
 four hours, for he is a daylight mosquito, and in the 
 Arctic summer the sun sets neither day nor night. 
 
 We were at that time wearing white cap-covers, and it 
 is no exaggeration to say that, within a few minutes of 
 going on shore, such cap-covers were a crawling treacly- 
 brown mass of mosquitoes, with no white visible. There 
 was indeed no malaria attached to their bites — the one 
 and only good point in their favour — but in an incredibly 
 short time they had invaded every corner of the ship and 
 made of the life of all on board one long-drawn-out curse. 
 An epidemic of small-pox could not have marked us all 
 more effectually. Many men were put on the sick-list 
 
 E 
 
66 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 by their stings, and on more than one occasion they 
 entirely stopped all work in the squadron; with the 
 greatest ease they bit through many suits of clothing, 
 and the only person who was immune and could afford 
 to laugh at their persecutions was the diver cased in his 
 rubber and armour-plated suit. The very dogs on board 
 went half mad and threw fits, the birds were driven from 
 their nests, small rodents in the open and even the butter- 
 flies could get no rest. Never was there plague like the 
 Arctic mosquito, an insect who made a hell of that tran- 
 sient Garden of Eden, these short five weeks of what 
 would have otherwise been a delightful season — the 
 Arctic summer. 
 
 Thanks to this experience I was, in the following 
 summer, enabled in a measure to prepare for this on- 
 slaught — the whole ship, fore and aft, was cased in with 
 mosquito-netting, every man had his own sleeping net 
 and a veil to protect his face in the daytime; some also 
 brought deterrent lotions, which they smeared over their 
 faces and hands. But in that, our first, summer of 1916 
 the mosquitoes caught us unprepared, and were wholly 
 contemptuous of tobacco or any other kind of smoke; it 
 was only during the colder spells and periods of rain, 
 wind and fog that they in any way abated their attacks. 
 At other times we were literally so blinded and maddened 
 by the pain of their stings that it was difficult to find one's 
 way about, or even to see through the brown haze of 
 their myriad bodies. 
 
 Mosquitoes were our main obsession for a while, but by 
 no means the only one. On the 3rd of July one of the 
 trawlers swept up and exploded a mine off Cape Danilov. 
 This mine was almost certainly a relic of the first year 
 of the war, during which Germany had laid several large 
 mine-fields in that neighbourhood. This was one of the 
 few survivors of that period. It was one of the blessings 
 of the Arctic that by far the greater proportion of enemy 
 mines laid during one summer were automatically 
 destroyed by the following season, for during the winter, 
 
Christian Commodores 67 
 
 as soon as the ice reached a thickness of ten feet or more, 
 its lower surface pressing down on the horns of the sub- 
 merged mines would cause them to become bent, and 
 thus touch off the mine without danger to anyone. The 
 consequent explosions and the vast upheaval of ice caused 
 by them were more than once witnessed by the keepers 
 of the shore lighthouses. Other mines, which had been 
 set too deep for the ice to reach them, were for the self- 
 same reason of very little danger to shipping, for they 
 were as a rule too low down to come into contact with 
 the ships' bottoms. Thus each spring we were able, 'so 
 far as mines were concerned, to start with what to all 
 intents and purposes was a clean sheet. 
 
 By the middle of July large numbers of huge jelly-fish 
 began to float past the ship, and we were able, by observ- 
 ing them, to gauge something of the strange tidal 
 currents by which we were beset at Yukanskie — currents 
 which were responsible for more than one heavy bump 
 of ship against ship and for others getting ashore. On 
 the surface a current would perhaps be running at two 
 knots to the eastward, while ten feet down, as we could 
 see by the jelly-fish, another current would often be 
 running at an equal speed across it, or in the opposite 
 direction. 
 
 Those officers who were fishermen and also sufficiently 
 pachydermatous to withstand the onslaught of the mos- 
 quitoes, after exploratory visits to the river and smaller 
 local streams, now began to come back with very fair 
 bags of salmon and also of brown and white sea-trout. 
 I myself took the opportunity to run up and visit the Lap 
 summer settlement, a small village in the Russian style 
 of timbered houses, situated some three or four miles up 
 the river. I found it to be incredibly filthy, and from 
 every roof hung the semi-decayed carcasses of reindeer, 
 placed there to be out of the reach of dogs. These Lap 
 inhabitants had a priest and were nominally Christians, 
 but I was told that heathen images could generally be 
 found hidden away somewhere or other in their boats. 
 
 E2 
 
68 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 These, however, had been degraded from the proud posi- 
 tion of family gods to the status of mere objects for abuse 
 and ill-treatment when the affairs of their owner did not 
 turn out as he desired — a form of religion which I believe 
 is not conclusively confined to the heathen Lap. 
 
 The Christian counterblast to this heathendom was to 
 be observed elsewhere in the large number of votive 
 crosses erected by the fishermen in conspicuous places 
 around the coast — the fulfilment of vows made while in 
 dire peril of the sea. At first I had mistaken these for 
 graves. The fact that the ground is solid granite and 
 that it is frozen for fully nine months every year makes 
 it difficult to find a spot anywhere with soil sufficiently 
 deep to effect an interment. 
 
 By the 17th of July the Princess Maud had finished lay- 
 ing the anti-submarine boom which she had brought with 
 her for the defence of Yukanskie. The boom certainly 
 gave us an increased feeling of confidence, for, by its 
 mere appearance, it helped to scare the underwater 
 gentlemen, much after the manner in which extended 
 cotton threads placed over seeds, by presenting the 
 appearance of a trap, serve to deter inquisitive and 
 marauding birds. The submarine could tell no more than 
 the bird what the real potentialities of the device might 
 be, and consequently feared the worst. 
 
 But since the truth may now be told, the wide meshed 
 wire net, such as formed our boom at Yukanskie and 
 that of many other outlying places, was not of sufficiently 
 strong design to stop a submarine, and it was not even 
 intended to stop torpedoes. There was, in fact, nothing 
 to stop a submarine lying off the place and browning 
 the assembled shipping at long range with his torpedoes ; 
 sometimes there was a trawler on patrol duty at the 
 entrance, but as a rule the trawlers were far too precious 
 as mine sweepers for us to be able to spare one for such 
 work. Yet throughout the whole war I believe there 
 was no single case on record, except at the very begin- 
 ning, of a submarine having attempted to force such 
 
Christian Commodores 69 
 
 defences; they therefore, in spite of their shortcomings, 
 served as a most useful deterrent. 
 
 The local coasting schooners were, however, a thorn 
 in our side, for, until they became aware of the nets' 
 existence, they were constantly running over them in the 
 dark and getting tangled up as a result — an experience 
 which appeared to cause their crews very great terror, 
 they not knowing what new and deadly warlike contriv- 
 ance they were foul of. This was a state of mind which 
 we did all in our power to encourage, and strove to 
 impress upon all Russians the belief that the boom was 
 heavily mined, a fiction which the numerous buoys 
 employed to float the nets served to confirm in their 
 imaginations. Like all other news, true or fabulous, in 
 Russia, I have no doubt that it soon afterwards found 
 its way to Germany, and was, I trust, believed there. 
 
 During the summer and autumn, the period of the year 
 in which the White Sea remained free of ice, the British 
 Commodore-in-Charge, North Russia, used to make 
 frequent trips from Arkhangel in his yacht to Yukanskie, 
 Murmansk, and other places along the coast. It was 
 during such visits that we were able to learn something 
 of the internal state of Russia and discuss the limited 
 news of events in the outside world which came our way. 
 A white-haired, rugged personality was this representa- 
 tive of Britain's far-flung sea power, and quite one of the 
 toughest specimens of humanity it has ever been my good 
 fortune to meet. In spite of his more than three-score 
 years of bachelor existence, he held in contempt both 
 the climate and the mosquitoes. In the winter months 
 in North Russia the thermometer often registered 
 60 degrees of frost, yet he considered it almost effemi- 
 nate to wear extra clothing; so much was this so that 
 it became a proverb among the Russians at Arkhangel 
 that " It must indeed be a cold day when the British 
 Admiral puts on an overcoat." Of the most generous 
 nature imaginable, he posed as a lady-hater ; but I fancy 
 this attitude was mere camouflage on his part, and but 
 
70 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 a manoeuvre to cover his own excessive timidity with 
 regard to the sex. At dinner parties I fear we soon fell 
 into a reprehensible habit of bating him on this matter, 
 and of discussing such subjects as " Votes for women." 
 This and kindred political topics never failed as a sure 
 draw, for the Commodore, having torn out several 
 handfuls of his own plentiful white hair, would spring 
 to his feet and, with flashing eyes, roar forth his con- 
 tempt for woman and all her ways. We, in the absence of 
 the fair sex, enacted the role of her defenders, no matter 
 how foolish the subject of discussion might be ; and thus 
 the battle waged until the small hours of the morning, 
 whereupon the Commodore (who, in spite of all his heat, 
 had been thoroughly enjoying himself) would take his 
 departure. This officer spoke Russian well, but his 
 salient characteristic was like that of Don Quixote — a 
 predisposition to tilt at windmills. In his case, how- 
 ever, the windmills took the form of the acts and ordi- 
 nances of their Lordships of the Admiralty — an institu- 
 tion which he, like a goodly number of other naval 
 officers, appeared to regard as only one place removed 
 from hell-fire, a locality into which he hoped that it 
 might fall speedily. It was alleged of him (I know not 
 with what truth) that so great was his dislike of naval 
 officialdom that during the many years that he was in 
 North Russia he had never sent in one single written 
 report, but contented himself with the vagaries of the 
 telegraph. If that were indeed the case, it helps to 
 explain in some measure the Admiralty's gross ignor- 
 ance as a whole of the conditions under which the Arctic 
 Squadron existed. 
 
 The arrival of the Commodore's yacht at Yukanskie 
 was usually the signal for a mild outburst of festivities- 
 such, at any rate, as we were able to indulge in under 
 the exigencies of active service, and with the very limited 
 resources at our disposal. In the food line we were cir- 
 cumscribed by the narrow circle of Navy rations and the 
 slender stocks of a nearly empty canteen. Fresh meat 
 
5\ 
 
 z 
 
 
 
Christian Commodores 71 
 
 often did not come our way for weeks, and fresh vege- 
 tables, with the exception of occasional much-sprouted 
 potatoes, rarely or never. Ingenuity, therefore, in the 
 devising of dishes made from unsuspected articles was 
 of value, and, thanks to my five months' training as a 
 prisoner in the desert, my mind was perhaps more open 
 to the inception of new gastronomic ideas than those 
 of my fellows, limited by custom in their views of what 
 was good to eat. 
 
 As the result of a few hours spent on shore I, by dili- 
 gent search, had quickly unearthed many unsuspected 
 dainties in a land which we had thought held little but 
 snow and granite; by means of my discoveries I was 
 able to provide my guests with both salad, meat, and 
 floral adornment. The islands I found to be literally 
 clothed with wild onions, of a tough and wiry sort, no 
 doubt, but which, nevertheless, when secured at a suffi- 
 ciently tender age, resembled, at least in odour, the 
 spring onion of our own happy land. Add to this the 
 fact that at a more mature age these onions developed 
 magnificent mauve blooms, set on stems a yard and 
 more in length, eminentlv suitable for table adornment, 
 and you will see what a first-rate find I had already made. 
 Besides these onions, I found also sorrel growing abun- 
 dantly, not to mention a few dandelions and a species 
 of wild celery — in fact, all the makings of a first-rate 
 salad. Upon the sea-shore itself were numbers of a 
 small kind of mussel, and very often under the seaweed 
 a hideous black rock-fish with a sucker under its chin — 
 a monstrosity known to the men as a " Jerusalem had- 
 dock." Many useful dishes could be made from the 
 mussels, and as for the " haddock," it was full of roe, 
 which the Russian epicures opined was similar to that 
 used in caviare. Sea-birds were also numerous, and we 
 very soon found that all of them without exception — 
 skuas, divers, gulls, and guillemots — were most excel- 
 lent eating, for once their skin had been removed they 
 had no fishy taste. As for the black guillemots, which 
 
72 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 up here in the breeding season are not black, but very 
 elegant black-and-white birds with coral-coloured feet, 
 they were as tender, plump, and savoury as the best of 
 partridges. Man will do much to obtain variety in his 
 food, and some of the sailors actually boiled down and 
 ate an ancient dog-fox, which had rashly strayed on to 
 our island and got shot. 
 
 Here is a menu typical of all the many dinners which 
 it was my wont to give in those days to the Commodore 
 and to the various Russian and British captains — a menu 
 at which my guests, in their blissful ignorance of its 
 true wherewithal, smacked their lips, and one which, to 
 this day, still brings a smile to my own: — 
 
 Hors d'CEuvres — Caviare (made from the roe of " Jerusalem 
 
 haddock »). 
 Soup — Mariniere (made from fish-heads and condensed milk) 
 Game Fie (made from sea-gulls and " Fanny Adams," alias tinned 
 
 beef). 
 Salad (made from wild onions, sorrel, dandelions, and a celery- 
 
 ' like herb). 
 Roast Partridge (camouflaged guillemot). 
 Ice Pudding — Bombe glacee a la Yukanskie (snow, condensed milk, 
 
 and tinned pineapples). 
 
 Needless to say, that part of the menu which I have 
 inserted between parentheses for the reader's information 
 was not revealed to my guests. Occasionally some of 
 them complained subsequently of certain pains and 
 qualms, but I had only to point out to them my own per- 
 fect health (I think I could eat concrete and india-rubber 
 mixed without suffering inconvenience) to convince them 
 that such internal inharmony as they felt could not pos- 
 sibly be due to my dinner. There can be no question, 
 however, that these dinners were much appreciated and, 
 whatever their subsequent effects, did much to assure 
 international harmony between us and our then Russian 
 allies. 
 
 Sometimes, of course, there were red-letter days when 
 I really had genuine articles to offer, and when " game " 
 was not simply skinned sea-gulls. On one memorable 
 
Christian Commodores 73 
 
 occasion my steward, worthy fellow that he was, put up 
 a brace of ptarmigan with their family covey of young 
 birds. As the latter, besides being young, were also 
 innocent and not yet able to fly overwell, and as more- 
 over there was plenty of ammunition in the nature of 
 stones available, he, by the simple Davidian method, 
 succeeded in " downing " and bringing off two plump 
 young ptarmigan. 
 
 If any man ever possessed such a thing, this steward 
 of mine most certainly bore a charmed life — and there 
 was nothing which he was not prepared to eat. When a 
 specially poisonous-looking fish came along, it was 
 always first given to him to sample; then, if within 
 twenty-four hours he was still alive, and was not suffer- 
 ing from obvious and acute pain, it was considered safe 
 to offer to my guests. 
 
 In the giving of dinner-parties I was not alone, for the 
 Ward Room officers also indulged in festivities of a like 
 nature. Their menu was often but little less ersatz than 
 my own : they had also an added attraction with which 
 I could not vie — it was that amongst their number was 
 the ship's surgeon, a noted naturalist, whose special 
 hobby it was to collect parasites. Hence it arose that, 
 before any guest was taken in to dinner, and in place of 
 an apSritif, he was given something else with which to 
 whet his appetite, namely, a private view of the doctor's 
 bottled horrors. These parasitic horrors ranged from 
 the six-foot-long tape-worm which inhabits the Russian 
 salmon down to such comparatively innocuous creatures 
 as thread-worms and microscopic lice from birds and 
 small animals; for, whatever was slain under the name 
 of " game," it was always recognised that the doctor had 
 the priority of right of scientific search. Their appetites 
 having thus been suitably stimulated by the aid of vision, 
 the guests were then taken down and fed; but the crux 
 of the whole joke was that, having well eaten, they were 
 then told exactly which of the animals previously seen in 
 bottles had inhabited their dinner when in the life. 
 
74 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Another pastime in which the Ward Room engaged 
 was that of horticulture. In fact, their passion for it 
 grew to such lengths that the paymaster eventually had 
 to prohibit the sale of Admiralty flannel to officers, for, 
 owing to its suitability as a medium for the cultivation 
 of mustard and cress, he found himself faced with the 
 fact of the near approach of winter and greatly depleted 
 stocks of that most useful article. Thwarted in this 
 direction, the officers then had recourse to other uses 
 for their little cabin allotment patches — a new form of 
 intensive culture was soon brought to birth. It was 
 found that the potatoes in the ship's store had, for some 
 unknown ' reason, developed a tremendous growth of. 
 " whiskers " — whiskers being the term by which we 
 designated the long pendulous roots which they had 
 sprouted. Each officer having selected his own potato, 
 labelled it with a pef name, ornamented it with red tape, 
 and entered it for the competition. On Sunday morn- 
 ings the potatoes were duly and in order displayed upon 
 a shelf in the Ward Room, and, having been judged by 
 some impartial person, the prize was awarded to the 
 happy owner of that tuber which possessed the most 
 luxurious crop of " whiskers " and was of the most 
 grotesque appearance. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF MINES AND MUTTON AND AUTUMNAL FRUITS, OF CLEO'S 
 VICTIMS LOSING SUITS, OF NAVAL CAPTAINS TEARING 
 HAIR, AND, LAST OF ALL — A RUSSIAN BEAR. 
 
 BY the time that mid-July had arrived I began to feel 
 that I was at length beginning to grasp something 
 of the peculiar local conditions ; my mind no longer felt 
 so completely in a whirl, and my brain, in place of being 
 a mere sponge engrossed in the absorption of informa- 
 tion, began to recover something of its normal functions 
 as a reasoning and creative medium. One of our greatest 
 difficulties in the Arctic was that there were no dry docks 
 within reach; yet the trawlers, upon whose efficiency as 
 mine-sweepers the main utility of the Arctic Squadron 
 most chiefly depended, were constantly running ashore 
 and damaging their propellers. By some expedient or 
 other these damaged propellors had to be taken off and 
 replaced by the spare ones carried on board the collier; 
 beaching the trawlers was the only method then known 
 to us by which this could be done with no dry-docks 
 available, and it was not until the following season that 
 we discovered and developed a new method for doing it 
 under water by the aid of divers alone. The difficulty 
 on that rocky, iron-bound coast of finding a suitably 
 sheltered strip of sand on which such beaching could 
 safely take place, and at which moreover the spring tides 
 fell sufficiently to expose the propeller-boss at low water 
 to allow of a fire being built under it, were very great. 
 The nearest we knew of was at Trekh Island, more than 
 
 75 
 
76 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 a hundred miles away. And even at Trekh Island 
 beached trawlers were very exposed to any heavy weather 
 which might come on from seaward ; it was always on the 
 cards that the trawler herself might be pounded to pieces 
 by the seas before the work could be completed. With 
 the end in view of trying to find a safer beaching place, 
 I took the first opportunity of a lull in the pressure of 
 work to take my ship to sea and also to visit Ivanovski, 
 a small sheltered harbour near at hand, hard by Cape 
 Cherni; Ivanovski also proved to be a rock-strewn spot, 
 but we at length found there a suitable strip of sand. 
 
 On the 19th of July another mine was exploded off 
 Svyatoi Nos, and, although this was seventeen miles 
 distant from Yukanskie, we in harbour there all felt the 
 concussion, which seemed to lift the ship. This mine 
 had not been swept up in the ordinary way by the 
 trawlers, but suddenly rose to the surface close to one, it 
 having been broken from its moorings by age and the 
 force of the tide. 
 
 This mine we hoped and believed to belong to one of 
 the old German mine-fields, but, as the Roumanian 
 s.s. Bristrita reported shortly afterwards having sighted 
 a submarine heading our way, and some one hundred and 
 twenty miles distant from the North Cape — and this first 
 report having been corroborated by two others — it 
 became evident that the U boats' spring campaign was 
 about to commence, and that thereafter we must prepare 
 for all eventualities. 
 
 Meanwhile the material comfort of the squadron was 
 steadily increasing; a ship had arrived with a supply of 
 frozen beef, and for a time, at any rate, we were not 
 compelled to resort to the flesh of sea-gulls as a substi- 
 tute for fresh meat. The work of the squadron went 
 busily along, and much was done to sound the harbour 
 and to mark down and buoy such of the uncharted rocks 
 as were not already sufficiently advertised by the 
 presence on them of wrecked Russian vessels. It was 
 at this time also that we succeeded in finding and recover- 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 77 
 
 ing the Arlansa's anchors and cables. These heavy 
 chains at the bottom of the harbour had already caused 
 several other vessels to lose their anchors, they having 
 accidentally hooked them. The enormous weight of this 
 cable made its salvage very difficult and heavy work, 
 each single link being more than any two men could lift. 
 The Arlanza herself was a large armed merchant cruiser 
 engaged in conveying a military mission to Russia, and, 
 her voyage, like Lord Kitchener's subsequent one in the 
 Hampshire, had ended by her striking a mine. More 
 fortunate than the Hampshire, she, instead of founder- 
 ing, had only had her bows blown in, and had succeeded 
 in making Yukanskie. At Yukanskie she had spent the 
 previous winter, in great anxiety and peril due to ice 
 pressure, but, having weathered this successfully, had 
 been able to proceed for home under escort in the spring. 
 Her windlasses and capstans having all been destroyed, 
 she had had to let her cables run overboard on departure, 
 and thus they had remained, a pyramidal heap of metal 
 and a danger to all other ships, until we had found and 
 removed them. 
 
 On shore, those who were able to face the mosquitoes, 
 the plague of which had by no means abated, found the 
 floral landscape rapidly changing; a profusion of hare- 
 bells and large chamomile daisies having taken the place 
 of the ranunculus, vetches, onion, and other blooms. 
 With the end of July a Russian surveying ship arrived 
 on the scene, carrying as part of her complement a lady 
 surveyor — a businesslike-looking individual garbed in 
 breeches and long boots. Rocks were whitewashed and 
 beacons erected in the orthodox manner, a sight which 
 inspired us with hopes that by the following spring we 
 might have a somewhat more reliable chart of our 
 surroundings at Yukanskie. 
 
 On the 1st of August we had our first warning of the 
 approach of winter, for with it a chill gale of rain and sleet 
 set in, bringing with them the first few flakes of snow. 
 A passing vessel reported having sighted off the North 
 
78 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Cape many floating bodies in naval uniform, but whether 
 these were merely relics of Jutland or evidence of more 
 recent submarine activities I found myself unable to 
 decide. 
 
 The arrival of a flock of sheep, a hundred in number, 
 sent out by the Admiralty to Yukanskie, was in some 
 ways perhaps the event of the year; it will certainly 
 remain green in the memories of many in the Intrepid 
 long after other events of the Great War have faded 
 from their minds. This was an entirely new responsi- 
 bility to us as seamen, and we were adding to our already 
 multitudinous duties a further one — the care and nurture 
 of sheep — a duty which we at first took light-heartedly, 
 not dreaming that therein we were storing up tribulation 
 for the future. 
 
 Ever since my arrival, more than a month previously, 
 these sheep had been an apple of discord. The men for 
 many weeks had been living mainly upon salt and tinned 
 provisions, and the doctor was getting somewhat 
 nervous as to a possible outbreak of scurvy. In reply 
 to many urgent requests for fresh meat, the Admiralty 
 had demanded by telegram a reply to what must have 
 seemed to them a simple question. It was as to whether, 
 yes or no, there was suitable accommodation for pastur- 
 ing live stock at Yukanskie, and, in the event of this being 
 feasible, whether sheep or cattle were the more suitable. 
 They also asked how many were required and whether 
 hay was procurable locally. 
 
 After heated all-night discussions with all and sundry 
 whom it was hoped might have some faint knowledge 
 of cattle rearing, I had in desperation telegraphed a 
 reply to the effect that a hundred sheep accustomed to a 
 mountainous country were required, and added that there 
 was ample pasturage, but that a small stock of hay was 
 also advisable. 
 
 To the uninitiated, this must seem a very simple 
 problem to have caused us so much worry, but the reader 
 should try to realise how we were circumstanced. To 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 79 
 
 begin with, the country itself was one vast howling 
 wilderness of snow, totally unenclosed. Even in June 
 little was visible above the snow save a few lichen- 
 covered boulders, and the only grazing animals known 
 locally were reindeer — and they, as we knew, lived on 
 moss. In fact, we had no idea at all whether later on 
 grass or other edible herbs would appear to sustain the 
 sheep. As for pasturing them out, the mainland was, 
 where all was desert, undoubtedly more fertile than the 
 islands; but, the country being entirely unenclosed, as 
 someone pointed out, if the sheep were loosed on the 
 mainland, in a very short time they would have " spread 
 all over Russia." It was therefore decided to maroon 
 the unfortunate sheep on the island nearest to the ship, 
 a rocky expanse two miles in length and a prison from 
 which they could not escape. There, we hoped, they 
 would be sufficiently circumscribed, and that we should 
 be able to keep in touch with them. Owing, however, 
 to the rocky and precipitous nature of their future home, 
 and also in view of the severity of the climate, I thought 
 it best to compromise, and asked that sheep of an active 
 mountain breed should be sent. It was those final words 
 which were our undoing ! 
 
 It was on a Friday, the 4th of August, that the sheep 
 duly arrived, accompanied with mountains of hay and of 
 oil-cake. They appeared to be weak and docile after 
 their three weeks' sea voyage, and we landed them with- 
 out much difficulty, despite the afore-mentioned moun- 
 tains of fodder accompanying them; this we floated on 
 shore on rafts made from drifting timber. The animals 
 were obviously pleased at their change of locale from 
 their confined quarters on board ship, and were also 
 very tame ; once ashore they commenced to graze quietly, 
 the lichens and mosquitoes which the island provided 
 being apparently much to their taste. We began to con- 
 gratulate ourselves on having emerged so successfully 
 from a difficult situation. In fact, so quiet were the 
 sheep, it never occurred to us that later on there might 
 
8o Under the Black Ensign 
 
 possibly be any difficulty in rounding them up when 
 mutton was required. 
 
 The advent of the sheep at Yukanskie was soon noised 
 abroad — I received urgent telegrams for mutton from 
 Murmansk, and yet others from Arkhangel. The sheep 
 having been rested for a fortnight, and apparently 
 having put on weight from their strange dietary, it 
 seemed good that some of them should be converted into 
 mutton. The paymaster, the butcher, and some half- 
 dozen satellites were accordingly landed on sheep- 
 murder intent. The dinner hour passed, tea-time came, 
 and anxious telescopes scanned the rocky slopes of the 
 island, but still there were no signs of the hunters' return. 
 It was not until late evening that a dejected, weary, and 
 mosquito-bitten group was seen dragging its way down 
 to the shore, and they had with them — one sheep. It was 
 a sad disillusionment ; the Admiralty had taken us at our 
 word, and for once given us exactly what we had asked 
 for — an active, mountain-climbing breed of sheep ! And 
 now that we had them, they were hardly what our hearts 
 desired; more fleet than greyhounds, more active than 
 chamois, they defied our every effort at capture. 
 
 For the first six or seven days there was no lack of 
 volunteers for sheep-capturing expeditions; everybody 
 thought that they could catch sheep — until they tried! 
 Each succeeding evening saw the same recurring 
 spectacle of a disgruntled returning crowd of swearing, 
 sweating, tattered seamen — and never, by any chance, 
 did they bring back with them more than two, or, at the 
 outside, three sheep. Such numbers were useless in a 
 squadron numbering over a thousand souls. 
 
 Telegrams for mutton continued to pour in, each 
 hinting subtly that I personally was keeping the sheep 
 for my own private table and selfish personal ends, when, 
 as a matter of fact, the mere mention of the word mutton 
 was by then sufficient to give me an acute feeling of 
 nausea. Yet another telegram came, and this time it 
 was from the Commodore himself; it announced his 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 81 
 
 proposed arrival at Yukanskie in his yacht on the 
 morrow, and stated that he would require six sheep — a 
 hitherto unheard-of number. 
 
 Goaded to madness, it was then that in desperation I 
 had recourse to a project which for some time had been 
 floating through my mind. Without further ado, I made 
 a general signal to land the small-arm men, taking with 
 them every available rifle and fifty rounds of ball car- 
 tridge apiece. An hour later some hundred and fifty 
 stalwarts in blue were assembling ashore for the fray, 
 taking also, the result of bitter experience, their dinners 
 with them. The plan was to extend the sailors in 
 skirmishing order right across the island, and by this 
 means to drive the flock into one corner. From the ship 
 we could see little, and all day long I listened anxiously 
 to the bursts of furious rifle fire. For all concerned it 
 was a hot and bloody day. The fight waxed fast and 
 furious, and the sheep outwitted and outmanoeuvred the 
 seamen at every point. One poor old ram, indeed, got 
 himself bayoneted in a gallant attempt to break through 
 the line of angry sailors, but in the end a comparative 
 success was achieved. Nearly thirty victims, riddled with 
 shot, were the result of the affray. The stretcherTmen, 
 having shouldered the carcasses, the heated and 
 exhausted landing party returned in triumph. On his 
 advent upon the morrow the Commodore was able to get 
 his mutton. 
 
 These sheep, it might be thought, were already a suffi- 
 cient annoyance to ordinary human beings on active 
 service; but the Admiralty, in their wisdom, had thought 
 it necessary to inflict yet another pin-prick. The year 
 1916 was a year of wool shortage; wherefore with the 
 sheep had come an imperative order that on no account 
 were any of them to be killed until they had first been 
 shorn of their fleeces. In the Arctic Squadron we had 
 many skilled ratings, but, with all their talents, not one 
 could be found who numbered sheep-shearing among 
 his accomplishments. Another small matter was the fact 
 
 F 
 
82 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 that the whole of North Russia and the combined 
 resources of the Allied Squadrons between them were 
 unable to produce a single pair of shears or other instru- 
 ment of any kind suitable for the clipping of wool. Even 
 had such been forthcoming, the Admiralty memorandum 
 had failed to suggest how one was first to shear an animal 
 which could never be approached within a hundred 
 yards, and whose death was only to be achieved after a 
 long stalk and a lucky shot from a .303 rifle. An attempt 
 was indeed made to cut the wool from some of the 
 animals' skins with a pair of scissors ; but this proved so 
 laborious and ineffective that in the end it was aban- 
 doned. The pelts had to be sent home with the wool still 
 on them, and a request that they might be sheared at the 
 other end — a matter to which their Lordships vouchsafed 
 no reply. 
 
 But more pressing matters even than mutton now 
 began to absorb my attention, for on the 5th of August 
 the ss. Hector, homeward bound from Arkhangel, 
 reported having passed within a few feet of a floating 
 mine in the Gorla. Trawlers were sent at once to 
 examine the spot, though at first we consoled ourselves 
 with the thought that it was probably only another relic 
 of the old minefield. Such hopes were, however, soon 
 shattered, for by the following day the mine-sweepers 
 had reported that they had discovered moored mines of 
 the submarine type. These mines laid by submarines 
 differ from others in having no central horn, and thus, 
 once sighted, are easily distinguishable. With fresh 
 mines definitely known to exist in the war-channel, it 
 became necessary to at once hold up traffic to and from 
 Arkhangel, and to endeavour to stop ships already on 
 their way. The whole of our little trawler force of six- 
 teen vessels at once put to sea, and they, being faster 
 than Russian telegrams (they could steam ten miles an 
 hour), managed to intercept much of the shipping before 
 it got to the dangerous area. They could not intercept 
 it all, however, for the Russian s.s. Kovda, striking a 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 83 
 
 mine, was sunk, and at the same time a small coasting 
 schooner, the Alexei, encountering another in the dark, 
 was blown clean in half, losing three out of her crew of 
 six. She, however, being timber laden, did not sink, and 
 I was able to have her stern half towed into Yukanskie — 
 a noteworthy object-lesson in the explosive force of 
 mines, for had she been severed by a giant pair of 
 shears, such cutting could not have been done more 
 cleanly and neatly. But the loss of these two vessels 
 was not all, for one of the mine-sweeping trawlers also 
 met her doom. This was the John High, commanded 
 by her skipper of the same name, who, sweeping with a 
 group of other trawlers over the new minefield, was 
 suddenly blown to matchwood by a mine which rose 
 under her bottom. There was a raging sea at the time, 
 and out of her crew of sixteen there was only one sur- 
 vivor, the mate, who happened to be right in the bow 
 with his lifebelt on. When the mine exploded he was 
 blown overboard, and suffered no injury beyond shock 
 caused by immersion in that icy, turbulent sea ; his com- 
 panions were never seen again. 
 
 For a week from the 6th of August the sweepers had 
 an anxious time ; but they accounted for practically the 
 whole of the submarine's cargo, for they destroyed 
 twenty-nine mines out of a possible thirty-six. In such 
 mine-sweeping, while the tide was running at its greatest 
 strength, the mines would be dragged down by its force 
 to a depth of perhaps fifty feet ; the trawlers, who them- 
 selves drew sixteen feet of water, could consequently 
 pass safely over them. But when the tide slackened, and 
 this it generally did suddenly, the mines would rise close 
 to the surface, and if a ship happened to be over the spot 
 it meant " Good-by-e-e," that being what had actually 
 happened in the case of the John High. Such a happen- 
 ing was a continuous imminent peril, and Captain Hurt, 
 the senior officer of the mine-sweepers, found himself on 
 more than one occasion with half-a-dozen mines which 
 had risen, and were breaking the surface all around him. 
 
 F2 
 
84 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 But the courage of all those in mine-sweepers was of 
 tempered steel, their energy and resourcefulness without 
 measure; in spite of a heavy gale from the north, the 
 interruptions caused by periods of dense fog, and the 
 increasing length of the nights, they had in four days 
 cleared one side of the war-channel, and traffic was once 
 more able to proceed to and fro from Arkhangel. This 
 latter was always the most urgent of all matters, for 
 not only was it extremely important to get the umost 
 quantity of coal and munitions into Russia before Ark- 
 hangel froze up for the winter, but it was necessary also 
 to clear the harbour of Yukanskie of shipping, for, due 
 to the delay caused by the " hold up," it had become 
 dangerously congested, and some fifty ships were 
 crowded into that small port. 
 
 On the 17th of August a submarine mine-layer was 
 sighted off the Norwegian coast, homeward bound for 
 Germany, it most probably being the one who had laid 
 the mine-field and had been sighted outward bound on 
 the 25th of May. At that time German submarines did 
 not hesitate to use the Norwegian Fiords, the Nor- 
 wegians themselves, though probably much disliking 
 such guests (which preyed unmercifully upon their own 
 commerce), being quite impotent to prevent them. 
 
 Alarums we had in plenty during the following weeks, 
 and the Russian imagination having now been thoroughly 
 aroused, reports of submarines, mostly fictitious, were 
 showered upon us from every direction. We had an 
 unpleasant shock also when, without any warning, one 
 afternoon a submarine steamed into Yukanskie. The 
 visitor proved to be a Russian, though neither the 
 Russian authorities nor myself had had any warning of 
 her expected advent ; had we sunk her off-hand the blame 
 would have been entirely on the shoulders of those who 
 had thus sent her. She was on her way to Murmansk, and 
 not long afterwards accidentally sank at her moorings 
 during the night, and remained thus on the bottom until 
 the end of the war. 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 85 
 
 The Germans having by this time rendered the passage 
 of British submarines round Denmark to the Baltic 
 impracticable, a new method was devised to get them into 
 German home waters. In pursuance of this, four British 
 C Class submarines, lightened by the removal of their 
 heavy storage batteries, etc., arrived at Yukanskie on 
 the 18th of August, whence, proceeding to Arkhangel, 
 they were transported across Russia by river and canal 
 in a sort of floating dock from the White Sea to the 
 Baltic. This remarkably well-organised and successful 
 operation gave us high hopes that we should hear much 
 of their work in the following spring — hopes, however, 
 which, like many others, were dashed by the supineness 
 and jealousy of Russian officialdom, which prevented 
 their ever being usefully employed. Later, when the 
 Bolsheviki took charge, their fate was sealed. 
 
 Towards the end of August a fourth armed boarding 
 steamer, the Tithonus, arrived on the station, and she, 
 being armed with six-inch guns, was a most useful addi- 
 tion to our small fighting forces, -ior the Intrepid and 
 Iphigenia were armed with nothing heavier than four 
 point sevens. Moreover, she carried what to us was of 
 at least equal importance — a cold-storage room, filled to 
 the brim with frozen beef ; no longer were we dependent 
 upon our agility and sureness of aim for our daily 
 meat! 
 
 On shore the autumn fruits were now ripening, and of 
 the low-growing cloud-berries there was quite a con- 
 siderable crop. As a fruit, the cloud-berry is insipid and 
 uninteresting, it being composed of little beside large- 
 sized pips enclosed by a watery bag ; but the men gathered 
 the berries eagerly, and from them made jam and jellies 
 which were not to be despised. 
 
 With the last ten days of August autumn commenced, 
 and then merged into winter with a rush. For two or 
 three days after the first frosts the whole landscape 
 glowed with the most vivid and beautiful red it is possible 
 to imagine ; then, as though some evil spirit had passed 
 
86 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 through the land, we awoke one morning to find every- 
 thing a dead and sombre black, with nought to relieve it 
 save the flickering wings of seagulls and the white foam 
 of the waves lashing the base of the granite cliffs. In 
 sheltered crevices for a few days longer the willow herb 
 showed its rose-coloured blossoms, and the sturdy tufted 
 balls of the cotton grass stood erect in the marshes ; then 
 they, like all else, faded — their dried and withered stems 
 were uprooted, tossed aside, and scattered by the chill 
 gusts of the oft-recurring gales. It was a dreary out- 
 look, yet our relief at the simultaneous disappearance of 
 the mosquitoes was so great that we breathed the cold 
 fresh ak with unfeigned satisfaction. Not all at once, 
 however, did the intense cold of winter come upon us. 
 The weather, as at home, had its ups and downs, and 
 not until the 3rd of September did we have a really heavy 
 fall of snow. It was just after that that we captured the 
 first two of the lemmings whom I mentioned in an earlier 
 chapter — the advance guard of many who followed their 
 example in a half-mile swim out to the ship. 
 
 Ashore the Russians were at length making a belated 
 attempt to build some sort of a settlement at Yukanskie. 
 A shipload of pine-trunks having arrived, all on shore 
 were busily engaged in erecting log-houses and in blast- 
 ing the rocks with dynamite. But the Russians were 
 having much trouble with their workmen, most of whom 
 were old naval reservists who had been called out to join 
 up at a moment's notice; these were still entirely desti- 
 tute of winter clothing and very short of food. The 
 Russian officers themselves for this shore base at Yukan- 
 skie were at the time billeted on board a British steamer, 
 the Lady Gwendolen; they consisted of the Commandant 
 and his wife — the latter the only lady for two hundred 
 miles — and some three or four officers. This lady, whom 
 
 I will call Madame C , was stout, good-natured, and 
 
 vivacious, but by no means young. Such as she was, 
 however, and in contact with the susceptible Russian 
 temperament, she wielded a power in that isolated 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 87 
 
 uncompetitive spot which I can only compare with that 
 of Cleopatra in her prime ; daily she desolated the hearts 
 of the whole Muscovite colony, and kept it perpetually 
 in a state of frenzied turmoil. Her morals were unques- 
 tionably above reproach, but, like other saints, she had 
 a habit of conversing occasionally upon somewhat 
 risqui subjects. Her Russian admirers unfortunately 
 equally often misconstruing her meaning, replied in what 
 they believed to be a similar vein — giving Madame an 
 opportunity, which she never failed to take, of lashing 
 them mercilessly with her tongue. This, to the average 
 super-sensitive nervy Russian, was an affront more 
 poignant than the scorpion's sting, and one which he was 
 quite unable to bear. It ended in his escaping by the 
 first steamer to Arkhangel, more often than not leaving 
 his kit behind him in the Lady Gwendolen rather than 
 face the possibility of meeting his tormentress once 
 more. To us more restrained Englishmen, a race I trust 
 not less gallant than the Russians, such affairs caused 
 intense amusement, and I have related the incident, not 
 because it is of much interest as a story, but because I 
 think it throws a sidelight on Russian character and helps 
 to show how it is that in Russia women hold so dominant 
 a position. Russians are governed by emotions and 
 excitements in a way which an Englishman cannot con- 
 ceive of. Card playing, for example, was absolutely for- 
 bidden (and necessarily so) by the law of their navy, both 
 for officers and men alike. For a Russian is naturally so 
 confirmed a gambler that there was no knowing to what 
 extremes indulgence might lead him. Even the posses- 
 sion of a pack of cards incurred a very heavy penalty. 
 
 With the Commandant and his wife I soon became on 
 terms of friendship, and there quickly ensued a constant 
 interchange of hospitality, such as the means at our dis- 
 posal and the contents of our respective larders per- 
 mitted. Russia was in those days, at least officially, a 
 *' dry " country; but, from passing steamers, and also 
 from the British men-of-war, Commandant C. had 
 
88 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 managed to collect quite a respectable stock of the cup 
 which " maketh glad the heart of man " — not to mention 
 his own potent native vodka, a spirit which had by that 
 time almost disappeared from Russia. 
 
 These Russian dinners consisted for the most part of 
 hors d'ceuvres and soup, combined with a great variety 
 of drinks and punctuated by the smoking of some scores 
 of tobacco-tipped cardboard tubes. The tobacco in these 
 cigarettes is always excellent, but in quantity it is so 
 minute as to be comparable with the ham in the pro- 
 verbial railway buffet sandwich. But the piece de resist- 
 ance in these dinners was always the local and freshly 
 caught salmon, served raw, and cut in thin slices lightly 
 dusted with salt; of this each guest would eat a pound 
 weight or more, and, in my opinion, this Russian method 
 is by far the best way of serving the king of fresh-water 
 fish. From my host I heard many stories of the War as 
 viewed from the Russian angle, but the only tale which 
 still sticks in my mind is the affair of the Zemchug. The 
 reader may perhaps remember that this was one of the 
 Russian vessels sunk by the German cruiser Emden 
 during her surprise visit to Penang in the early days of 
 the War. My Russian informants told me that when 
 the disguised Emden made her appearance, the captain 
 of the Zemchug could not be located, for the very good 
 reason that he was miles away living up-country with his 
 wife. Not only this, but the ship was utterly unprepared 
 in every way, and the keys of the magazine could not be 
 found until after the ship had been torpedoed. For this 
 and other like offences, her captain was disrated to 
 ordinary seaman, and sentenced to three years' imprison- 
 ment with hard labour — a penalty which all my Russian 
 friends seemed to think he richly deserved, although his 
 offence, from what little I could see, was typical of the 
 rest of Russia. 
 
 Commandant C. himself had left the Navy many 
 years before the War, and for the best part of his life 
 had been a banker ; at the moment when war broke out 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 89 
 
 1 
 
 he was in Bulgaria— and there he had spent three months 
 as a prisoner. Needless to say, he and Madame dined 
 with me on board the Intrepid on numerous occasions, 
 and it was after one of the earlier of these functions that 
 C. drew me aside and confidentially informed me 
 that Madame had told him that I was " a beautiful." 
 At another of these dinners a little comedy was enacted 
 which is perhaps worthy of mention. Among my guests 
 was the captain of one of the British armed boarding 
 steamers, a fresh, breezy individual whom I will call X. 
 Now X. could speak a little Russian, so it was not long 
 before he was in animated conversation with Madame 
 C, in the course of which he imparted to her the infor- 
 mation that he hoped shortly to be taking his ship back 
 to England with a view to returning again in the follow- 
 ing spring. Madame evidently regarded this as a 
 heaven-sent opportunity, and promptly asked X. if he 
 would execute a commission for her, she being cut off 
 from all shops and means of making purchases of her 
 own. All unsuspectingly X. consented, and it was not 
 until Madame (whose plainness of language was quite 
 Elizabethan) began to divulge her heart's desires — a 
 large assortment of the most intimate feminine lingerie — 
 that X. began to grasp what he had let himself in for. 
 At the time I had no idea what was transpiring — all I 
 could see was that X. was getting redder and redder. 
 But the next morning X. came to me, with tears liter- 
 ally standing in his eyes, and explained the tragedy. 
 " What shall I do ? " he groaned. " You see, sir, I've 
 only just got married to a young wife. I can't go into a 
 shop and order those things myself — and I can't ask the 
 wife to do it, for, if I did, it would want such a lot of 
 explaining — in fact, it couldn't be done ! She's never 
 met any of these Russian Jezebels yet, and it would be 
 quite impossible to make her understand that there was 
 no harm in it." I found it difficult to comfort poor X. 
 in his predicament, one in which I fear he could see no 
 humour at all ; but, in the end, I persuaded him that the 
 
90 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 matter could be arranged by writing to the stores and 
 having the incriminating articles of feminine attire sent 
 direct to his ship — a solution of the problem which I 
 believe he eventually followed. But it's a funny old 
 world, and I often wonder what the packing department 
 of the stores thought at receiving such an unusual order 
 from the captain of a British man-of-war. It shows, too, 
 how easily one might be deceived by circumstantial 
 evidence. 
 
 One other Russian lady I will mention, and one only, 
 and then I hope I will be finished with the subject. It is 
 a lady whom I have never met, but one who loomed large 
 on the mental horizon of many at Yukanskie— I speak of 
 the lady " tooth-carpenter " at Arkhangel. In Russia it 
 would appear that the art of dentistry is more especially 
 one of the feminine professions, and, whether it was due 
 to the chill winds of the Arctic I know not, but when 
 this fact became generally known, it was really quite 
 extraordinary the number of my officers who became 
 afflicted with toothache. In turn they visited Arkhangel, 
 and, after duly interviewing Pavlova-of-the-Forceps, their 
 molars duly yielded to treatment; but in place of a pain 
 in their gums they had but transferred it to the regions 
 of the heart, the most successful antidote for which was 
 the one they invariably got — the most merciless of 
 chaffings from their messmates. 
 
 During September we had an addition to the ship's 
 company in the person of a small brown bear. I think 
 that originally this animal had been purchased for a few 
 roubles from the Russians, who had doubtless kept her 
 in a cage and were fattening her up as a table delicacy — 
 for smoked bear-hams are still a much-esteemed dish; 
 and, in Russia, bruin is considered as but a superior sort 
 of pig. With us, however, this lady bear made herself 
 very much at home and became a universal pet. In 
 appearance she was exactly like a "Teddy" bear, only 
 much fatter, and of greater breadth than length; her 
 coat was of the finest and only equalled in length by her 
 
Of Mines and Mutton 91 
 
 claws, which, being innocent of manicure, extended for 
 at least six inches. When first she joined the Royal 
 Navy, she was of about the size and weight of a hun- 
 dred-weight bag of coal; but daily she " swelled 
 wisibly," until soon nothing lighter than a tank would 
 have had a sporting chance to stand up against her 
 impetuous charge. Quickly she made friends with all 
 the ship's dogs, and was wont to tease and torment them 
 much after the manner of a mischievous and very adipose 
 monkey. Yet, by nature, she was gentle in a heavy- 
 handed sort of way, and her agility was such that she 
 could shin up the rigging faster than any of our sea- 
 booted seamen, and her tricks were legion. Her greatest 
 delight was to sit with her squat stern on the hose while 
 decks were being scrubbed, thus stopping the flow of 
 water; then, as some unlucky victim passed, she would 
 as suddenly remove herself and deluge him with a stream 
 of water from the suddenly-increased pressure at the 
 nozzle. This little game of hers with the hose was not, 
 as might have been imagined, a mere accident; it was, 
 on the contrary, a deliberately-planned and executed 
 practical joke, the child of her own impish nature, and 
 one which she was never tired of repeating. Her food, 
 when she could get it, was sweets — in the form of con- 
 densed milk and jam; but at times, when such were not 
 forthcoming, she showed a partiality for old boots and 
 other unconsidered trifles. Neither was she above a tot 
 of Navy rum. This weakness of hers for rum was, in the 
 end, one of the causes which brought about her dis- 
 graceful downfall — a downfall which the reader will find 
 set out in a subsequent chapter. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AURORA AND THE WINTER'S GRIP; THE U BOATS AND THE 
 MINES THEY SLIP. A SWEDE AND RUSSIAN — NERVES AND 
 FIGHT. A MERRY CONCERT IN THE NIGHT. 
 
 IT was not until the 25th of September that I had my 
 first glimpse of the Northern Lights; but from 
 thence on, the Aurora Borealis was an event of frequent 
 occurrence, and one very unpopular with those who, in 
 those days, had to "go down to the sea in ships." Its 
 illumination, although insufficient to be of any use in 
 ordinary affairs, was bright enough to show up the sil- 
 houettes of shipping against the sky-line, and was, 
 therefore, of material assistance to the commanders of 
 the German submarines in helping them to find their 
 prey after dark. As a spectacle, I found the aurora 
 disappointing, and not to be compared for scenic effect 
 with the seach-lights playing on the clouds in London 
 on a " Zep." night. Perhaps this was only the effect of 
 prejudice on my part, or of my instinctive dislike of any- 
 thing which in any way could help U boats. It was an 
 analogous sentiment to that of the master of hounds 
 who spoke of the " stinking violets " which spoilt the 
 " scent " of the fox. 
 
 But to return to my chronicle of daily events — a 
 matter which I have recently neglected, and a lapse 
 which may have caused my readers to wonder whether 
 we, in the Arctic, did not sometimes forget that there 
 was a war on. As a matter of fact, we were at that time 
 
 92 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 93 
 
 wrestling with work of the most pressing and exacting 
 nature, and rendered none the less easy from the fact 
 (first learned from the German wireless of the 29th of 
 August) that Roumania had come into the war. This 
 was an event for which we were not altogether unpre- 
 pared, for several Roumanian munition ships had re- 
 cently arrived at Arkhangel, and, from thence forward, 
 Roumania, as well as Russia, was dependent on the little 
 British Arctic Squadron for the safe transit of her sup- 
 plies. I have narrated here many of our little local 
 scandals, jokes, and foibles, and not kept myself strictly 
 to serious matters; for, after all, such trivial incidents 
 form the major part of life, and without them it is 
 impossible to get a true perspective of events fresh in 
 all minds at the time, but the memory of which rapidly 
 passes away and is forgotten. It always appears to me 
 that humour, especially as it is understood by Britons, 
 has done more to help us in winning our wars and in 
 enabling us to " muddle through " than all the " hate " 
 that was ever manufactured in Germany. 
 
 To add to my own personal difficulties at that period, 
 I found myself laid by the heels for some weeks by 
 " famine " ulcers, the result of starvation and privations 
 as a prisoner of war. I had to conduct the squadron 
 affairs at Yukanskie from my bed, a long-faced, anxious 
 doctor as my constant visitor, who, by sundry threats 
 of amputation of my leg, attempted to keep me quiet. 
 The old battleship Albemarle, at Murmansk, had just 
 been relieved by another equally ancient, the Glory, 
 her new captain being, of course, a fresh complication. 
 Although so close, owing to the presence of high land 
 in between it was but rarely that we could communicate 
 direct by wireless, and land telegrams took an indefinite 
 number of days in transit. The vagaries of wireless 
 were, indeed, infinite ; it was a common matter to receive 
 urgent S.O.S. signals from ships which were being 
 attacked by submarines, and which the wireless operator 
 receiving them adjudged, by the strength of the signals, 
 
94 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 to be close at hand, yet which, when they were plotted 
 out on the chart, proved to be in the Mediterranean or 
 other distant locality. Though we never at that time 
 ever received direct signals from England, yet we were 
 constantly getting them from Paris and Madrid, and, on 
 one occasion, from Mexico. 
 
 On the 2nd of September a stranded mine was found 
 and destroyed, and this, we hoped, was the last of the 
 mine-field laid by our late submarine visitor, It may 
 have been so, but within a fortnight our trawlers had 
 found two fresh mines in the Gorla ; once more the traffic 
 with Arkangel had to be suspended and the ships began 
 to crowd into Yukanskie. This was a very serious 
 matter, occurring so late in the season ; we did not wish 
 for a repetition of the previous winter's fiasco, when so 
 many vessels had been lost in the ice, including several 
 Russian trawlers and a submarine, and the British 
 steamer Sappho. There is a drift to the northward of 
 the ice from the Murman Coast; vessels caught by the 
 ice there are set towards the pole and rarely seen again. 
 The Sappho was one of these unfortunate vessels, and, 
 having drifted for many days and being hopelessly 
 crushed, she was abandoned by her crew, who attempted 
 to reach the land down to the southward by walking 
 across the ice. The ice, however, was full of cracks and 
 channels, and the land much more distant than it 
 appeared to be. One by one they dropped from exhaus- 
 tion and died, there being but three survivors who got 
 through to tell the tale. These three, at the point of 
 death, reached the coast, and there were fortunate 
 enough to be found by some migrating Laps before they 
 perished. The Laps tended and cared for them, and 
 eventually enabled them to return to civilisation. 
 
 On the 18th of September, after strenuous exertions 
 and hampered by gales and the increasing length of the 
 nights, the sweepers reported the war-channel clear of 
 mines, traffic with Arkhangel was once more resumed, 
 and we breathed again> Two days later, the British 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 95 
 
 s.s. Etton, who had wandered a little from the prescribed 
 route in the dark, struck a mine and foundered half an 
 hour later. It was a most unfortunate accident, for 
 though she lost but one man, the rest of her crew being 
 rescued by the British trawlers, she had as part cargo 
 all the storage batteries and other fittings of the British 
 submarines which had just been got overland from Afk- 
 hangel to the Baltic. Until these could be replaced the 
 submarines themselves would be useless, and it was a 
 question whether the loss could be remedied before the 
 White Sea froze up for the eight winter months. 
 
 Another problem which was causing us ' ' furiously to 
 think " was whether the German mines had not got some 
 " delay action" device in connection with them. They 
 had developed a most unpleasant habit of cropping 
 up in places which had only just been swept and had been 
 reported clear. There was something very suspicious 
 about it all. If the Germans had invented a practical 
 delay-action arrangement — such, for example, as one 
 by which mines were laid in threes, but only one became 
 active at a time (floating up by the usual automatic 
 arrangement to its appointed depth), while the other two 
 remained quiescent on the bottom — it would have been 
 an extraordinarily difficult matter to cope with. For the 
 first mine in exploding would have automatically released 
 the second, which would then have floated up and taken 
 its place, and in like manner the third. There could never 
 be any certainty that any channel, even one which had 
 just been swept, was free of mines. 
 
 Heavy gales with snow were becoming increasingly 
 frequent, greatly hampering the trawlers in their work ; 
 but as a temporary measure against the possibility of 
 such delay-action mines the shipping was organised into 
 convoys, each convoy being conducted through the more 
 dangerous waters in the wake of a group of trawler- 
 sweepers. The weather was often such that the trawlers 
 were unable to keep their sweeps out in the mountainous 
 seas, and more than once had them swept back on board 
 
96 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 by a heavy following wave. Another impediment also 
 to the entirely satisfactory working of this method was 
 the ineradicable contempt with which so many masters 
 of merchant ships still regarded mines; it was almost 
 impossible to make them keep their vessels exactly in 
 the wake of the sweeping trawlers, and they thus 
 rendered the efforts of the latter for their safety 
 null and void. One object-lesson received by some 
 of the shipping had, however, for a time, a most 
 excellent effect. It happened that one of these 
 loosely-formed, scattered convoys was proceeding 
 for Arkhangel, the steamers careless to a degree 
 as to their steering. Down from the opposite 
 direction came another group of trawlers, mine-sweep- 
 ing, and by good luck it happened that just as the convoy 
 was passing them three mines were swept up and 
 exploded. The effect was electrical— no need any longer 
 then for disregarded signals and the hooting of sirens — 
 for the convoy at once closed up and remained glued in 
 station for the rest of the voyage. Moreover, on their 
 safe arrival at their destination, instead of the usual 
 surly dispersal, the masters of the ships concerned 
 signalled to the senior officer of the mine-sweepers their 
 thanks and appreciation for their safe conduct. 
 
 A fresh danger was now, however, beginning to loom 
 somewhat big oh our horizon. Up till then the Germans 
 had been content in Arctic waters with the mere mining 
 of the approaches to Arkhangel, and had left it at that; 
 the U boats themselves had not materially harassed 
 shipping. But now active fighting submarines, as well 
 as the more passive mine-layers, began to trouble us, 
 and this many months before the German declaration of 
 the " barred zone," which did not come into operation 
 until the following spring. 
 
 Our first intimation of this new state of affairs was 
 brought by the armed trawler T ao, a vessel sold by the 
 British to the Russians, who had just arrived at Yukan- 
 skie. She reported having sighted a submarine between 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 97 
 
 Murmansk and Yukanskie, but that the U-boat (having 
 doubtless sighted her gun) had declined action and dived. 
 At first we deluded ourselves with the belief that this 
 submarine was only another mine-layer, but two days 
 later we were undeceived by the arrival in port of the 
 Swedish s.s. Dana, who stated that she had three times 
 been stopped by a submarine, and each time ordered to 
 abandon ship, but each time something had occurred 
 which had enabled her to escape. There is no question 
 that throughout the war the Swedes were treated more 
 tenderly by Germany than was the case with any other 
 nation, and, as such, the Swedes were the most suspect 
 of all the neutrals with whom we had to deal. Contrari- 
 wise, the known pro-German leanings of so many of his 
 countrymen was probably the reason why the master of 
 the Dana was able to successfully extricate his ship from 
 the jaws of the submarine. On each occasion of her 
 being stopped he had pointed out the roughness of the 
 sea, which would have made the lowering of his boats 
 a matter of extreme danger; he had also delayed lower- 
 ing the boats for as long as possible. On the first two 
 occasions the submarine had made off in pursuit of 
 another vessel, and the Dana had taken the opportunity 
 to slip away under cover of a friendly snow squall. Her 
 captain had seen three other ships sunk during his short 
 voyage, and when he was caught for the third time had 
 quite made up his mind that it was all up with the ship; 
 he, in fact, started to lower his boats, one being instantly 
 smashed to matchwood, and then luck once more be- 
 friended him for the third time, for out of the driving 
 snow suddenly emerged a Russian destroyer, and the 
 submarine promptly made herself scarce. But the Dana 
 was by no means out of the wood yet, for the Russian 
 destroyer captain, seeing the latter in apparently friendly 
 communication with a U-boat, came to the not unnatural 
 conclusion that the Dana was in collaboration with her, 
 and the weather being far too bad to permit of boarding, 
 it was just a toss-up whether he should save further 
 
 G 
 
98 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 trouble by torpedoing her off-hand. However, he did 
 not; the Dana was evidently sailing under a lucky star 
 that day. 
 
 From that date on, reports of active submarines were 
 a matter of daily occurrence, and, by one of those 
 strange coincidences so common in spy-ridden Russia, 
 this submarine campaign synchronised with the burning 
 down of the telegraph station at Alexandrovsk, the 
 terminus of our only direct cable home — an accident, if 
 such it were, of which no explanation was forthcoming. 
 For some weeks, our only cable communications with 
 England were via Bombay. 
 
 On the evening of the 2nd of October the French 
 s.s. Plata, heavily loaded with munitions, arrived in 
 safety, having twice been in action with a submarine, 
 which had fired over fifty shells at her ; but she, being a 
 fast boat of fifteen knots and well armed, had had no 
 great difficulty in escaping, and was brought safely into 
 pprt by the British armed boarding steamer which had 
 gone to her assistance. 
 
 These armed boarding steamers did yeoman service 
 in the Arctic, for, not only did they often succeed in 
 saving vessels attacked by driving the U-boats to seek 
 cover under water, but, without them, the toll of life 
 in the Arctic would have been infinitely heavier and more 
 ghastly, for they were constantly rescuing the crews of 
 ships not so fortunate, who, their vessels sunk, were 
 attempting to make land in their boats. It was thus on 
 the 3rd of October that the A.B.S. Stephen Furness 
 brought in the crew of the Lotusmere, sunk a few days 
 previously. The poor fellows had been fired on, and, 
 as soon as they had stopped their engines, the U-boat 
 promptly torpedoed the ship. When the Stephen Fur- 
 ness came across the boats, the men in them were already 
 so numbed by the fearful cold that not one of them 
 could any longer use his limbs ; all had to be hoisted out 
 by means of ropes. Failing her arrival, they would 
 undoubtedly have perished miserably, as did so many 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 99 
 
 hundreds of other seamen in those days on the high 
 seas. This care of the crews of ships was a difficult 
 problem for us at Yukanskie, for we had no clothes with 
 which to provide them, except those off our own backs, 
 and there was no shore accommodation to which they 
 could be sent ; they had also to be medically attended to 
 and fed. We had to distribute them among the ships 
 of the Squadron and send them home as opportunity 
 offered. 
 
 These fighting submarines which were then preying 
 on us were apparently accompanied by a larger U-boat 
 of the commercial type, from which, no doubt, they 
 renewed their supplies of oil. They also appeared to be 
 well acquainted with the numerous little inlets along 
 this desolate coast, and to have a number of friends 
 amongst the sparsely-scattered population, many of 
 whom were Norwegians or Swedes. In Scandinavia at 
 that time, apparently, the further north one proceeded, 
 the more Germanophile were the inhabitants. We were 
 constantly receiving reports of the visits of U-boats to 
 these outlying places, and of their having remained at 
 anchor there for considerable periods; everything 
 seemed to point to the probability that some of these 
 places were regular ports of call and, possibly, even 
 supply bases; but, if such were indeed a fact, it was 
 a matter which could never be proven, and the real or 
 feigned simplicity of the coast fishermen was so great 
 that interrogation of them was a mere waste of breath. 
 On the 5th of October S.O.S. signals again filled the 
 ether; this time it was the British s.s. Hyndford who 
 was in trouble. She was loaded with a cargo, full to 
 bursting, of munitions and high explosives, valued at 
 one and a quarter million pounds; therefore, when she 
 found shells dropping all around her, fired from a sub- 
 marine which she had not previously perceived, things 
 began to get exciting. Her only gun was a twelve- 
 pounder, a small and inadequate weapon which, at first, 
 could not even be got to go off. This, accompanied by 
 
 G2 
 
ioo Under the Black Ensign 
 
 bursting shells and a knowledge of the dangerous nature 
 of her cargo, started a panic among her crew, who 
 rushed to the boats and began to lower them. At that 
 moment one of the U-boat's four-inch shells struck the 
 vessel and burst, but, fortunately, in a coal bunker and 
 not among her cargo. Any but a very brave and deter- 
 mined man might well have given up hope of saving the 
 ship and have abandoned her. But the master of the 
 Hyndford happened to be just the sort of man needed 
 for such occasions, and was one of a type that came to 
 the fore a thousand times in our merchant navy during 
 the war, though mostly without official recognition. 
 Springing down from the bridge, he told his crew in a 
 few choice adjectives just exactly what he thought about 
 them, and lashed them with seaman-like scorn for 
 " Dagos " and " Dutchmen." The effect of his words 
 was electrical — not only did the panic instantly cease, 
 but the crew went down to the boiler-rooms and worked 
 with such good effect at double-banking the boilers that 
 they knocked twelve knots out of that old tramp steamer, 
 while others on deck at last got the gun to work and 
 returned the submarine fire. It was a long chase and a 
 stern one, enduring more than five hours from the time 
 — 7.45 a.m. — when firing had first commenced. The sub- 
 marine fired in all over a hundred and forty rounds of 
 her four-inch shell, and the Hyndford expended seventy- 
 two 'of her own lesser ones; but not another shell among 
 all those fell aboard her, except that one which, by a 
 merciful Providence, had struck her coal-bunker. Pre- 
 sently her supply of ammunition began to run low— it 
 looked as though she would be vanquished after all, 
 when, just before 1 p.m., the submarine turned away— 
 she had gone in pursuit of another vessel who had come 
 into sight from the southward, and who, having no 
 gun, promised to be an easier victim. The Hyndford 
 herself was saved, but before the submarine was quite 
 lost to sight she saw the new-comer struck by three 
 shells and columns of smoke ascending. 
 
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Aurora and the Winter's Grip 101 
 
 The fate of this last unfortunate vessel, left to the 
 tender mercies of an angry submarine commander, I did 
 not learn until some days later, when the survivors were 
 brought into Yukanskie by another vessel, who, for- 
 tunately, came across them after they had spent twenty- 
 six hours in their boats. She brought in ten men, all 
 that survived of a total crew of twenty-seven of the 
 Russian s.s. Erika, a defenceless vessel which had 
 offered no resistance; the remaining seventeen officers 
 and men had all died from wounds and exposure. The 
 captain of the U-boat was evidently in a furious rage at 
 the escape of the Hyndford, and gave the unfortunate 
 Erika no chance either to stop or to surrender, but kept 
 her under a continuous shrapnel fire at close range. The 
 first result of this was that the men lowering the boat 
 were all killed, and the boat itself, crowded with men, 
 came down with a run and crashed into the water. The 
 ship was then torpedoed, and the crew left without food 
 in open, damaged boats a hundred miles from land, with 
 an Arctic gale commencing to blow, accompanied by 
 snow and seventeen degrees of frost. Even had they 
 succeeded in making the land, the chances were ten to 
 one against their finding it inhabited — it would, in all 
 probability, have been but an .exchange of death ;by 
 the fury of the open sea for a slower one due to hunger 
 and exposure. Only by the merest accident had a 
 /passing British tramp steamer sighted and rescued 
 them. 
 
 One of our chief annoyances on the Arctic Station 
 was that, with our small forces on the spot, we could 
 do little or nothing effective to cope with these sea- 
 murderers. We had no destroyers, depth-charges had 
 not yet come into general use, and our total force for 
 dealing with submarines consisted of but sixteen 
 trawlers of nine knots speed — already reduced by one 
 since the John High had been destroyed by a mine — and 
 four boarding steamers. With these we had to protect 
 a coastline over five hundred miles in length, keep the 
 
102 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 War Channel and coast generally swept clear of mines, 
 and safeguard a huge volume of allied shipping, whose 
 cargoes were valued annually at many hundreds of 
 millions of pounds sterling. True, on paper, there were 
 also Russian forces, which included a couple of de- 
 stroyers; but, in practice, so uncertain was their assist- 
 ance that it had always to be " written off " as negligible. 
 After nearly thirty years of experience at sea, I have 
 come to the conclusion that no other nation on earth 
 save the British and, perhaps, the Japanese can be 
 relied upon to always keep the sea. Your Frenchman, 
 Italian, Russian, and the like are gallant and enthu- 
 siastic fighters; but it is the Briton alone, with his 
 dogged tenacity of character, who can stick it out in- 
 definitely, and can " keep on keeping on" at all times 
 and in all weathers, even when there is little hope or 
 prospect of a fight. The majority of the world's races 
 are too mercurial for this deadly dull, but vitally neces- 
 sary, work — their enthusiasm soon cools, and, under one 
 pretext or another, they presently contrive a breakdown 
 or other excuse for putting back to harbour. 
 
 Submarines, like rain, have a faculty of falling alike 
 both upon the just and upon the unjust — the man who 
 spends his life seeking them may oft do so in vain, 
 while, to the indolent, they often present themselves. 
 Which of these categories the Russian destroyer Vlastni 
 came under in her encounter l ,with a submarine is a 
 matter which I must leave to the reader's own judgment. 
 It was an encounter of which a lurid and strictly un- 
 truthful account from Russian sources appeared in the 
 London Times shortly afterwards, and one for which 
 the Russian officers concerned were profusely decorated. 
 It appears that one of the saucy U-boats had been whiling 
 away a tedious hour by bombarding one of the small 
 wireless stations then used in lieu of telegraphs for 
 coast communications; this so annoyed the Russians 
 that the Vlastni put to sea. Still hovering near the scene 
 of the bombardment, she came upon a large submarine, 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 103 
 
 who, with sails hoisted, was simulating the appearance 
 of one of the local coasting schooners. The submarine 
 showed no disposition to move off, and when the Vlastni 
 opened fire on her, reciprocated the compliment by 
 answering gun for gun, one of her shells striking the 
 destroyer and wounding several men. One of the U- 
 boat's sails, however, happening to catch fire, the latter 
 eventually thought better of the matter and dived "all 
 standing." 
 
 During the month of October the gales became more 
 and more frequent and of increased force, and the cold 
 gradually strengthened as the days shortened. At 
 Yukanskie the ships lay with both anchors down, hang- 
 ing on as best they could, constantly dragging, and 
 often with steam up. The barometer in the Arctic plays 
 strange tricks — generally its sharpest fall was the pre- 
 lude of fine weather, while its first slight rise was more 
 often than not the precursor of a fierce gale. The 
 Russian coast stations were by then suffering badly from 
 " submarine nerves," and their reports of the appear- 
 ance of U-boats were as innumerable as they were 
 fantastic. Some of them reported that a submarine had 
 been seen to dive in places where we knew that there 
 were only a few feet of water; another had it that one 
 had " blown itself up " in the Gorla; in fact, every rock, 
 log, seal, whale and porpoise had suddenly become 
 endued in Russian eyes with deadly and diabolical quali- 
 ties. But, in spite of it all, our convoys from Yukanskie 
 to Arkhangel, escorted and swept by trawlers, ploughed 
 their way unchallenged and unharmed through the storm 
 and gloom of the gathering winter night. 
 
 On the 14th of October the Vindictive, later to win 
 fame at Zeebrugge, arrived on the station; with her 
 armament of six-inch guns she was ia great addition 
 to our forces. Nearly the last of our Admiralty sheep 
 had by then been killed and eaten, but I find it recorded 
 in my diary that my steward celebrated the occasion by 
 making me an excellent pie, yclept " Acting Rabbit " — 
 
104 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 a savoury compound of salt pork and " Fanny Adams "• 
 — a dish much esteemed by the sailors. 
 
 On the 17th of October we were again troubled by 
 submarine mines, and a Norwegian steamer, the Botnia, 
 was badly holed by one forward. Being timber-laden, 
 she did not, however, immediately sink; the A.B.S. 
 Stephen Furness succeeded in getting hold of her and 
 in towing her thirty miles — we had great hopes that we 
 would be able to salve her. But at that point an un- 
 usually heavy gale sprang up, the tow parted, and she 
 was driven ashore to be pounded mercilessly by the 
 breakers against the granite cliffs. Next morning at 
 daylight not a sign of her remained; but for many a 
 month to follow the sea and surrounding coastline were 
 encumbered by the floating logs which had formed her 
 cargo. 
 
 For some days, owing to the heavy weather, sweeping 
 was impossible, and the convoys were, therefore, de- 
 layed in their sailing. The merchant captains, always 
 incredulous and contemptuous of the danger from mines, 
 were impatient at the delay; but on the 19th of October, 
 when the convoy was at last enabled to put to sea, no 
 fewer than five mines were swept up directly in advance 
 of it — an occurrence which effectually silenced the 
 grousers. 
 
 The Admiralty were by then beginning to recognise 
 that some assistance must be given to us in the Arctic 
 to enable us to cope with submarines. As no destroyers 
 could, at that time, be spared from home waters, five 
 British G Class submarines were despatched, and worked 
 for a short time from Murmansk. They, as a matter 
 of fact, never accomplished anything; but it was thought 
 that, at any rate, they might have a sporting chance of 
 getting into touch with Fritz — which, in fact, they very 
 nearly did. It was on the 24th of October that the 
 Russian Kolguev, steaming close in shore, had a torpedo 
 pass under her bottom, which exploded against the rocks 
 immediately afterwards. One of the British submarines 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 105 
 
 happened to be cruising submerged in the near neigh- 
 bourhood at the time, but knew nothing of what had 
 happened, and, as Fritz also kept himself out of sight, 
 an introduction between the two remained uneffected. 
 On the 4th of November the Q-ship (decoy) Carrigan 
 Head arrived at Yukanskie, she also having hopes of an 
 early rencontre with the " Tin Pirates." Her efforts 
 were, however, no more successful than those of the 
 submarines had been, although she had the dubious 
 satisfaction of an exciting half-hour, during which she 
 manoeuvred with every nerve aj angle in a frantic, but 
 futile, effort to stimulate one of the War Channel buoys 
 to attack her ! This was a quite excusable mistake on 
 her part, for she had no knowledge of the buoy's exist- 
 ence, nor, for that matter, of that of the War Channel 
 itself. Having, therefore, received no warning, the 
 appearance of a large buoy, with the seas washing past 
 it, gave to all on board the Carrigan Head a first-rate 
 impression of what seemed to be the conning-tower of 
 a submarine. The buoy, however, having refused to 
 further humour the Q-ship by following her — a course 
 which a genuine U-boat might reasonably have been 
 expected to pursue — the mistake was presently dis- 
 covered. As, however, the Carrigan Head had on board 
 a large stock of butter, margarine and whisky for dis- 
 posal, articles which had for some time ere this disap- 
 peared from our menu, she was, as may be imagined, a 
 very welcome visitor to the station. 
 
 Gale succeeded gale with increasing frequency, ship 
 after ship dragged ashore, and Yukanskie began to over- 
 flow with the damaged merchantmen who had put in 
 there to be repaired by the Intrepid and her sister 
 Iphigenia. Of these, some had broken steering-gear, 
 others their fore-peaks full of water, but the main part 
 had disabled engines or bottoms dented and leaking from 
 contact with the rocks — and to all and every we gave 
 such assistance as lay within our power. It was a 
 strenuous time for the boarding officer, tossing about in 
 
io6 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 his little shell of a worn-out motor-boat — a boat which 
 broke down many times a day and drifted helplessly at 
 the mercy of the wind and tide. The divers, too, found 
 it none too warm replacing rivets under water on a 
 damaged ship's bottom, and the engineer for ever had 
 his hands full, his skilled artificers working continuously 
 in shifts on the repairs of distant steamers. But the very 
 difficulties seemed to stimulate everyone to do their best, 
 and the almost hourly reports of submarines in the near 
 vicinity girded the men to fresh efforts. We all felt the 
 satisfaction of a craftsman turning out work well done; 
 it was a happy time, and, in that dark and isolated spot, 
 we never had leisure for a moment's dullness. The 
 submarines also, for the time being, had been outwitted, 
 for, though they continued to cruise in the neighbour- 
 hood until November, they sank no more ships — a con- 
 summation mainly due to the fact that we were deflecting 
 all allied shipping from the coastline, and ordering it to 
 steer from one to two hundred miles due north before 
 making any westerly courses. Further north than this 
 our ships could not then go, for the presence of many 
 icebergs and of an ice-barrier precluded it. 
 
 October blew itself out with a week of gales which, 
 at times, approached hurricane force, and during which 
 three ships were blown ashore, another got into colli- 
 sion, and many dragged their anchors; but for the ist 
 of November the tempests suddenly abated, and, to our 
 great surprise, a thaw set in. 
 
 Although we lost no more ships that season due to 
 submarine action, we had by no means yet heard the 
 last of those slippery gentlemen. On the ist of Novem- 
 ber the Huntspill, a big transport full of troops for Ark- 
 hangel, reported an attempt to torpedo her, although 
 she had gone as far north as latitude seventy-two thirty- 
 two. Earlier on the same day, thirty-three miles still 
 further north, the Daybreak, bound for Yukanskie, was 
 also attacked. On this occasion the U-boat was orna- 
 mented by two tall masts and a funnel belching smoke, 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 107 
 
 a disguise which nearly proved successful, for the Day- 
 break was expecting to encounter a patrol boat and was 
 readily taken in, until a shot across her bows undeceived 
 her. To this salute the Daybreak at once replied by 
 getting her own gun into action, and a short fight 
 ensued — until the submarine, finding matters getting un- 
 pleasantly warm, dived — masts, funnel and all. An hour 
 later she once more reappeared and followed until 
 3 p.m., at which hour the Daybreak finally lost sight 
 of her. 
 
 The closing incident of the season happened on the 
 following day, the 2nd of November, and the occasion 
 was the conducting of a large floating crane from Vardo 
 — the nearest neutral port in the north of Norway— to 
 Murmansk. To ensure its safety in transit, this crane 
 was escorted by a Russian force consisting of a destroyer 
 and a large boarding steamer; also a British trawler, 
 the Vale of Fruin. Suddenly a large submarine, going 
 fifteen knots and armed with two guns, appeared from 
 the south-west, and both sides were apparently at first 
 too surprised to do anything. After mature deliberation, 
 however, the destroyer plucked up sufficient courage to 
 fire half a dozen rounds at the U-boat, none of which, by 
 the way, fell within half a mile of her. The Russian 
 armed steamer then also fired one round, which struck 
 the water about a hundred yards from her own bow, 
 whereupon the submarine, which must have been of an 
 excessively timid nature, dived out of sight. The un- 
 fortunate Vale of Fruin had, meanwhile, done her best 
 to close the target, but found herself consistently 
 thwarted by the Russians, who got in the way and 
 blanked the range, her speed also, being only nine knots, 
 was a great handicap. But this was not the end of the 
 matter, for the Russians, evidently thinking that they 
 had achieved a good day's work, promptly proceeded 
 into harbour in order to be first to claim having 
 sunk a submarine — and left the unfortunate crane to 
 its fate. 
 
108 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 As the submarines had now departed until the following 
 spring, we of the Arctic Squadron prepared to settle 
 down for the winter. At Yukanskie there wasi still much to 
 be done, for besides the ordinary repair work there were 
 the War Channel buoys and the anti-submarine boom to 
 be got in. This severe task was greatly helped by the 
 unexpectedly mild weather, for, with the exception of 
 one day, upon which we had twenty degrees of frost, 
 the thaw continued until the 13th of November. In fact, 
 during the whole of that month the weather was little 
 colder than might reasonably have been expected at 
 that season of the year in the north of England; this also, 
 of course, helped materially in the getting away of the 
 last of the allied merchant ships from Arkhangel. 
 
 Of snow, however, we had more than enough, and the 
 long, early winter nights of twenty-two hours each, 
 punctuated by the howling gales, were already becoming 
 extremely depressing. It was impossible to get on shore 
 for exercise, the motor-boats having all finally broken 
 down, and the force of the wind was such that rowing 
 boats were generally out of the question. But even so, 
 we were not entirely without relaxations, for the 
 Intrepid 's crew were extremely vocal, and gave more 
 than one variety entertainment. At one of these the ship's 
 bear, an animal ever of an inquiring turn of mind, some- 
 how got her nose mixed up with an electric ventilating 
 fan— with the result that, for ten devastating minutes, 
 she ran amok among the audience until someone at last 
 disentangled her. Amongst the performers, our sick 
 berth attendant, a worthy known to his fellows as 
 " Toby " — an individual to whom his physiognomy bore 
 a striking resemblance — was specially noted for the 
 fervour of his recitations. Among his favourite efforts 
 was " Lars Porsena of Clusium," a classic which he 
 always delivered in his best histrionic style, but which — 
 I suppose owing to his facial contortions — the men 
 always took to be a poem of a humorous nature, and 
 not the heroic tragedy which " Toby " wished to portray. 
 
Aurora and the Winter's Grip 109 
 
 On such occasions the ship fairly rocked with the mirth 
 which his actions and gestures aroused; There were, 
 of course, dancers and songsters without end, and a 
 conjuror who produced that thing of wonder — a genuine 
 top-hat, the which, I imagine, to be the first of its kind 
 ever seen at Yukanskie. But whoever the performers 
 were, they, at least, seemed always to be able 
 to thoroughly enjoy themselves ; as to the feelings of 
 the audience, that apparently was a matter of indiffer- 
 ence to them. Once on the stage, one and all did their 
 best to remain there, and, when the howls of the on- 
 lookers failed to remove them, brute force had, on more 
 than one occasion, to be resorted to. But some of the 
 turns were universal favourites with all, and among 
 many that genuine Arctic playlet known as Hickney 
 Hockney ranked high.. Perhaps the reader would not 
 consider this play to be a refined one, the scenery also 
 was no doubt a little crude. But where else in the 
 Arctic could one come across a real, bad old Tory squire, 
 with an ancestral domain — represented by two flags — 
 and a beauteous daughter whose cheeks — well shaved 
 for the occasion — were not innocent of flour and cherry 
 toothpaste cosmetics. Moreover, she was one whose 
 lovely flaxen hair, floating to her waist, helped to account 
 for a recently-discovered deficit in the amount of tow so 
 jealously guarded in the gunner's storeroom ! Add to 
 all this that the hero was a French doctor resplendent 
 in the conjuror's tall hat, that he wore a stu'n'sail tie and 
 toothpick pointed boots, and that, at the crucial moment, 
 he cured the heroine of a fell disease, announcing, after 
 having timed her pulse, that he found her only " three 
 minutes fast." Add to this, I say, a final lurid scene in 
 the bar of the " Pig and Whistle," wherein were seated 
 beauteous ladies and three no-less beauteous barmaids — 
 and that these between them contrived the unmasking of 
 the villain. Add all this, I say, and the reader will begin 
 to realise that life at Yukanskie was not entirely without 
 its compensations. Only the yeoman of signals 
 
no Under the Black Ensign 
 
 mourned silently the disappearance of much of his bunt- 
 ing, and a glance at the " ladies' " dresses helped me to 
 understand why the ship's flags were always so badly 
 in need of repair. 
 
 Such relaxations as this, however, were few and far 
 between — work and the weather were the factors which 
 daily loomed increasingly in our outlook. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 'tis guy fawkes' season, ere it flies, arkhangel's 
 thundering to the skies ; and ships are mined, and 
 night is day; but we go home — and lose the way. 
 
 ON the 6th of Nevember the s.s. Waltham arrived at 
 Yukanskie in a sinking condition, with fourteen 
 feet of water in her fore-peak and all her pumps in a 
 broken-down condition. She was at the moment the 
 third merchant ship requiring extensive repairs by us at 
 Yukanskie, and typical of many dozens of others which 
 should never have been allowed to leave England in the 
 state they were then in — a state which had at that time 
 become chronic with much of our merchant navy, owing 
 to the congestion in the home repairing yards. 
 
 Owing to the continued mild weather, Arkhangel still 
 remained open, and as yet showed no sign of being 
 frozen up; but, as this state of things could not be 
 expected to continue indefinitely, it was decided to reduce 
 the British forces on the station from a definite date — 
 this with a view to sending them home in turn during 
 the winter months while work was slackest, to give leave 
 and refit, returning again in good time for the reopening 
 of the season in the spring. In accordance with this 
 scheme, the Iphigenia and six trawlers duly sailed on the 
 7th of November — their parting being speeded by the 
 usual ceremony of " cheering ship " carried out by us who 
 remained behind. But hardly had the last of them dis- 
 appeared round the corner of the island when the Niffie 
 
 in 
 
ii2 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Jane (the irreverent name by which the Ipbigenia was, 
 invariably referred to by the less polite among our 
 number) was seen to be returning — she had developed 
 a hot bearing. However, she managed to struggle out 
 quietly again at an early hour on the following morning. 
 On the second occasion, however, her passing was sans 
 ceremony and sans " cheer ship." A lingering glance 
 indeed we gave her as she steamed past, then settled 
 down once more to our struggle for existence with the 
 inclemency of the climate, conscious of certain vague 
 rumours, borne to us from Arkhangel, that Russia was 
 on the verge of a revolution. 
 
 Wind, frost, fog, gale, snow, and rain followed each 
 other in an unending series through the days which had 
 now become almost completely nights. The darkness 
 which now spread over twenty hours out of each twenty- 
 four gave us a surfeit of opportunity to study the starry 
 heavens. It is, I suppose, a thing known to every 
 schoolboy, but nevertheless a fact which I myself had 
 never previously realised, that in the Arctic the moon 
 acts in the same way every month as does the sun every 
 year. Even at Yukanskie, a place but a few hundred 
 miles inside the Arctic Circle, there were periods every 
 month during which for five days the moon never set, 
 but skimmed along above the northern horizon after the 
 manner of the summer midnight sun. And again, there 
 were periods of five days or more during which the moon 
 never rose. The Arctic winter is thus divided every 
 month into periods of continuous moonlight and into 
 others of intense darkness — the latter only relieved by 
 the faint twilight given out at noon by the sun still 
 remaining invisible below the horizon. The snow, how- 
 ever, by its reflecting power, assists in making the most 
 of what light there is, consequently it is never entirely 
 dark except when storm clouds cover the sky; at such 
 times the depth of the blackness is almost unimaginable. 
 Time itself we had long before this realised in practice 
 to be a misnomer and a fraud. It required but a very 
 
Night is Day 113 
 
 few hours' hard steaming in those high latitudes, either 
 to the east or west, before it became necessary to alter 
 the clock an hour or more. It was possible, in fact, to 
 go to bed and rest for a considerable period, and then to 
 arise and find that, owing to the alteration of the clock, 
 you had lost no time at all; or, contrariwise, to discover 
 that your watch below had been converted into a minus 
 quantity. 
 
 On such subjects, however, we had not leisure to 
 ruminate for long, for on the 9th of November an urgent 
 telegram arrived stating that there had been serious 
 explosions at Arkhangel, and that a warship was to be 
 sent there immediately and " with despatch." Fortu- 
 nately the Vindictive had just arrived in port from Mur- 
 mansk, and had still got steam at command — she was 
 able to proceed the same evening at full speed, taking 
 with her all the carpenter and artisan ratings who could 
 still be spared. On her arrival, she found that there were 
 still forty-nine ships who had not yet been able to clear 
 from Arkhangel, and these had been discharging their 
 cargoes, mostly of munitions, on to the crowded timber 
 wharves. Upon the same wharves, stacked in readiness 
 for return cargoes, were immense piles of timber. 
 Among all this crowded shipping, inflammable timber, 
 and high explosive was a Russian ship, the Baron 
 Driesen also discharging munitions. A load of some 
 forty tons of dynamite had but left her side some twenty 
 minutes before, when, without any warning, the ship 
 blew up — the explosion instantly killing everyone on 
 board and in the vicinity. All the other ships in the 
 neighbourhood were, of course, wrecked and destroyed 
 also, and many had their decks blown off. The burning 
 fragments were scattered around for a radius of four 
 miles, falling in and among the heaped-up timber, and, 
 to make matters worse, the fire-station had been blown 
 down at the first explosion. The timber was therefore 
 free to ignite without interference, and, in its turn, it 
 set off the dumps of ammunition — the conflagrations and 
 
 H 
 
ii4 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 explosions thus originated continuing for many days. It 
 was this scene which greeted the Vindictive on her 
 arrival. 
 
 Never before probably has there been such an explo- 
 sion as this one at Arkhangel. The death roll must have 
 numbered several thousands, although, for official pur- 
 poses, the Russian authorities gave out the number to be 
 only one hundred and thirty. Whatever it was, approxi- 
 mately thirty thousand tons of munitions had gone up 
 into the air ! 
 
 If my readers can recollect the outcry that arose in 
 England over the few puny tons of high explosive which 
 went up at Silvertown on the 19th of January, 1917, it 
 will help them to realise in some minor degree what 
 affairs were then like at Arkhangel after the explosion 
 of thirty thousand tons. The presence of the Vindictive 
 there on the spot so soon after the catastrophe, and at 
 a period while the fires were still raging, was invaluable. 
 The sight of her helped greatly to restore confidence; 
 she compelled discipline, assisted in fighting the fire, 
 rescued the injured; above all she repaired the battered 
 shipping still afloat — for she had with her a number of 
 skilled artificers from Yukanskie as well as her own 
 ship's company; together they wrought marvels and 
 were of inestimable service. 
 
 It must be confessed that, at first, this loss of thirty 
 thousand tons of munitions was a cause of great depres- 
 sion among us of the Arctic Squadron. It made us 
 wonder whether our whole season's efforts had not been 
 wasted, until further reflection showed us that, after all, 
 this huge quantity was but a flea bite as compared with 
 the enormous mass of explosives already safely got into 
 the country. During the season of 1916, the British 
 Navy had been responsible for the unloading of seven 
 hundred and fifty thousand tons of munitions into 
 Russia, so that the thirty thousand tons lost was, after 
 all, but a beggarly four per cent. 
 
 As was but natural in Russia at the time, rumours of 
 
Night is Day 115 
 
 treachery at Arkhangel were, of course, rife for a con- 
 siderable period after the explosions; but whether these 
 were well founded in fact or not will, I suppose, now 
 never be known. One circumstantial story anent the 
 ship first to blow up was that her captain, chief officer, 
 and engineer had all left her but a few hours previous to 
 her destruction, and had thus escaped the fate which 
 overtook the crew. But such an incident in itself, even if 
 true, could give no just grounds for an accusation of 
 treachery ; it was but a curious and somewhat significant 
 fact, easily explained by ordinary causes, but one which 
 nevertheless added fresh fuel to the furnace of suspicion 
 and mistrust already glowing in so many minds. 
 
 Less than a week later, on the 15th of November, 
 fresh events at Yukanskie thrust for a time all thoughts 
 of the Arkhangel disaster out of our minds. It was 
 blowing a heavy gale, with fifteen degrees of frost, when 
 a big Russian steamer, the Kursk, loaded with muni- 
 tions, was heard making frantic S.O.S. signals only 
 seventeen miles away — she had struck a mine. Captain 
 Hurt, with the only four trawlers available, at once 
 dashed out to her assistance, and, having quickly found 
 her, succeeded in getting her in tow. A very dangerous 
 and harassing time it was for him and his little cockle- 
 shells of trawlers, for the gale had by then increased to 
 almost hurricane force, and, to add to his difficulties., 
 he found the Kursk's crew in a state of disorganisation 
 and panic. They had already started to lower their 
 boats, and were firing their gun recklessly in every 
 direction — a stray shell only missing one of the rescuing 
 trawlers by inches. But somehow the mine-sweepers 
 got alongside her, in spite of the tremendous scend of 
 the sea, which caused their stems to cut deep gashes in 
 the steel plates of the Kursk's counter. Once aboard, 
 they took complete charge of the demoralised ship and 
 caused the boats to be again re-hoisted. The Kursk 
 having been got in tow, the trawlers steering her, a 
 course was set for Yukanskie; but, almost immediately, 
 
 H2 
 
n6 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 the towing wires parted. Again and again lines were 
 thrown to her, but her crew were once more in a state 
 of panic — they seemed incapable of making a rope fast, 
 and instead let its end run overboard again. All night 
 long the trawlers stood by the ship as she lay wallow- 
 ing dangerously off a lee shore. The mine had exploded 
 under the Kursk's bow, and, as a consequence, her 
 foremost portion was almost level with the water, her 
 stern and rudder high in the air. The rudder being thus 
 rendered useless, she could, of course, not steer; but 
 fortunately, with the tips of her propeller blades, she 
 could still just touch the water — with these backing 
 astern all night, she was able to keep herself steady and 
 her stern up to the wind. 
 
 At Yukanskie, the weather was such at the time that 
 the ships were dragging their anchors in all directions*— 
 in fact, no less than four ships lost an anchor each within 
 two days. Out in the open, with a westerly gale blowing 
 into Svyatoi Nos Bay, the weather was terrific; but the 
 stout trawlers never abandoned the helpless Kursk for 
 an instant, and, during the night, once more succeeded 
 in passing the tow lines. Then, at earliest dawn, at 
 about 10 a.m., they commenced to bring her into harbour. 
 It was a brave spectacle ! First of all came the two tiny 
 trawlers who were towing her, tossed hither and thither 
 by the giant waves, their bows dashed from side to side, 
 but always hanging on and always struggling back to 
 the course. Astern of them trailed a quarter of a mile 
 of mine-sweeping wire, frail gossamer to hold so huge a 
 vessel ; but they had fortified it by hanging from the bight 
 lengths of chain cable, which, by their weight, kept it 
 from tightening too suddenly and snapping. A very 
 long way after them came the great ship, rolling heavily, 
 and, as each roller passed underfoot, plunging her water- 
 logged fo'c'sle right under, the while her impotent screws 
 churned noisily and impatiently in the unresisting air. 
 Again she would right herself, then plunged deeply once 
 more, each dive she made bottomwards seeming as 
 
Night is Day 117 
 
 though it would be her last. Far astern of her again 
 were the other two trawlers, each hanging to her also 
 by a further quarter-mile length of mine-sweeping wire. 
 Their purpose was not to tow her as did the trawlers in 
 advance, but to steer her and to act as rudders in place 
 of the Kursk's own useless one swinging idly high above 
 the water. The duties of these last two were probably 
 the most difficult of all; they were but minnows trying 
 to control a triton, and one which yawed perilously from 
 side to side with each sea that roared past under her 
 counter. Tugging and straining first on one side, then 
 on the other, the minnows at length achieved their task; 
 missing the rock at the entrance by a few feet only, the 
 Kursk was finally coaxed and pulled into calmer water 
 within the harbour, where she was able to anchor. For 
 the moment the trawlers' work was done. 
 
 The trawlers having now accomplished their part, it 
 devolved upon the bigger ships at Yukanskie to keep the 
 ball rolling, and to render the ship fit for sea again. In 
 this the first point was obviously to get the ship on an even 
 keel once more, so that her stern should no longer point 
 foolishly up to heaven, but, by being immersed, should 
 allow of her rudder and screw propellers being once more 
 brought into use. As, owing to the huge rents in her 
 bottom, the pumping out of her flooded fore-hold was 
 out of the question, the only method by which we could 
 bring her stern down was by letting more water in aft, 
 and by transferring as much cargo as possible from the 
 forward to the hinder part of the ship. This method of 
 letting more water into an already half-flooded ship may 
 seem a strange one to the uninitiated, but it is a very 
 common expedient in salvage operations. The amount 
 so admitted can be kept exactly under control, as it only 
 enters compartments know as tanks or double-bottoms 
 — these being themselves watertight and of exactly 
 known dimensions. For the purpose of transferring the 
 Kursk's cargo, the armed boarding steamers were in 
 turn got alongside her ; part of her cargo they dumped 
 
n8 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 in her stern, and, when that would hold no more, stowed 
 the rest about their own decks. Working day and 
 night, and by these simple means alone, in three days 
 we had raised the Kursk's bow from its original depth 
 of thirty-one feet until it only drew twenty-six feet; and 
 her stern we had brought down in the water, from seven- 
 teen feet to twenty-six feet and a half. Once more the 
 ship was on an even keel, her rudder and propellers sub- 
 merged and capable of doing their duty — in fact, she 
 could steam and manoeuvre, and was very nearly in her 
 normal sea-going trim. To actually repair the hole in 
 her bottom with the resources at our disposal at Yukan- 
 skie was an impossibility — we could do little more beyond 
 shoring up her bulkheads, but we had rendered her 
 sufficiently seaworthy to be able to steam to another port 
 where such repairs could be taken in hand. 
 
 Such as we had accomplished, however, was not with- 
 out its alarums and the loss of valuable time. When the 
 Kursk first arrived it was a dubious point as to whether 
 she had really struck a mine or whether she was suffering 
 from the effects of some internal explosion in her cargo, 
 and presumably caused by some infernal machine. The 
 only way to settle the matter was by sending down a 
 diver to examine her bottom under water. If the damage 
 had been caused by a mine, then obviously her plates 
 would be dented inwards; but if, on the contrary, she 
 had been damaged by an internal explosion, then of 
 necessity would her bottom have been driven outwards. 
 At the moment there happened to be no British divers 
 available, and I was forced to rashly invite Russian co- 
 operation by asking for the loan of one of theirs — a 
 request very willingly complied with. The Russian 
 diver duly descended, and in a very short time re- 
 appeared. As soon as we had got his helmet open he 
 informed us through the interpreter that the Kursk's 
 plates had been blown outwards — proof positive of an 
 internal explosion ! This was a serious matter, and, 
 with the sinister rumours of Arkhangel, and of another 
 
Night is Day 119 
 
 similar Russian ship there which had blown up, I at once 
 caused all work on board to be discontinued, withdrew 
 my working parties, and waited to see her go up. For 
 where there had been one bomb on board there was no 
 reason why there should not have been a dozen others. 
 
 For hours we watched, but nothing happened, so the 
 next morning I made a very careful inspection of her 
 holds so far as these were accessible, and still nothing 
 suspicious could be found. The British diver had by 
 then come off the sick list, and he, concurrently with 
 myself, made a fresh examination of her bottom. Upon 
 his return to the surface he reversed the Russian's 
 verdict, for he stated that, without a shadow of doubt, 
 the Kursk had been mined. On hearing this the 
 Russians acknowledged that they had made a mistake. 
 Work was once more resumed after a loss of eighteen 
 hours. 
 
 Delayed for a further two days by the weather, the 
 Kursk was finally safely convoyed to Arkhangel by 
 British trawlers on the 23rd of November, just eight 
 days after the date of striking the mine, and her cargo 
 was discharged without the loss of a single ton. Once 
 more had the poor old Arctic Squadron been justified, 
 for, without their presence on the spot, not only would 
 the Kursk herself have been lost, but almost certainly 
 the whole of her crew. 
 
 For days the mine-sweepers scoured the vicinity of 
 the spot where the Kursk had struck the mine, but in 
 spite of most careful sweeping, only one more was dis- 
 covered, and the mystery of their origin remained 
 unsolved. A mine is undoubtedly one of the most 
 potent of weapons in a war of attrition, and probably 
 inflicts on the enemy a greater percentage of loss for 
 the same initial outlay than does any other weapon. No 
 dramatic coup is ever likely to be brought off by mines, 
 but they are always there as a menace, always ready to 
 instantly destroy the ship which blunders across them, 
 never sleeping, and, though their chance may not come 
 
120 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 for weeks, months, or even many years after being laid, 
 they still remain there, deadly waiting things, until swept 
 up and destroyed; moreover, the wound which a mine 
 inflicts is likely to come at the most unexpected of 
 moments. 
 
 That no more mines could be found was, however, a 
 great relief to us, for the shortness of the daylight hours 
 restricted the sweepers' labours to a very short period 
 every day, and the cold and continuous gales caused 
 their work to become increasingly arduous. The spray 
 and frozen fog, congealing on the rigging and upper 
 works of such small vessels as trawlers, quickly made 
 them top-heavy. Until this ice can be removed in 
 smoother water there is imminent danger of their cap- 
 sizing in the heavy seas and foundering. The last of 
 the War Channel buoys had now been weighed and 
 removed, and the anti-submarine boom at Yukanskie 
 unrigged and stowed in the Princess Maud's holds; we 
 were ripe for our winter flit westward. Yukanskie was 
 not a place at which any ship could safely spend the 
 winter, but only twelve hours' steam to the west lay 
 the ice-free waters of the Kola, Inlet. Although this is 
 geographically further north than Yukanskie, and much 
 further so than Arkhangel, yet, thanks to the Gulf 
 Stream sweeping round the north of Norway, its climate 
 is infinitely milder, and the ice which forms there is never 
 of sufficient thickness to prevent steamers pushing their 
 way through. As soon as the last of the merchant fleet 
 had cleared from Arkhangel Yukanskie could be aban- 
 doned, and the Arctic Squadron take up its winter 
 quarters at Murmansk, at the head of the Kola Inlet, 
 there to await as best they could, in the blank dreariness 
 on an Arctic winter night, the advent of spring. 
 
 November, 1916, on the Murman Coast proved to be 
 an abnormally mild month; rarely were there more than 
 20 degrees of frost, and even these cold periods were 
 broken by short intervals, during which it thawed and 
 rain took the place of the incessant snowstorms. Gales 
 
w 
 
 ft! 
 H 
 
 ffi 
 
Night is Day 121 
 
 of great power, but of short duration, averaged as many 
 as seven and eight in number each week, and kept us 
 in a state of constant irritation and anxiety. The rock- 
 bound harbour of Yukanskie is extremely narrow, the 
 holding bad, and in the long, long nights the furious 
 snow-laden gusts blew the ships hither and thither, drag- 
 ging their anchors after them. Perhaps only a sailor 
 can realise the anxiety and nerve strain which such a 
 state of things causes — the restless worry which it entails, 
 due to the fear that his ship will be blown ashore. Boat 
 work had become impossible, and shore exercise was, of 
 course, out of the question. For those imprisoned in 
 their ships, the only communication possible between 
 themselves and other vessels was by means of signals, 
 or by the rare opportunity offered by some already over- 
 worked trawler as a passenger conveyance. All reading 
 and writing had perforce to be done by artificial light, 
 which after a time affected the eye-sight. Those doomed 
 to spend the whole winter on the station had to look for- 
 ward to the probability of spending months without 
 mails or news, without relaxations, with no possibility 
 of exercise, and the lack of fresh vegetables. In the 
 result it could hardly be surprising if many became 
 terribly depressed and irritable, and that among them 
 were many cases of insanity as well of impaired vision. 
 
 We in the Intrepid, however, were among the for- 
 tunate ones not so doomed to spend the winter, for, on 
 the 1st of December we received orders to proceed home, 
 and on the same day we bid for a season an unregretful 
 adieu to Yukanskie — that windiest spot on earth. With us 
 at the same time departed three out of the four boarding 
 steamers, together with five trawlers, leaving behind to 
 guard North Russia for the remainder of the winter the 
 old battleship Glory, the cruiser Vindictive, the A.B.S. 
 Tithonus, and four trawlers. 
 
 From Murmansk, the port at which this small squad- 
 ron wintered, the war-born railway to Petrograd had not 
 been completed. But, during the winter months, rails 
 
122 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 were laid over the snow, so that whilst the frost held, 
 a considerable amount of traffic could be carried across 
 it. It was this railway which gave to Murmansk its 
 chief importance, for during the months that Arkhangel 
 was frozen up it remained open, allowing of a limited 
 amount of warlike stores still filtering into Russia. In 
 other ways also Murmansk was suitable as a war port, 
 for, owing to the deep water running up to the entrance, 
 the approaches to the Kola Inlet were practically un- 
 minable. 
 
 The Intrepid' s start for home on the ist of December 
 was made under, auspicious circumstances, with the sea 
 a flat and oily calm. Submarines were reported to be 
 still working off Tromso, in Norway, but none had 
 actually appeared off the Murman Coast for nearly a 
 month. Taking with us the Stephen Furness, the fastest 
 of the armed boarding steamers, we set off. 
 
 The propitious start which we had made did not, how- 
 ever, ensure fair weather for the rest of the voyage; 
 within twenty-four hours, and before we had rounded 
 the North Cape, we encountered a most ferocious gale, 
 which quickly sheathed the ship in ice from stem to 
 stern and from truck to water-line. Our whole passage 
 home was a nightmare, and gale succeeded gale, blow- 
 ing from every direction. The heavens themselves, 
 being obscured by snow-clouds throughout the voyage, 
 effectively prevented our taking observations of the stars 
 to determine our position. The guns were all frozen 
 into a solid block of ice, half the boats were stove in, 
 and the bridge ladder, situated nearly forty feet above 
 the water-level, was washed away by the battering seas; 
 in consequence of this I was for many hours unable to 
 reach the chart-house. But the Intrepid, in spite of the 
 fact that she lay low in the water, was a beautiful little 
 sea-boat — her movements were like those of a thorough- 
 bred horse, and she made little trouble of any weather, 
 slithering easily through the rollers. Far different was 
 the Stephen Furness, lighter but more clumsily built, 
 
Night is Day 123 
 
 whose propeller for half the time was racing high out 
 of the water. This, of course, greatly reduced her 
 speed, and, in "order to keep company with her, the 
 Intrepid had also to ease down to, at times, so slow a 
 rate of progress as six knots. Thus we plugged along 
 for some days, thrusting our fo'c'sles deep into the on- 
 racing seas, until presently we began to grow somewhat 
 anxious as to our coal supply holding out. We had been 
 at sea nearly, a week without being able to fix our posi- 
 tion, and the one given by dead reckoning, after so 
 much heavy weather, was but little better than guess- 
 work. However, on the 6th of December, believing 
 that we were nearing the Shetlands, the Intrepid went 
 on ahead to try to make a landfall. Taking the risk 
 of submarines being about, we presently stopped the 
 ship and took an up-and-down cast with the lead, and 
 at length found bottom at a depth of 204 fathoms 
 (1,224 feet). This first sounding having been confirmed 
 by other casts of the lead, we came to the conclusion, 
 after a study of the chart, that we were considerably to 
 the westward of our calculations. I accordingly altered 
 the ship's head to south-east, and a few hours later we 
 were rewarded by the sight of land right ahead. As we 
 neared this we recognised it for the western side of the 
 Shetlands, and found that we had been more than fifty 
 miles out of our course. Having wirelessed to the 
 Stephen Furness and given her her position, we coasted 
 down the western side at eighteen knots, and finally 
 anchored off Lerwick at seven-thirty in the evening. 
 
 At Lerwick, where we remained for four days, our 
 fate hung in the balance while the " powers that be " 
 were making up their minds what should be done with 
 us ; it was in doubt whether we should be snapped up by 
 the Grand Fleet or allowed to go to our home port of 
 Chatham. Having coaled, the opportunity was taken to 
 give shore-leave to the men, and, although hardly one 
 of them had so much as seen a public-house for the best 
 part of a year, out of two hundred of them there was only 
 
124 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 one who was in any way the worse for liquor. On the 
 ioth of December, authority having decided for Chatham 
 —as we had all along hoped it would do — we resumed 
 our southward voyage, escorted by two destroyers. The 
 vicinity of Lerwick was in those days a very popular 
 haunt for enemy submarines, and one was reported off 
 the entrance just as we were leaving; but, preferring to 
 risk meeting one whose position was approximately 
 known to deferring our sailing and chance meeting him 
 unexpectedly later on, we held our course. Proceeding 
 thus down the east coast of Scotland, while in the dark- 
 ness abreast the Firth of Forth we found ourselves to 
 be moving at right angles across the track of a portion 
 of the Grand Fleet putting to sea on one of its periodical 
 cruises. It is a somewhat unpleasant sensation to have 
 a great fleet bearing down upon you, especially when 
 they are first sighted and before you have been recog- 
 nised for a friend and the secret signals exchanged; one 
 is apt to experience a feeling of impotence similar to 
 that felt in dreams, when one is only conscious of inability 
 to avert by a hair's breadth whatever is about to happen. 
 The phantom soundless fleet bore on across us in the 
 gloom, passing east into the North Sea; first came the 
 widespread fan of ghostly destroyers, then a formation 
 of the larger but similar-looking light cruisers; these 
 followed, after a short interval, by the grim grey bulk of 
 the silent battleships themselves, moving in fixed forma- 
 tion and exact station, with no flicker of light. It was 
 as though we had seen some ill-lit shadow panorama, 
 and, as we rubbed our eyes and looked again, they were 
 gone — swallowed up in the mists and the dim moonlight. 
 Having passed across the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 
 we presently struck the first buoys of the War Channel 
 off St. Abb's Head, only finding them with great diffi- 
 culty in the moonlight. Thence we continued along it 
 at our best speed Of from seventeen to eighteen knots 
 until we ran into a dense yellow fog off the entrance to 
 the Tyne. Floating thus in a sea of mist, nothing was 
 
Night is Day 125 
 
 visible; but the loud hooting of sirens on every hand 
 convinced us that we were no planet apart, but aboard 
 a very mortal ship in imminent danger of collision. A 
 fresh enemy mine-field had just been laid in the vicinity, 
 but, the fates being propitious, we avoided accident, and 
 the fog lifting, we were able to put into the Humber for 
 a few hours, where we exchanged our escort of 
 destroyers. On again until we passed through Yar- 
 mouth and Lowestoft roads, leaving behind the red glow 
 of the blast furnaces which mark the shore-line further 
 north, and which seemed to render nugatory the war- 
 time extinction of the coast lighthouses. The War 
 Channel followed every tortuous winding of the coast, 
 and, as the buoys marking it were unlighted, it was 
 almost impossible to follow them at night — at times un- 
 questionably we strayed and wandered through what 
 were presumably mine-infested waters. The number of 
 wrecks of stricken merchantmen had visibly increased 
 since my previous visit in June; but from every little 
 coast town darted seaplanes and the small silvery, 
 sausage-shaped dirigibles, while fast patrol craft towed 
 captive balloons in every direction — all widely awake 
 and aggressive, sharply on the look-out for mine and 
 submarine. Every few miles also the dark sturdy forms 
 of trawlers or paddlers would be encountered, busy about 
 their daily work of sweeping up the mines laid by sub- 
 marines during the night. From every point of the 
 compass also, as though oblivious of the war, the great 
 steamers ploughed their way, bringing to our shores 
 food and the sinews of war. 
 
 As we approached the maze of sand-banks which mark 
 the estuary of the Thames, the congestion of shipping 
 became still more prodigious; in the Black Deep alone, 
 when we passed through about 4 p.m., there must have 
 been some two or three hundred large vessels at anchor. 
 Having successfully negotiated another minefield (the 
 third across which we had blundered since leaving Ler- 
 wick), we were off the Nore by five o'clock on the evening 
 
126 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 of the 12th of December, just as the last twilight faded 
 into a dark and foggy night. A friendly patrol-boat 
 gave us a lead part of the way towards the mouth of the 
 Medway, but, on her departure, our good luck deserted 
 us — in the gloom we grounded on some unknown mud- 
 bank and remained helplessly stuck, surrounded by im- 
 penetrable fog. It was a mortifying finale to our 
 successful homecoming; fortunately it was near low 
 water, and three hours later, the tide having risen, the 
 ship was got off undamaged and anchored safely in 
 deeper water for the night. Glad indeed was I of some 
 rest, for for three nights and days I had not lain down; 
 neither had I taken off my clothes nor washed. 
 
 At daylight the next morning we passed Sheerness on 
 our way up the Medway, seeing many of those strange 
 sea monsters which the war had brought into being, not 
 the least strange among many being a huge aeroplane 
 ship, looking for all the world like a coral island with 
 palm trees. At Blackstakes, just above Queenborough, 
 an ash-hoist poking above water and the swirl of the 
 tide showed where the blown-up Bulwark lay at the 
 bottom of the river, still holding many an entombed 
 corpse. The same evening of the 13th of Decem- 
 ber, 19 16, we reached Chatham, and, having faced 
 the ordeal of a court of inquiry as to our 
 grounding, the old ship was paid off a week 
 later. I found myself a gentleman at large, with 
 three weeks' leave and nothing to do, conscious more 
 than anything else of the abominableness of the English 
 climate. In the Arctic I had never felt the cold, but 
 here, in smoky, grimy England, with wet, fog and mud, 
 accentuated by the gloom of the war-darkened streets, 
 I found myself chilled to the bone. I hungered for the 
 spring, with whose advent I hoped to sail north once 
 more, and to breathe those winds which blow so fresh 
 and pure in the lands that border the Arctic. At home 
 in England I felt that I was suffocating. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A PLAYFUL BRUIN IN THE NIGHT, THE TERRORS OF A 
 " NEVER " FIGHT. AN ARCTIC PANTOMIME AND ZOO, 
 AND WHAT A TRAWLERMAN WILL DO. 
 
 IT was in December, 1916, whilst the Intrepid was pay- 
 ing off at Chatham, that the ship's bear, who had by 
 then grown into an animal approximating in size, but 
 greatly exceeding in weight, a Shetland pony, got both 
 herself and us into serious trouble. 
 
 Owing to the quarantine so sternly enforced for the 
 prevention of rabies, we had already taken the precaution 
 of disposing of our motley assortment of dogs, most of 
 them having been turned over to other ships before we 
 came into port. But the bear proved to be altogether 
 " another brand of hair-pin," and at her advent there 
 was much scratching of heads amongst the Customs 
 officers and local big-wigs. It appeared from their 
 regulations that a bear could be assessed neither as a 
 canary nor as a rabbit; nor was she either a dog, a 
 horse or cattle. There was, however, a new regulation 
 which appeared to apply to her— one which forbade the 
 importation of wild animals during the war. Add to 
 this the fact that Madame Bruin was also a receptacle 
 for so much neat Navy rum, that it must have raised a 
 doubt as to whether she should not have been put in a 
 bonded warehouse with other spirituous liquors which 
 had not paid Excise duty, and the difficulties which 
 encompassed her landing will be understood. 
 
 127 
 
i28 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 For days the decision as to the bear's disposal hung 
 in the balance; local bumbledom could not make up its 
 mind. We, for our part, endeavoured to keep Madame 
 Bruin modestly in the background, hoping that' in the 
 throes of a world war her existence might be forgotten. 
 But fate and the bear herself decided otherwise. One 
 evening, just as the gloom of a December night was 
 closing down, the bear got tired of this " wait and see " 
 policy, and, skilfully upsetting the sentry on the gang- 
 way by diving between his legs, dashed across the prow 
 into the darkness of a war-time dockyard and dis- 
 appeared. A search party was immediately feent in 
 pursuit with a warrant to arrest the deserter; but a brown 
 bear in a brown dockyard on a brown foggy night is 
 more difficult of discovery than the traditional needle 
 in a haystack. The search proved fruitless; where- 
 fore we held our peace and anxiously awaited further 
 developments. 
 
 We were not kept long in suspense. It may have been 
 half an hour later when, in the darkness, there arose a 
 tremendous uproar. There was a clanging of fire-bells 
 and the shrill toot-tooting of a ship's siren, accompanied 
 by cries and yells and the rushing of many feet. Only 
 a few weeks before there had been a sanguinary air-raid 
 on the dockyard, and when we first heard these sounds 
 of terror we concluded that we were in for a second raid. 
 But a frantic dockyard " matie," flying to the ship for 
 shelter, was in a position to enlighten us as to the real 
 cause of the tumult. He stated that there was a huge 
 grizzly bear loose in the dockyard which was killing and 
 devouring everybody. Guided infallibly to the spot 
 whence the greatest clamour arose, the search party was 
 this time successful ; the truant was secured and brought 
 back on board and, from the evidence then secured, we 
 were able to reconstruct the history of what was probably 
 one of the most notable debacles which has occurred 
 in the history of Chatham Dockyard. 
 
 After her escape from the ship the bear had at first 
 
What a Trawlerman will do 129 
 
 apparently wandered about aimlessly in an imbecile and 
 entirely innocent kind of way ; this we could trace by her 
 deep paw-marks in the mud. Eventually, however, she 
 had come upon a group of " maties " engaged in the 
 necessary, and to them eminently satisfactory, rite of 
 assimilating an evening meal. They being " maties," 
 this meal inevitably consisted of bread and jam, and it 
 was the sight and odour of this latter article which 
 finally overcame the bear's moral rectitude, and in a 
 moment wiped out the virtue accumulated by many 
 months' sojourn on board ship. With a shrill snarl of 
 delight the bear dashed forward from the shadows where 
 she had been lurking into the centre of the lighted circle 
 around which were grouped the horny-handed sons of 
 toil — duffle coated and all unsuspicious, cramming the 
 food down their throats. For the reader's information, 
 I may state that it was only jam that the bear's soul 
 sighed for. But to the excited Royal Dockyardmen's 
 imagination this sudden apparition of extended claws 
 and a huge hairy monster not unnaturally aroused the 
 fear that it was upon their own red blood that the bear 
 wished to sup. With a yell the " maties " scattered in 
 all directions, and, although not generally noted for the 
 celerity of their movements, there can be no question 
 that, on that occasion at any rate, the majority of them 
 would have done honour to their country as its represen- 
 tatives in an international Marathon race. 
 
 The race, however, is not always to the swift, and one 
 of the runners bore with him the seeds of disaster, for 
 in his hand he carried, as he fled, the fatal tin of jam. 
 Dashing meteor-like into the void of darkness, he yet 
 nevertheless scattered the sweet and viscous fluid as he 
 went, blazing a trail which the bear could not fail to 
 follow. Hot in his track came Madame Bruin; nearer 
 and nearer she got to the coveted jam, until the terrified 
 duffle-coated Mercury could feel her panting breath at his 
 back, and, glancing round, see her dripping red tongue 
 and the glitter of her small beady eyes. This was too 
 
 1 
 
130 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 much for, him; with a last despairing effort he flung 
 himself through a half-opened door, but failed to close 
 it in time. The bear pushed through after him, bearing 
 the " matie " and the pot of jam to the ground in her 
 impetuous progress. 
 
 The bear now found that she was in a lighted room 
 furnished with many chairs and tables, upon each of 
 which was perched a young lady screaming frantically, 
 for it was the Admiral's office. Disregarding, however, 
 such non-essentials as lady clerks, the bear turned to the 
 initial object of her mission — the prostrate dockyard 
 " matie " — by then in a state of vertigo. Him she pro- 
 ceeded to lick all over with great care, and, having 
 removed all traces of jam from one side, turned him 
 over, and proceeded with equal care to lick the other 
 side. Then, having recovered the pot of jam itself, and 
 there apparently being " nothing doing " in the way of 
 other sweets, she quietly made her departure. It was 
 at that moment that the Intrepid' s search party had come 
 up and dragged her unrepentant self back to the ship. 
 
 For bruin this was but the " end of a perfect day," 
 but for us on board things were not quite so pleasant; 
 our relations with the dockyard officials were seriously 
 strained, and we received orders that the bear was at 
 once to be " disposed of." The exact meaning of this 
 sentence was not quite clear to us, but we interpreted it 
 in our own way. Nailed up in a piano-case, the bear was 
 safely smuggled on shore, and then taken by train to 
 the home of one of the quartermasters, a man who had al- 
 ways looked upon himself as the bear's foster-" mother." 
 Its arrival at his little cottage in the country, and its 
 reception by his wife and family, I will leave to the 
 reader's imagination. Suffice it to say that, having 
 unroofed his house, plundered his larder, and generally 
 behaved after the manner of a Bolshevist and a Hun, 
 the animal finally found asylum in the local zoo. And 
 there, peacefully and usefully engaged in eating prof- 
 fered buns for the amusement of rustic children, she 
 
What a Trawlerman will do 131 
 
 remains, for all I know to the contrary, down to the 
 present day. R.I. P. 
 
 From January, 1917, until the end of March I was 
 fortunate enough to get temporary employment at the 
 Admiralty, there to await such time as the Intrepid 
 should be recommissioned again for Arctic service. 
 My appointment was to the Submarine Branch of the 
 Intelligence Division — an exceedingly strenuous but 
 intensely interesting job, coming at a time when sub- 
 marine ruthle^sness was at its height, and when Ger- 
 many had declared her policy of the " Barred Zone." 
 Allied shipping was then being sunk at an average rate of 
 some twenty steamers a day, to say nothing of innumer- 
 able fishing craft, added to which an enemy raider, 
 was creating much havoc in the Atlantic. Outside the 
 Admiralty portals one heard much of the alleged sink- 
 ings of enemy submarines: indeed, a dinner party was 
 popularly credited to have been given to commemorate 
 the destruction of the hundredth U-boat. Inside the 
 Admiralty, however, it was a different matter, and one 
 was mainly conscious of our own fearful and daily 
 increasing losses. All reported sinkings of enemy sub- 
 marines were most carefully sifted, and, more often than 
 not, the supposedly destroyed U-boat was found to be 
 still continuing its nefarious activities in the locality of 
 its alleged coup de grace. In fact, not one claim in a 
 dozen was generally allowed, after a careful investiga- 
 tion had been made. The precision with which Admiralty 
 records followed the career of a submarine were little 
 short of marvellous : its movements, from the day the 
 U-boat left port until the day upon which it returned, 
 were exactly known and chronicled. But the trouble 
 with all these details was that they were wisdom after 
 the fact, and not prognostications of future events. 
 They did not serve to give much real help or hope for 
 the future; in fact, knowledge of the real circumstances 
 made great calls on one's faith in the might of England, 
 and was apt to raise doubts as to whether her star was 
 
 12 
 
132 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 still in the ascendant. In Room X we strove night and 
 day, dealing with mountains of telegraphic reports and 
 dockets — recording, marking, and posting up on the 
 great war map the positions of all enemy vessels, as well 
 as the routes and positions of our own. 
 
 On the 16th of March, 1917, the outbreak of the 
 Russian Revolution was announced in the Press, and on 
 the 2nd of April the Intrepid recommissioned once 
 more for service in North Russia. I was glad to find 
 myself once more northward bound. With me went the 
 great majority of my ship's company who had served 
 with me the previous year on the Murman Coast as 
 willing volunteers. 
 
 On this occasion, and as the result of experience, the 
 ship was splendidly fitted up with extra machinery and 
 all that forethought could provide for her special work 
 in the Arctic; but as for her external appearance, she 
 was a mass of dirt, shavings, and straw, giving more the 
 impression of a farmyard than of a man-of-war. It 
 looked almost as though our friends, the dockyard 
 " maties," had been having a revanche for the scare our 
 bear had given them at Christmastime. 
 
 As to the effect which the Russian Revolution might 
 have on our work in the Arctic we could not even guess ; 
 but we took heart that America had at last come into 
 the war, an event which occurred while the Intrepid was 
 commissioning. Cheerfully optimistic to a man, all glad 
 to see the last of British dirt, mud, and officialdom, we 
 on the 9th of April slipped down the River Medway to 
 Sheerness. Having coaled, swung for adjustment of 
 compasses, and completed our gunnery and steam trials, 
 we finally put to sea on Friday, the 13th of April — a date 
 which gave me the liveliest satisfaction, for thirteen had 
 proved itself to be my lucky number right through the 
 war. 
 
 The weather was at its worst during the first half of 
 April, 1917, and the week previous to our sailing had 
 seen a continuous succession of snowstorms. But 
 
What a Trawlerman will do 133 
 
 Friday, the 13th of April, was a lovely day, and, as we sped 
 north with our pair of guardian destroyers, I was again 
 impressed by the great fleets of merchantmen rolling un- 
 concernedly on their way. As each steamer passed we 
 could see its trained crew standing to the gun mounted 
 in the stern, fully alert and in readiness for instant action. 
 Our first night we spent, as usual, inside the mouth of 
 the Humber, and, sailing at dawn, had the good fortune 
 to intercept a wireless signal made by a trawler to the 
 effect that she had just exploded three mines. These 
 were in a position which we had been due to pass over, 
 an hour later; wherefore, hastily altering course away 
 from the dangerous area, we arrived safely at the end of 
 the War Channel at dusk — the Cheviots covered in snow 
 as we passed. Off the Firth of Forth a great convoy, 
 outward bound, was forming up in the darkness ; skirting 
 round it, we arrived off Peterhead just as dawn was 
 breaking; Peterhead is not a port which any sailor 
 would willingly choose for a ship of the Intrepid' s size, 
 for it is very exposed to easterly winds. At that stage of 
 the submarine campaign, however, it was not considered 
 advisable for ships to be under way by daylight off the 
 east coast of Scotland. We accordingly had to spend 
 the day in these uncongenial surroundings, and gazed 
 aghast at the granite rocks, granite houses, and granite- 
 faced inhabitants who together form the tout ensemble 
 of Peterhead. At dusk, with a feeling of relief, we crept 
 stealthily out to sea, to an accompaniment of snow and 
 beastly weather. 
 
 While at Peterhead we had received orders to call in at 
 Scapa Flow and pick up two E Class submarines (the E39 
 and E 44), whom we were required to escort to the Arctic. 
 The scene at the time of our arrival there at 4 a.m. on 
 the 16th of April was magnificent and beautiful. Before 
 us rose the snow-topped uplands, glowing pink in the 
 first light of the mounting dawn. Closer at hand lay the 
 vast silent masses of more than a score of Dreadnoughts, 
 ranged line upon line, together with all the hosts of 
 
134 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 attendant vessels which then formed the Grand Fleet. 
 For the first time I realised by comparison how small a 
 thing was a vessel such as the Intrepid, with her puny 
 five thousand tons displacement. Any one of those great 
 battleships might have hoisted her inboard without its 
 affecting their appearance sufficiently for a casual passer- 
 by to notice any difference. It was the first time that I 
 had seen the Grand Fleet as a whole, and there was much 
 to interest me and many old friends to greet. But I 
 think the object which most greatly impressed me was 
 the Theatre Ship, a vessel which went alongside each 
 battleship in turn and gave two performances daily. This 
 useful vessel also carried out the duties of water-tank, 
 and, on an emergency arising, she could promptly get 
 herself out of the way, leaving the battleships free to put 
 to sea, unencumbered by any inflammable impedimenta 
 such as theatrical properties. 
 
 Having embarked the spare torpedoes and stores for 
 our submarines, we put to sea again the same evening, 
 arriving at Swarbacks Minn, our last British port of call, 
 the following morning. This place was then a base of 
 some importance, the headquarters of a cruiser squadron, 
 and protected by a double boom; it is situated on the 
 opposite side of the Shetlands to Lerwick. There I found 
 many of my armed boarding steamers, trawlers, and 
 other units of the Arctic Squadron, and it was from 
 thence that we sailed on Friday, the 20th of April, at 
 seven in the evening, with a mixed convoy of two sub- 
 marines and two trawlers. In moderate weather we 
 shaped a course true north for the Arctic Circle, but, 
 owing to the slowness of our consorts, our speed was 
 limited to eight knots. 
 
 It was on the following night that the wireless operator 
 reported that he could hear German Telefunken signal- 
 ling going on close at hand. In consequence of this it 
 was with some anxiety that I scanned the horizon at 
 dawn, for, should we meet a raider or other German war- 
 ship, it was almost certain that our obsolete four-point- 
 
What a Trawlerman will do 135 
 
 seven guns would be outranged — in fact, we should not 
 have had a ghost of a chance in an action. It was with 
 feelings therefore not unlike those of the patriarch Job 
 that at 7 a.m. I observed two tall columns of smoke on 
 the southern horizon. Like him, I meditated on the 
 transitory nature of human affairs, and opined that, 
 " that which I greatly feared had come to pass." Our 
 respite was short — in a very few moments the two 
 columns of smoke had materialised their lower portions 
 into a great cruiser bristling with guns, followed by a 
 smaller vessel also heavily armed, and both obviously in 
 hot pursuit of us. With the warning of the previous 
 night's Telefunken in mind, I no longer felt much doubt 
 about their being enemy vessels; I accordingly got the 
 hands to " Action " stations, determined to make as good 
 a fight of it as possible. There was just a chance that 
 we might be able to slip away during one of the numerous 
 snow squalls that kept blowing past. But such a chance 
 was a very remote one, and I remember distinctly gazing 
 at the paint-work and wondering what it might feel like 
 to be what in a very few moments I might reasonably 
 expect to become — a mere smear of blood across its white 
 surface, a few shreds of flesh and scattered hairs. 
 
 I am not built in a heroic mould, and I confess the 
 suggestion conveyed to me by that piece of paint-work 
 and its future appearance after the enemy had finished 
 with us gave me several unpleasant moments. Mean- 
 while the great ships bore down upon us, looming every 
 moment nearer and more formidable. At the utmost 
 range of our ancient searchlight I flashed the secret 
 signal. A flickering succession of sparks answered in 
 reply, at which the signalman gazed tensely through his 
 telescope. Then he relaxed himself, and reported, 
 " Challenge correctly answered, sir." They were 
 English and not German after all — and at that know- 
 ledge I think all our hearts gave a thankful rebound. 
 The great cruiser and her companion turned away, and 
 left us to pursue our voyage in peace. 
 
136 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Later, on the same day, I was grieved to learn by 
 the German wireless news that an old acquaintance, 
 Admiral Sir Dudley de Chair, had died. Had I known, 
 however, I need not have grieved, for at that moment 
 the Admiral happened to be in the best of health. The 
 reasons for such an apparently meaningless official lie 
 I am, however, at a loss to explain, unless it was an 
 attempt to revive the Black Magic of the Middle Ages 
 and to murder by suggestion — a not altogether im- 
 probable solution. The Admiral, being in charge of the 
 blockade, was especially unpopular in Germany, and I 
 am told that a medal was actually struck to commemorate 
 his demise. 
 
 We entered the Arctic Circle on the 23rd with a fresh 
 south-west gale astern of us, and very heavy snow- 
 squalls; as, however, this weather was helping on the 
 sluggish trawlers, so that they could make good a speed 
 of nine and a half knots, we did not complain. In order 
 to save their oil fuel, the Intrepid had been towing by 
 turns each of the two submarines ; but, owing to the tow 
 having parted in the gale, further attempts at this had 
 to be abandoned. The next day, the 24th, it was blow- 
 ing with hurricane force from the westward, with moun- 
 tainous seas; the ships had to turn east and run before 
 it for some hours, during which interval both the sub- 
 marines and the trawlers made surprisingly good 
 weather of it. The temperature at first was, fortunately, 
 not very cold — only some 10 degrees of frost — but by 
 the 26th it had got decidedly chillier. From my diary 
 I note that the ink was all frozen, and that there were 
 three inches of solid ice on my cabin floor. However, 
 with the red canvas of an old target wound round me, 
 and with all my clothes on, I never slept better in my 
 life. 
 
 During this weather the submarines themselves 
 appeared as a solid sheet of ice, without shape or form, 
 and their guns as a glittering quadrangular block of 
 frozen sea-water. But my chief grief, as recorded in 
 
What a Trawlerman will do 137 
 
 my faithful diary, was that some two dozen of the new- 
 laid and much prized eggs which I had brought with me 
 i from home had all got frozen also, and had burst after 
 the manner of a water-pipe. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 26th we sighted the first ice- 
 fields, and very soon we were cutting our way through 
 the half-melted sludge, which was only some three or 
 four inches in thickness, and gave way readily with a 
 resounding " Crur-r-umph ! " After we had passed, the 
 submarines and trawlers followed through the gap we 
 had made as best they could, being many times turned 
 aside. 
 
 The ice in its then soft, half-melted state was not a very 
 formidable obstacle, the fields being only four or five 
 hundred yards wide, with beautiful calm lagoons of 
 pellucid water in between. In consequence the ship 
 easily cut her way through, her speed was only slightly 
 checked, and only very occasionally was she turned 
 round. Overhead the sun glowed from a cloudless sky, 
 while below fields of glittering ice and turquoise sea 
 stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, 
 reflecting back the vaulted heavens. In every clear 
 patch of water animal life was abundant ; grampus, por- 
 poise, and whales spouted and dived, while guillemots 
 and gulls sat around and squabbled on the edge of the 
 ice, and fat black seals basked on its surface. The latter 
 were so indolent that they barely condescended to slide 
 leisurely into the watef, even when the ship was right 
 upon them ; in fact, they put off this necessary but unwel- 
 come exertion until the last possible instant, and then had 
 to scuttle hurriedly to avert a painful death. The whole 
 scene was, in fact, a combination of zoo and fairy panto- 
 mime — one which tickled mightily our sense both of the 
 artistic and of the ludicrous. 
 
 Whilst passing through these ice-fields the tempera- 
 ture remained rather low, with about 20 degrees of 
 frost. Having reached our highest northern latitude in 
 72% degrees, we turned south-easterly to make the 
 
138 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 entrance of the Kola Inlet. This was by no means an 
 easy problem, for we were rather uncertain as to our 
 exact position, as also of the rate of the current which 
 generally ran at some speed to the eastward, but of 
 which the force could never be relied upon. Having 
 run south-easterly a little while, we presently cleared the 
 ice and found ourselves enveloped once more in a series 
 of blinding snowstorms. This was awkward, for we had 
 just learned by wireless from the British senior officer 
 at Murmansk that the German submarines were before 
 us in their spring outing, and had already laid one or 
 two cargoes of their explosive eggs. It was imperative, 
 therefore, to approach the Kola Inlet from a fixed 
 direction, that being the only way in which we could 
 keep the ship in deep water of a hundred fathoms or 
 more, and so be safe from mines. 
 
 It was at noon on the 27th of April, 1917, that we at 
 length sighted the glittering pinnacles and wedge- 
 shaped masses of Kildin Island and the Ribachi Penin- 
 sula, which dominate the entrance of the Kola Inlet. 
 When first seen these were still forty miles away. At 
 the entrance of the Inlet itself we were met by some of 
 the British mine-sweeping trawlers, and by them piloted 
 through a series of snowstorms to Murmansk, Kola, 
 Semenova — all names of the same place, the terminus 
 of the then uncompleted railway to Petrograd. We 
 were glad of this escort of trawlers to guide us into 
 these, to us, new waters of the Kola Inlet, for, owing 
 to the enormous quantities of iron ore in places on the 
 Murman Coast, the compass needle is greatly affected 
 when near the shore or in shallow waters; it is conse- 
 quently sometimes totally unreliable. There is one 
 specially awkward place some distance up the Kola 
 Inlet at which ships have to make a double right-angled 
 turn. And it is there, of all spots, that the compass 
 plays its strangest tricks, for the needle swings round 
 suddenly to an angle of nearly go degrees from the mag- 
 netic north. Should a snowstorm come on at the moment 
 
What a Trawlerman will do 139 
 
 a ship is passing this critical corner (a very common 
 occurrence) and blot out the land, navigation becomes, 
 indeed, a precarious and difficult art. The water is too 
 deep for anchoring, and the ship must needs stop and 
 drift blindly until the atmosphere clears once more. 
 Thanks to our guiding trawlers we were spared this 
 anxiety, but one of the convoy which I had brought out 
 with me from home, the trawler James Hunniford, gave 
 me cause for concern. Some hours before we reached 
 the entrance of the Inlet she had been lost sight of during 
 a snow-burst, and, as several hours after our arrival 
 she had failed to put in an appearance, I began 
 to have doubts as to whether she had lighted on a mine 
 or in some other way had " done herself in." My 
 fears, however, proved to be groundless, for the James 
 Hunniford turned up smiling at a late hour the same 
 night. We were enabled, after a short examination, to 
 understand the simple explanation of all her wander- 
 ings and vagaries, many of which we had observed on 
 the way out — there was no magnetic needle in her com- 
 pass. They say that there is a little cherub which sits 
 up aloft and looks out for the life of poor Jack. How- 
 ever this may be in the case of ordinary sailors, I feel 
 convinced that there is a little imp, who lives in climes 
 a good bit sultrier, who safeguards trawlermen. That 
 a ship should steam thirteen hundred miles without a 
 needle in her compass (this, of course, making the com- 
 pass absolutely useless, and on a par with the wheel of 
 a roulette table for navigational purposes) may seem 
 strange; but what rendered it really extraordinary was 
 the fact that the skipper of the James Hunniford 
 apparently never suspected what was wrong; he doubt- 
 less noted that his compass seemed a bit uncertain of 
 itself, but was in no way put out by the fact. Given a 
 piece of string, a postage stamp, and a copy of the Daily 
 Mail, any trawler skipper would expect to find his way 
 readily to Heaven, Hell, or the uttermost parts of the 
 earth. Whilst the Intrepid was in sight the James 
 
140 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Hunniford could, and did, steer by her, and ignore his 
 compass. But when the Intrepid was lost to sight the 
 trawler skipper doubtless had recourse to those black 
 arts by whose means alone he could hope to get his ship 
 safely into port, for I doubt if, at the moment he lost 
 sight of us, he really knew within five hundred miles his 
 ship's position. The voyagings of trawlers are as those 
 of the beasts and fishes : they are mainly directed by 
 instinct, and not, like those of other seamen, the products 
 of thought and science. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RED TAPE, A SLEDGE, AND SABOTAGE, WHILE TRAWLERS HUNT 
 THE HUN. A " DOC" WHO DOTES ON PARASITES — AND 
 SNOWBALLS FOR A GUN. 
 
 HAVING delivered the squadron mails and despatches 
 to the Senior Naval Officer, Murmansk, we all 
 found ourselves busy giving information as to home 
 affairs and in receiving and discussing the local news. 
 Everyone seemed to anticipate that we should, during 
 the coming season, have a lively time with submarines. 
 The Iphigenia, who had preceded us by a few weeks, had 
 already encountered a U-boat off the entrance, and the 
 Arctic Prince, one of the British mine-sweeping trawlers, 
 had, a fortnight before, struck a mine near the same spot, 
 losing six men and seriously damaging her bows. But 
 she was one of those sturdily-built pre-war trawlers, fitted 
 with a watertight bulkhead forward, and, in spite of most 
 extensive injuries, she remained afloat. In fact, at a 
 later date, having had her jagged bows cut off, she was 
 successfully towed back to England stern first. 
 
 The Russian Revolution was at that time, of course, 
 an accomplished fact, though the Bolsheviki had not then 
 made their appearance : in fact, in North Russia all news 
 was very confused and contradictory, no one seeming to 
 have any very clear idea of what was happening. With 
 the captain of the Glory as cicerone, I went to pay my 
 first official visit to the Russian Senior Naval Officer in 
 his quarters ashore, this entailing my initiation into the 
 dubious joys of a sledge drive. Perhaps it was a bad 
 
142 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 time of the year for such a painful method of transit, for 
 there was very little snow left on the main track. The 
 agile, sure-footed little pony took us at full speed over 
 railway lines, banks, and ditches, with never a slip— a 
 process which we, seated. as we were on the hard un- 
 yielding box honoured with the name of sleigh, found 
 both productive of bruises and derogatory to the dignity 
 of our office. On arrival at our destination we were 
 cordially received by the Russian, who seemed to find his 
 position somewhat painful, he being one of the old school 
 and possessed of a courteous, well-bred demeanour. 
 With Kerensky haranguing up and down the country, 
 discipline had already become greatly relaxed; things 
 were in a very touchy state, and most of the old-time 
 officers had already been sent as prisoners to Petrograd. 
 Of the sailors, the majority still saluted their officers. 
 But With the soldiers this was a rare occurrence ; we could 
 see those on duty lolling stolidly about, smoking their 
 cigarettes. 
 
 At Murmansk both the harbour and railway were under 
 Russian control, as opposed to the British authority in 
 force at Arkhangel and Yukanskie. The railway, with 
 its lines laid on the bare snow, had run intermittently 
 during the winter, but the greatest quantity of goods got 
 through in one day had never exceeded nine hundred 
 tons. At the time of Our arrival this amount, owing to 
 the rapid melting of the snow, was already greatly re- 
 duced, and in the near future might be expected to cease 
 altogether. Red tape and officialdom were, of course, 
 supreme — even the British Senior Officer was not allowed 
 to land at the pier, and could obtain no pass to do so. 
 Owing to the fact that ammunition was being disem- 
 barked there, the danger of fire was the reason officially 
 given for this. Need I add that the workmen employed 
 at this labour could generally be seen smoking vigor- 
 ously, and that the very sentries placed there to prevent 
 any danger of fire were also congenially occupied in the 
 same manner. 
 
A Sledge and Sabotage 143 
 
 This Russian Senior Officer was a very charming man, 
 who spoke English fluently, and he greatly deplored our 
 treatment in having to scramble over half a dozen 
 steamers before we could get ashore. A pass which 
 would have enabled us to land at the other pier was a 
 matter not within his control ; it had to be referred else- 
 where — I fancy to Petrograd. I found him to be very 
 pessimistic as to the outcome of the war, and especially 
 as to the part his own country would play in it. Already, 
 he told me, the Russian peasantry had quite made up 
 their minds that the war was a personal affair between 
 the Czar and the Kaiser, and no concern of theirs. 
 Moreover, they maintained that that part of Russia then 
 occupied by the Germans was not really Russian, but 
 Polish and German. The peasantry, in fact, wanted 
 peace at any price ; he doubted whether his country would 
 keep her word, and strongly suspected that she would 
 make a separate peace. All which information, though it 
 has subsequently proved to be correct, I did not find very 
 cheering at the time. 
 
 The Kola Inlet is really a continuation of the Nor- 
 wegian Fiords, and very different country to the mono- 
 tonous rolling " tundras " to which we were accustomed 
 at Yukanskie — barren lands which stretch for so many 
 thousand miles to the eastward. At the time of our 
 arrival the ice on the Kola River was commencing to 
 break up, and the river itself was in violent flood. All 
 day long great blocks of ice, bearing with them thousands 
 of pine trunks, rocks and parts of houses, came crashing 
 and grinding along our sides, borne by the rapid current. 
 Overhead the sun blazed in a cloudless firmament, while 
 ashore, among the feathery branches of the birch trees, 
 the blue-white surface of the snow was broken by the 
 outlines of innumerable black rocks which had pushed 
 their way through. It was very beautiful, but it re- 
 minded one most absurdly of a white-topped, well- 
 sugared plum-pudding, garnished with dark raisins and 
 sultanas. 
 
144 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Our stay at Murmansk was pleasant in its way. Both 
 we ourselves and the other ships based on Yukanskie 
 during the previous season spent altogether five and a 
 half weeks there. It was indeed not until the 6th of 
 June that Yukanskie was reported clear of ice, and we 
 found ourselves free to proceed there to inaugurate the 
 opening of the Arkhangel season, the first ships of the 
 year to enter the White Sea having done so on the 21st 
 of May. These latter were a convoy of ten ships, and 
 they experienced considerable difficulty before they got 
 through to Arkhangel, one of them losing her propeller 
 in the ice. The ice to the eastward of Yukanskie was 
 then still solid and formidable, and had at any time a 
 northerly wind set in it would probably have packed 
 badly and, by its pressure, have been very dangerous 10 
 shipping. 
 
 But to return to Murmansk, where we were lying. 
 The temperature gradually rose, there being never more 
 than twenty degrees of frost, and after the middle of May 
 it often thawed in the daytime. Snowstorms were in- 
 deed frequent, but the greater part of the time there was 
 brilliant sunshine, and in that land-locked anchorage we 
 experienced but two gales of any force. 
 
 For the season of 1917 in North Russia the British 
 mine-sweeping forces on the station had been increased 
 by the addition of eight trawlers. This brought the 
 total number of those craft available to twenty-four— less 
 the Arctic Prince, already hors de combat, thanks to her 
 butting against an unmannerly mine. There was also 
 an additional yacht, the Sagitta, for the use of the Senior 
 Officer of Mine Sweepers; otherwise our squadron was 
 the same as in 1916. 
 
 This small increment of force was very necessary, for 
 besides the anticipated increase in virulence of the sub- 
 marine campaign the Admiralty were also meditating a 
 change of policy with regard to shipping for Arkhangel. 
 Hitherto traffic for that port had skirted round Norway 
 as far north as the ice permitted. But now it was 
 
A Sledge and Sabotage 145 
 
 proposed that, in imitation of the German plan, merchant 
 ships should make their way up inside the territorial 
 waters of the Norwegian Fiords. Having thus gone on 
 their way as far as possible in safety (so far as submarines 
 were concerned), they were then, on reaching Vardo (the 
 extreme north-eastern port of Norway), to be convoyed 
 the remaining five hundred miles to Arkhangel. It will 
 be seen that under this new scheme Yukanskie, being in 
 the middle instead of at one end of the route, would lose 
 much of its strategical importance. The question arose, 
 therefore, as to whether there was no more suitable base 
 available from which the convoys could be organised. 
 In order to determine this, and after much discussion, I, 
 on the 13th of May, visited Pechenga, lying to the west- 
 ward of the Kola Inlet on the extreme western edge of 
 North Russia. I was much impressed by its possibilities, 
 Pechenga is, to all intents and purposes, a Norwegian 
 fiord, but territorially it lay just inside the Russian 
 frontier, Norway being only four miles distant. Opposite 
 to it is Vardo. Only an hour's steam separated the two 
 places, and Vardo was the place from which our convoys 
 would have to sail. Close at hand to the west lay 
 Kirkenaes, an important Norwegian port much fre- 
 quented by German steamers, they visiting it to obtain 
 the special iron-ores mined in the locality — ores of great 
 importance for war purposes. Pechenga, moreover, is 
 approached in deep water, and, like Murmansk, is for 
 that reason practically unmineable. Its narrow entrance 
 could also easily be defended against submarines by a 
 single drifter armed with depth charges. This entrance 
 opens into a magnificent land-locked harbour, with water 
 not too deep for safe anchorage. 
 
 Our British trawlers at that time were very fond of 
 prowling round in this likely neighbourhood, drawn as 
 if by a lodestone by the proximity of the fat Hun mer- 
 chant ships visiting Kirkenaes. Other German steamers 
 were also in the habit of visiting the small neighbouring 
 Norwegian coast towns for the purpose of collecting 
 
 K 
 
146 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 food. This, in great part, was the flesh of seals, which 
 were netted in great numbers around the coast, and whose 
 drowned carcasses were reputed to be an important article 
 of diet for British prisoners of war. Needless to say, 
 these Hun merchantmen generally took the greatest care 
 to remain inside territorial waters. But the sight of 
 them annoyed and fascinated us greatly, and we were for 
 ever devising schemes to lure them into some trap. The 
 problem was greatly complicated by Norway claiming 
 extra territorial waters outside the three-mile limit — a 
 claim, however, not allowed by Britain. In the course 
 of time it was found that near Kirkenaes there lay a strip 
 of water outside the three-mile limit. It was a strip, 
 moreover, which the Hun steamers were in the habit of 
 passing across, for it was a short cut, saving them many 
 miles of steaming. Needless to say, our trawlers were 
 very fond of lying in wait there, totally indifferent to 
 international squabbles as to territorial waters, and with 
 rosy visions of prize money ever before their eyes. Alas 
 that trawlers are such slow steamers, for one of them 
 actually did intercept a German steamer near this spot. 
 The joy of her crew was great as they listened to the 
 soul-satisfying outburst of Teutonic curses as the Hun 
 crew commenced to abandon their vessel. Unfor- 
 tunately, however, before the deed could be completed, 
 the German steamer drifted just inside the three-mile 
 limit. A Norwegian gunboat, the Raven, happening at 
 that moment to put in an unexpected and unwelcome 
 appearance, the British trawler had to abandon her prey. 
 Her undignified exit from the scene was made at her best 
 speed, and, like some law-breaking motorist, without 
 disclosing her identity. Such little incidents were a joy 
 to us all, but the Norwegian Government having then 
 and there taken the matter up diplomatically, a curt tele- 
 gram from the British Admiralty promptly warned us to 
 abate somewhat our misplaced zeal, a rebuff which I fear 
 for the most part the trawler skippers received with 
 their tongues in their cheeks. 
 
A Sledge and Sabotage 147 
 
 Not having a great deal to do for the moment (there 
 being an officer senior to .myself in charge at Mur- 
 mansk), I, with others, took the opportunity o£ our 
 stay at that place, to land from time to time, and try 
 and bag a little game. The snow just then was generally 
 not more than three or four feet deep, much of it having 
 been evaporated by the sun. In the drifts, however, 
 it was very soft, and its depth was an unknown number 
 of fathoms. Progress on foot was therefore both slow 
 and exhausting, while the heat engendered by the direct 
 rays of the sun caused all of us to stream with perspira- 
 tion. The country was mountainous, covered with 
 birch and larch woods, and we very soon noted that the 
 surface of the snow was patterned with the broad-arrow 
 foot-prints left by ptarmigan. Personally, I had no 
 sporting gun with me, but armed with a somewhat defec- 
 tive miniature rifle, I spent many pleasant afternoons 
 ashore in company with the ship's surgeon, tracking 
 for all we were worth these foot-prints in the snow, after 
 the best manner of Fenimore Cooper's Red Indians. 
 Such chases proved to be both hot and arduous, but our 
 first day's outing being (successful, it stimulated our 
 further efforts. We had tramped all the afternoon in 
 a blazing sun up to our waists in snow, and had nearly 
 given up hope, when I thought that I observed a slight 
 movement twenty yards distant. There was, however, 
 nothing visible, and we were just about to resume our 
 tramp when I was again conscious of something moving. 
 This time I looked very carefully, and at length realised 
 that I was gazing into the black eyes of a hen ptarmigan, 
 her white plumage being all but invisible against the 
 snow. A lucky shot with my miniature rifle, and I had 
 winged her as she squatted motionless ; I was just about 
 to spring forward to seize her, when I became conscious 
 of yet further movements. There were two other 
 birds, a cock and a hen, squatting motionless alongside 
 the first. A second lucky shot, and I had hit the cock 
 bird as well. Our excitement was great, for at that 
 
 K2 
 
148 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 moment my rifle jammed, and before I could fire a third 
 shot. The doctor also had been unable to induce his 
 rifle to go off and was commencing to dance and exer- 
 cise his vocabulary — a safety valve to his pent up feel- 
 ings, in which I, with my seaman's training, quickly 
 surpassed him. Meanwhile the ptarmigan, having 
 evidently abandoned further hopes of being able to pass 
 themselves off as snow-balls, commenced to scuttle light- 
 footedly down the snowy hillside. We heavy-footed 
 mortals blundered heavily after them, damning the high 
 heavens as we went and hurling sticks, stones, and 
 snow-balls, for lack of better ammunition. It was a 
 long chase and a profane one, and for the most part 
 breast deep in the snow. Sometimes we were on our 
 feet, but more often we were struggling tortoisewise on 
 our backs in the treacherous drifts. But, in the end, we 
 had our reward; for we returned on board exhausted, 
 perhaps, but triumphant — and with us a fine brace of 
 ptarmigan to prove our hunting prowess and also to 
 grace the festal board. 
 
 My companion, the ship's surgeon, was blest or cursed 
 with an insatiable thirst for scientific knowledge, a 
 thirst which found nothing too trivial or disgusting. 
 From my point of view, the ptarmigan were beautiful 
 objects, an interesting study in protective coloration, 
 and most excellent eating. But the doctor desired above 
 all things to burrow in their interiors, and, on receiving 
 his promise not to spoil them for the table, I allowed 
 him to open up their crops and entrails. The former of 
 these organs we found to be full to bursting with birch 
 buds, which, to judge by the plumpness of the birds 
 themselves, must have been a nourishing diet. The en- 
 trails he searched for parasites, and, after exhaustive 
 explorations with his knife, unearthed two disgusting 
 looking tape-worms — a find which gave him as much 
 joy as if he had discovered a gold mine. Their presence 
 in my dinner-to-be did not fill me with pleasant reflec- 
 tions. And yet, in spite of my repugnance, the doctor 
 
A Sledge and Sabotage 149 
 
 soon succeeded in interesting me in what would have 
 been the life history of these horrors, had we not, by 
 killing the ptarmigan, interfered with the plans of 
 Nature. In the ordinary course, these tape-worms 
 would have laid their eggs inside the birds, to pass out 
 in due time still as eggs with the excreta. The excreta, 
 in its turn, would have been devoured by a beetle, and 
 the eggs it contained, hatching out inside this new host, 
 would not have been tape-worms at all, but microscopic 
 thread-worms who would have inhabited the insect's 
 muscles. In these they would have laid their eggs and, 
 the beetle having been eaten by a ptarmigan, the chain 
 of Nature would have been complete — for this time the 
 eggs would have hatched out in the likeness of their 
 grand parents as tape-worms, and so on for endless 
 cycles. 
 
 Chief among our sports and pastimes whilst waiting 
 at Murmansk was rowing. In a vain-glorious and rash 
 moment, the officers of the Intrepid had challenged their 
 rivals in the Iphigenia to race them in six-oared galleys 
 over a pre-arranged course. In a still weaker moment, 
 I had promised to stroke the Intrepid's officers' crew, 
 The galley proved to be an extremely heavy boat, far 
 more suitable for contending with rough seas than with 
 rival racing boats. However, having sown the wind, 
 we now had to reap the whirlwind, and make the best 
 show we could — intensive training, as understood in the 
 Navy, was forthwith commenced. This training, be- 
 sides curtailing grievously the allowance of drinks and 
 cigarettes which we had hitherto thought good for our- 
 selves, was strenuous in many other ways. I hardly 
 think I am what would be considered a " feather bed " 
 sailor, and, if anything, I pride myself on being some- 
 what more hardy than my fellows; but, to be turned 
 out of my snug bed at six o'clock of an Arctic morning, 
 to embark, clad only in shorts and the scantiest of under- 
 clothing, with a bitter wind, snow falling, and from tes 
 to fifteen degrees of frost; and then, for half an hour, 
 
150 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 to row a Noah's Ark among the ice floes — that was an 
 experience which I will not readily forget so long as I 
 have finger-tips. The pain from cold in one's digital 
 extremities was exquisite, and many a time did I thank 
 my stars that I had not been born a centipede. 
 
 The much-discussed race eventually came off on the 
 23rd of May, and we found ourselves soundly, but not 
 ingloriously, beaten. The hated Niffie Janes had got 
 away more speedily than ourselves at the start, owing 
 to the greater lightness of their boat, but we came up 
 steadily with them throughout the whole race. At the 
 finish, to us who were rowing it looked like a dead-heat. 
 The course pulled was only a half-mile, for both crews 
 were under the false impression that they would thereby 
 spare their untrained winds and muscles; whereas, as 
 a matter of fact, there are no distances so exhausting 
 as these short ones, which necessitate a continuous spurt 
 the whole time, and give the crews no chance of getting 
 their second wind. The victors having entertained the 
 vanquished to drinks, we challenged them to a return 
 race at the end of June, a proposal which they scornfully 
 " turned down." 
 
 The Vindictive, however, having witnessed our defeat, 
 evidently thought that they could go one better, and 
 accepted the challenge of a race to be pulled in five- 
 oared whalers. Ten days later, in mild weather, with 
 no ice-floes to obstruct the course, we most soundly 
 trounced them, beating them by three lengths. That 
 was the last of our Arctic boat-races, for the summer 
 w as at hand, and with it the attentions of submarines 
 and the necessities of shipping fully engrossed all our 
 energies. 
 
 If, however, we no longer found ourselves free to 
 indulge in boat-racing, the Intrepid' 's concert party, now 
 known as the " Yukanskie Canaries," was still going 
 strong. They had provided themselves with much new 
 talant, also some theatrical wigs and other properties, 
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A Sledge and Sabotage 151 
 
 had parted with it unregretfully for the sum of ten 
 pounds before leaving Chatham. On every occasion 
 before it was played the instrument required complete 
 re-tuning, but the Chief Engineer made it his own foster- 
 child, and surprised me by the melodies which he could 
 rattle out of such a wheezy assortment of wires and 
 bones. As was the case in the previous season, these 
 concerts were never damned by the stigma of being 
 " highbrow " or super-refined, but they eminently ful- 
 filled a real purpose by the gaiety which their constant 
 repetition spread throughout the squadron. Among the 
 many new " star " performers who made their debut 
 this season one was a trawler skipper popularly known 
 as the " North Sea Siren." He had lungs of leather, 
 a throat of brass, and a wind pressure which would have 
 put to shame many so-called high-pressure steam 
 engines. It was not for the melodiousness of his voice 
 that he was famed, but for its volume and penetration, 
 for it was said (and I have no reason to doubt the truth 
 of the story) that, when he chose to do so, he could 
 easily make himself heard from one end of Yarmouth 
 to the other end of Lowestoft. Another turn, equally 
 popular in his way, was an officer belonging to the 
 Intrepid, whose asset was in being bountifully provided 
 by Nature with that anatomical protuberance known to 
 the vulgar as a " bow window " or " Little Mary ■"; 
 but, contrary to the ordinary course of Nature, this pro- 
 tuberance, in his case, instead of being soft and flaccid, 
 proved to be a mass of indiarubber-like muscles. At our 
 concerts this happy freak was wont to mount the stage, 
 and therefrom invite all and sundry to " try their 
 strength " — this by striking him with their bare clenched 
 fists on his " Little Mary " — an invitation which most 
 were very glad to avail themselves of. But all efforts 
 to disturb the serenity of his smile proved fruitless. As 
 well might they have punched a whale or an elephant — 
 it was they themselves who rebounded from the force 
 of the impact, while the individual himself remained 
 
152 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 unmoved, and with the far-away smile of a Buddha. 
 Even the ship's blacksmith, a black and hairy Hercules 
 with a fist like a piston-rod, made not the least 
 impression. 
 
 During the early summer of 1917 the discipline of the 
 Russian Navy was daily becoming more undermined, 
 and showed signs of breaking down altogether. Owing 
 to the confusion of affairs at headquarters caused by the 
 Revolution, neither the officers nor the men had received 
 any pay for some time, and discontent was rife. With- 
 out the prior consent of her crew no Russian man-of- 
 war could put to sea, and any officer against whom any 
 member of the crew had a grievance, either real or 
 imaginary, was at once superseded and sent as a prisoner 
 to Arkhangel. Add to the difficulty which we had always 
 experienced of persuading a Russian ship to go to sea 
 the fact that sabotage and deliberate damage to machi- 
 nery became increasingly prevalent, and it will be 
 realised that the British artificers whom we sent to 
 repair Russian vessels had an uninspiring task. Their 
 annoyance was greatly aggravated by observing the 
 attitude of the Russian crews, who, whilst they them- 
 selves were straining every nerve and sinew to complete 
 the repairs, sat around smoking and spitting, without so 
 much as lifting a finger to assist. But, to the credit of 
 the British be it said, they never actively showed their 
 annoyance, and, in spite of the Russians themselves, 
 they kept the Russian ships going to the end of the 
 season. This, too, despite the fact that, as soon as the 
 ice broke up, the Russian trawlers with one accord 
 attempted to bolt for Arkhangel, fully intending to 
 remain there until they were frozen in once more for 
 the winter. 
 
 Necessity, ever the mother of invention, had by this 
 time caused us to try many experiments which at other 
 times we would have regarded doubtfully. Some of 
 these experiments proved of very real value, chief 
 among which was a new method which we had devised 
 
A Sledge and Sabotage 153 
 
 for shifting the damaged propellers of trawlers. At 
 Murmansk there was of course, no dry dock, and, one 
 of the Russian trawlers having bent all her propeller 
 blades, we tried beaching her in the approved manner, 
 with a view to heating the boss at low water. This, by 
 expanding it, would allow of its being more easily 
 removed. But the sand upon which the trawler rested 
 proved to be too soft, and, as the tide fell, so did the 
 trawler sink into it; by no means could we induce the 
 boss to remain above water. Some new method had to 
 be found, arid it was the Intrepid' s chief engineer and 
 gunner who between them devised it. The trawler was 
 once more floated off and got alongside the ship, and a 
 stage rigged under her keel upon which a diver could 
 work. The diver then drilled under, water a series of 
 holes in the propeller boss, and into these wedges were 
 hammered and the boss thus split open. This accom- 
 plished, the propeller shaft was easily withdrawn into 
 the trawler by means of folding wedges, leaving the 
 damaged propeller behind. The new propeller was then 
 put into its place, and the process reversed — the shaft 
 being wedged out once more and the boss pushed home 
 on to it by means of hydraulic jacks. The reader must 
 not imagine that on the first occasion this was accom- 
 plished as easily as it reads, for our maiden effort lasted 
 for twenty working days; but, with a little practice and 
 experience, we found to a nicety just where to drill the 
 holes and the minimum number necessary, and the 
 transfer of propellers was effected within forty-eight 
 hours. Henceforward we were independent of tides and 
 weather for such work. 
 
 Perhaps the reader will wonder how it was that the 
 diver was able to endure the intense cold under water in 
 the Arctic, with the sea below the freezing point of fresh 
 water. This was only possible owing to another inven- 
 tion of Mr. Warnes, the gunner of the Intrepid, who 
 devised a special pair of under-water gloves. Before the 
 invention of these gloves half an hour under water was 
 
154 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 as much as most divers could stand. But after the gloves 
 came into use the diver was generally bathed in perspira- 
 tion and the only warm person in the party, for those 
 engaged in the boat pumping air to him suffered bitterly 
 from the cold. 
 
 But our stay at Murmansk was now rapidly drawing to 
 a close. The spring was advancing by leaps and bounds, 
 the rivers were all in violent flood, and the coast-line was 
 rapidly clearing of ice to the eastward. On the 6th of 
 June we commenced our summer flit to Yukanskie, but 
 before I transport the reader with me I will first narrate 
 some of the submarine incidents which had already 
 occurred in our immediate vicinity at Murmansk. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 GUNS AND TORPEDOES STEAMERS HIT, YET SOMETIMES IS 
 THE BITER BIT; AND THOUGH LAND DOGS DON'T EAT 
 THEIR KIND, THE UNDERWATER DO — YOU'LL FIND. 
 
 THE first ship of the season 1917 to fall a victim to the 
 spring campaign of the Kaiser's U-boats in the 
 Arctic was the Russian s.s. Olga. She, on the 28th of 
 April, was in latitude 71.40 N., longitude 32.9 E., and 
 heading along happily to the south-south-east at nine 
 knots. It was a glorious spring morning, with that 
 wonderful weather, calm sea, and brilliant sunshine so 
 common in those high latitudes at that season of the 
 year. Like most of the other Russian merchantmen 
 then plying to the Murman Coast, the Olga carried, 
 besides her own seamen, a British gun's crew of two 
 men to work the defensive armament of a 12-pounder gun 
 mounted in her stern. 
 
 There appeared to be nothing in sight when, at 
 8.30 a.m., the Olga's crew were startled by the sound of 
 an exploding shell, which splashed into the water close 
 alongside them. Looking more attentively, they at 
 length made out on their port quarter, and some five 
 miles distant, a submarine just awash on the surface. 
 The latter's large conning-tower had in reality been in 
 sight for some little time, but, mistaking it for the upper 
 sails of some square-rigged ship, hull down below the 
 horizon, no one had heeded it. 
 
 The Olga's British gun's crew at once manned their 
 gun and returned the U-boat's fire, but their gun was 
 
 155 
 
156 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 only sighted for an extreme range of 8,100 yards. All 
 their projectiles fell short, while those from the sub- 
 marine began to fall around and over them. In vain did 
 the Olga's master, by attempting to steer in the direction 
 of the land, then eighty miles distant, endeavour to 
 obtain shelter. Of the two vessels the submarine was 
 much the speedier, and she, while carefully keeping her- 
 self out of range of the Olga's gun, constantly headed 
 the latter away from her objective. The Olga found 
 herself steering due north, with both the submarine and 
 the desired land right astern. The Olga's smoke 
 apparatus was then brought into use, but without success. 
 In climes warmer than the Arctic this smoke apparatus 
 was, I believe, of material use on many occasions in foil- 
 ing the deadly attacks of submarines. But in the Arctic, 
 on every occasion of which I have a record, it failed 
 dismally. This apparatus, known as Type E., consists 
 of boxes of chemicals which, having been thrown over- 
 board by the pursued vessel, float on the surface and give 
 off dense clouds of smoke. Under cover of this 
 movement-concealing cloud of smoke the vessel then 
 attempts to make her escape. At the same time the 
 smoke also assists by preventing the submarine seeing 
 where her projectiles are falling. In the case of the 
 unfortunate Olga, however, the smoke entirely failed to 
 rise more than four or five feet above the surface, and 
 left her masts and the upper part of her hull fully exposed 
 to view. In a very short time the submarine's shells 
 began to find their target ; six in rapid succession struck 
 the doomed ship, one piercing her water-line forward 
 and killing the cook. Thereupon the Olga's crew, with 
 the exception of the master, chief engineer, and British 
 gun-layers, fell into a state of panic. En masse they 
 implored the master to surrender, and refused either to 
 go below to double bank the boilers or to assist the 
 British gun's crew. At 10.30 a.m., being hopelessly out- 
 ranged and having fired twenty-nine futile rounds from 
 his gun, Captain Stesser, the master, reluctantly ordered 
 
The Biter Bit 157 
 
 the ship to be abandoned, and took to the boats. The 
 ship had been in action for just two hours, and was badly 
 down by the head owing to the shell-hole on her water- 
 line forward. The boats having left, the submarine fired 
 yet eight other rounds, which fell between them and the 
 ship, and then closed. Her commander, a man of about 
 forty, then asked for the Olga's orders, papers, et cetera, 
 but in this matter Captain Stesser had been beforehand 
 and had already destroyed them. He had, however, 
 unfortunately left his chart, marked with the ship's track, 
 on board, and this was taken by the U-boat's captain. 
 This find doubtless proved of use to him in assisting him 
 to hunt down other Allied vessels, for it would give a 
 good clue as to which routes ships were at that time 
 taking and as to where they might be looked for with 
 most advantage. 
 
 Having laid their boat alongside the Olga, the sub- 
 marine crew, who looked half starved, looted her most 
 thoroughly, taking back with them food, clothes, chrono- 
 meters and everything of the least value. Having done 
 this, they placed two bombs in her hold and exploded 
 them, whereupon she began to settle down slowly, 
 although, when last seen about 1 p.m., she was still afloat. 
 
 Whilst his crew were thus congenially engaged, the 
 submarine commander, a man who spoke both English 
 and Lettish fluently, occupied himself in conversation 
 with Captain Stesser. The latter asked him the reason 
 as to why his submarine was so far out from the land, 
 a query to which the German replied, " Because we 
 know your track." The German then asked for the 
 British gun's crew, but refrained from making them 
 prisoners on Captain Stesser representing that all they 
 had done was by his orders, and that, if they were to 
 be made prisoners, then the same fate must be his also. 
 Subsequently, the German commander expressed much 
 amusement at the ineflicacy of the British gun, and also 
 much curiosity as to the purpose of the smoke-boxes, 
 a " gadget " which was evidently new to him. He 
 
158 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 stated that he would take both home and put them in a 
 museum — an event which, according to a German wire- 
 less intercepted a few weeks later, actually took place. 
 
 This submarine, which had two guns and was appar- 
 ently on her maiden voyage, was two hundred and sixty 
 feet long. One of her commander's last queries of 
 Captain Stesser was " How long he thought the war 
 was going to last? " To this, the latter replied — " As 
 long as you have anything to eat." The German then 
 commented, " It can't last very long now. Any way, 
 we have plenty of ammunition." This eliciting the in- 
 stantaneous and somewhat obvious retort, " You can't 
 eat that ! " 
 
 This Hun undoubtedly behaved well according to his 
 lights, and towed the boats (which had been badly 
 damaged by bumping the submarine) for some twenty 
 minutes. He then, however, suddenly dropped them in 
 a great hurry, and went off at full speed towards the 
 north, doubtless in pursuit of another victim. For, 
 though nothing could be seen of the latter from the 
 boats, their occupants could distinctly hear the sound of 
 distant firing. 
 
 The Olga's crew, thus abandoned in leaky boats a 
 hundred miles from land, spent twenty-six hours tossing 
 on the open sea, suffering greatly from cold and wet. 
 Then, however, they were providentially picked up by 
 a Norwegian motor-drifter, who landed them at Berle- 
 vaag, in Norway, whence they made their way to Mur- 
 mansk, at which place I interviewed them a fortnight 
 later. 
 
 The next victim of " f rightfulness " in the Arctic 
 which came to my ears was also a Russian, the s.s. 
 Truzvor. She was sunk by a U-boat five days after the 
 Olga — that is to say, on the 3rd of May. In her case 
 the vessel was fortunate enough to be close to the 
 entrance of the Kola Inlet. After comparing the descrip- 
 tions which I have received, I have no doubt that 
 the Truwor's fate was brought about by a different 
 
The Biter Bit 159 
 
 submarine to that which administered the Olga's coup 
 de grace. 
 
 The time was just a quarter after midnight, and it was 
 of course broad daylight, with a calm sea and land in 
 sight to the southward. During the voyage, the two 
 men of the British gun's crew on board the Truwor had 
 taken it in turns to do watch and watch about at their 
 weapon. Watch had just been relieved, and one man 
 had just gone down to his cabin, but, feeling uneasy, 
 was peering through the scuttle: He could, however, 
 see nothing. "The other man on duty at the gun was also 
 looking round with his binoculars, but neither could 
 he see anything suspicious. Suddenly, without any 
 warning, a torpedo struck the ship under number two 
 hold, and within seven minutes the ship had foundered. 
 However, all the crew, with the exception of the chief 
 engineer (he was never seen again after the torpedo 
 exploded), managed to get safely away in the boats 
 before the ship sank under them. 
 
 Up till then, nothing had been seen of the submarine, 
 nor had even the track of the torpedo been observed. 
 But as soon as the crew had got away in the boats a 
 periscope appeared, and, after regarding them for a 
 short space with its cold eye, the U-boat herself rose 
 to the surface and approached them. The Commander 
 of the pirate was a fat red-faced fellow, and his crew 
 appeared to be decidedly better nourished than those of 
 the Olga's submarine — doubtless they had had more 
 extended opportunities of looting and obtaining food 
 from stricken ships. In number they exceeded fifty. 
 The German in command, speaking English, inquired 
 of the Truwor's master where his British gun's crew 
 were; but the latter, with more patriotism than veracity, 
 answered that they had " gone down with the ship." 
 Apparently satisfied by this reply, the U-boat then made 
 off, and four hours later the Truwor's boats were 
 picked up by the British patrol, who took them to 
 Murmansk. 
 
160 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Up till this time, as will have been seen, the U-boats 
 had been having things pretty much their own way. On 
 this Arctic Coast of Russia were no fast destroyers, no 
 air craft, neither were there submarine mines nor nets. 
 There was, in fact, nothing that could hunt them, 
 nothing that would make of the lives of their crews a 
 haunting terror, such as at times they often became in 
 home waters. But the race is not always to the swift, 
 nor the battle to the strong, and, as I will presently 
 show, even up there, in the bare and frozen Arctic, the 
 bones of the U-boat seaman and those of his hapless 
 victims lie not far apart. On those deep coral bottoms, 
 the hulls, both of the destroyer and the destroyed, rest 
 close together. 
 
 The British s.s. Palmbranch was the first of those who 
 turned the tables on the destroyer that lurks at noon- 
 day. She was commanded by Captain Mailing, than 
 whom no finer officer existed in our merchant navy — 
 one, in fact, whose courage and skill have been recog- 
 nised by the bestowal of a D.S.O. with bar. His ship 
 had among her cargo a large quantity of high explosives 
 and poison-gas, and mounted, an American 13-pounder 
 gun aft. This gun was a concession to the insistent 
 demands of the master, he having previously been chased 
 and shelled in a gunless ship by a submarine. But, 
 purely by his own skill, seamanship, and resolution, he 
 had escaped destruction, and brought his ship safely into 
 port — the scars of battle still showing in the Palmbranch 
 when she arrived in the Arctic. Captain Mailing had 
 organised his crew as efficiently as those of a man-of- 
 war; everything had been thought out beforehand. 
 Apparatus was in readiness to deal with fire, gas-masks 
 had been served out, and various officers and men were 
 detailed to assist with the gun, to spot the fall of the 
 shot, to take notes, and even to make sketches. In 
 fact, nothing which could be foreseen had been left to 
 chance. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that, at a quarter 
 
The Biter Bit 161 
 
 to four on the afternoon of the 4th of May, 1917 (the 
 day following the Truwor incident, and not far from the 
 same spot), the Palmbranch was zigzagging her way 
 towards the entrance of the Kola Inlet. The weather 
 was calm and clear, the land already in sight, and no 
 special warnings had been received as to the presence of 
 submarines in the vicinity. Most people would have 
 thought, under the circumstances, that the dangers Of 
 the voyage were practically ended, and would have re- 
 laxed their vigifance. Not so in the Palmbranch; 
 every man was at his station, and the gun ready, loaded 
 with a projectile and cartridge. 
 
 Suddenly one of the gun's crew saw a stationary 
 periscope only sixty yards distant on the vessel's port 
 beam. At the same instant, and before any action could 
 be taken, a white track of bubbles, marking the course 
 of a torpedo, was seen racing towards the ship. The 
 track passed two or three feet from her stern, and there 
 can be no doubt that the torpedo itself passed under 
 her, but too deep to strike her. 
 
 Instantly the men at the Palmbranch's gun slammed-to 
 the breech and laid their sights to zero. As they did 
 this the conning-tower of a submarine rose on the port 
 quarter, barely forty yards away; then the deck itself 
 emerged from the water. 
 
 Such a target at point blank range comes not often to 
 naval gunners, and it was one which was not likely to 
 endure for many happy golden seconds. A flash, a roar, 
 and the Palmbranch's first shell struck the U-boat at the 
 base of her conning-tower, just at the point where it 
 joined the deck; and where it struck it tore great gaps 
 and rents. Five seconds later and a second shell had 
 burst on the submarine's water-line forward. Only two 
 rounds with a small gun, but they were enough. The 
 submarine, which appeared to be stopped, rolled slightly, 
 then took a list, and sank vertically out of sight— never 
 to rise again. 
 
 But though she had sunk her antagonist, the Palm- 
 
 L 
 
1 62 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 branch was not yet out of the wood; for the U-boat had 
 a mate close at hand intent on revenging her companion. 
 Within a minute of having " put under " the first sub- 
 marine Jthose on board the Palmbranch sighted a 
 periscope moving to the eastward, 4,500 yards distant 
 on their starboard quarter. Once^more they opened fire, 
 and the periscope dipped ; nothing more was seen of it 
 for twenty minutes. And then, at ten minutes past four 
 o'clock, a submarine rose to the surface three and a half 
 miles away. With her two guns the new antagonist 
 opened fire at 7,000 yards range, the first shot falling half 
 a mile short. But gradually the projectiles crept up 
 nearer and nearer, until one flopped into the water only 
 fifty feet from the Palmbranch's stern, and directly in 
 line with it. Fortunately, from there it ricochetted high 
 overhead and passed above the ship, doing her no 
 damage. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that during this interval 
 the Palmbranch herself was not idle, but was replying 
 vigorously to the enemy fire. In fact, during forty-five 
 minutes she loosed off no less than eighty rounds. But 
 the steamer was a big target, and it looked as though 
 in the end she must succumb to the longer range weapon 
 and heavier projectiles of her antagonist. However, at 
 the critical moment, at a time when it seemed almost 
 certain that the next German shell must be a hit, one of 
 the Palmbranch's own projectiles took effect. It struck 
 the submarine abreast her after gun and knocked it out, 
 and : from whose vicinity dense clouds commenced to 
 issue. Almost immediately the submarine broke off 
 the action and headed away to the northward on the 
 surface. She had swallowed a bigger pill than she was 
 able to digest when she had challenged the Palmbranch. 
 To this affair of the Palmbranch there was an in- 
 teresting aftermath. It was observed that when the 
 first submarine sank at 3.45, a conical object floated 
 away from her. The general opinion at Murmansk 
 at the time was that this submarine was a mine-layer 
 
The Biter Bit 163 
 
 and that the object seen to float away was a mine which 
 had become detached. I personally was of another 
 opinion and, in sending my report to the Admiralty, 
 stated that I believed it to be something entirely different, 
 namely, a telephone buoy. All German submarines at 
 that date carried in the structure of their hulls a large 
 buoy; this buoy, in the event of the vessel sinking acci- 
 dentally, could be released from the inside and would 
 float up to the surface. Each buoy was fitted with a 
 watertight telephone, and it enabled a rescuing party on 
 the surface to converse with those imprisoned in the 
 sunken submarine. 
 
 Subsequent events seemed to prove that my theory was 
 the correct one, for, exactly four weeks later, on the 1st 
 of June, I learnt from Russian sources that a buoy 
 answering to this description had been found. It was 
 in the possession of some Lap fishermen residing at a 
 small village on the coast more than a hundred miles 
 distant to the eastward, the place being called Litzki. 
 Another month passed by before I could get further 
 information on the subject, and then it was Captain Hurt, 
 in the yacht Sagetta, who succeeded in obtaining it. 
 With gifts of tea and sugar he had bribed the natives to 
 give up its possession, and he had then brought it back 
 with him. Through an interpreter, whom I also sent to 
 the spot, I at the same time learnt something of its 
 history. 
 
 It appears that Dvoravaya Bay, the spot where the 
 buoy was actually found, was an uninhabited spot. But 
 it was a place constantly visited by the fishermen-trapper 
 coast-dwellers of the surrounding districts for the 
 purpose of collecting drift-wood for fuel, for great quan- 
 tities of that commodity normally drift into the bay. 
 It was about the 22nd of May that one of these visiting 
 parties found the buoy resting on the outer edge of the 
 fixed winter ice, this fact proving that it was no relic of 
 the previous season, as might otherwise have been the 
 case. For, had that been so, the buoy would have been 
 
 L2 
 
164 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 inside the winter ice instead of on the outside edge of it. 
 At first the fishermen, taking the buoy to be a mine, had 
 fired their rifles at it. But, nothing happening as a result 
 of this rash treatment, they presently gained courage 
 and took it into their boat, and thus conveyed it to their 
 homes at the Litzka River, sixteen miles distant. There 
 the natives dismantled it of all its chains, wires and any- 
 thing else which could possibly be of use to them; but 
 they left in situ the record of most interest to us, namely, 
 the big brass plate let into the head of the buoy. Upon 
 this was inscribed: — Nicht offnen. Telefonbote liegen 
 lessen! Telegraphieren sofort liegestelle an U-boots- 
 wen, Kiel. Unterseeboot 75 hier gesunken. (Transla- 
 tion: " Do not open. Leave telephone buoy lying! 
 Telegraph immediately position to U-boats' base, Kiel. 
 Submarine 75 sunk here.") 
 
 From the evidence which I have now given, I think no 
 other conclusion is feasible than that this telephone buoy 
 was the object seen to detach itself from the submarine 
 " put under " by the Palmbranch on the 4th of May. It 
 was the final proof, if any were still needed, that she 
 had really sunk her antagonist. The buoy was, indeed, 
 found one hundred and twenty miles from the scene of 
 the action, but the known set of the current, and also 
 the prevailing direction of the wind in the interval, 
 would have tended to drift it that way. To account for 
 the buoy being at the position in which it was found 
 would have necessitated only a daily average movement 
 easterly of eleven or twelve miles — a most ordinary rate. 
 Add to this the fact that no other ship claimed to have 
 sunk a submarine east of the North Cape that season, 
 and probability merges into certainty. The U 75 class 
 were large mine-layers, then the latest of their kind, and 
 carrying a load of thirty-six mines. They were designed 
 for work in distant waters, but were not a great success, 
 and many of them came to grief during the war. 
 
 It remained until the closing months of 1921 for the 
 full significance of this sinking of the U 75 to become 
 
The Biter Bit 165 
 
 apparent. It only became so when the Germans pub- 
 lished the full official reports of the doings of their 
 submarines. From these it was discovered that almost 
 exactly a year previously to the events here narrated — 
 that is to say, in the spring of 1916 — the U 75 had laid 
 thirteen mines off Scapa Flow. Of these, twelve were 
 destroyed by the British sweepers, but the thirteenth, 
 which remained undiscovered, sank H.M.S. Hampshire 
 with Lord Kitchener on board. Thus by the instru- 
 mentality of the s.s. Palmbranch, which totally destroyed 
 the U 75 with all her crew, was Lord Kitchener avenged 
 in Arctic waters twelve months after his death. 
 
 The bad luck of the U 75 herself was probably due to 
 the Palmb ranch's zealous zigzagging. The latter had 
 just altered course on one of these zigzags, when the 
 submarine, who had doubtless marked her from afar, 
 had put up her periscope to deliver the final blow with 
 a torpedo. Owing to the steamer's sudden alteration 
 of course the submarine found herself unexpectedly 
 right on top of her proposed victim, and in imminent 
 danger of destruction by collision or from the explosion 
 of her own torpedo. Stopping her engines, and also 
 putting over her helm to avert this, at once brought the 
 submarine to the surface, with the satisfactory results, 
 from the British point of view, which I have just 
 narrated. 
 
 This was, however, by no means the only success 
 scored by British merchantmen, en route for the Arctic, 
 against the Kaiser's " unterseeboots," for the s.s. 
 Cotovia carried out a most successful action, and also 
 destroyed her opponent. It was at ten-thirty of the 
 morning of the " glorious 1st of June " that she was 
 zigzagging along on a north-easterly course, her speed 
 being ten knots and the weather in conformity with the 
 title of the date. She was in a position in latitude 68.49 
 north, and longitude 5.20 east, when the look-out 
 reported a sail on the port bow; whereupon Captain 
 Bryant, the master of the Cotovia, despatched an officer 
 
1 66 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 aloft with glasses to investigate. The officer's report 
 corroborated that Of the look-out man, and stated that 
 the ship in sight appeared to be a barque, hull down, with 
 square sail and a fore-and-aft mizen showing above the 
 horizon. Captain Bryant, however, still remained 
 somewhat uneasy in his mind and dissatisfied about the 
 matter, and altered his ship's head to the south-eastward 
 so as to bring the strange sail astern. Heading thus, he 
 soon ran it out of sight; this accomplished, he resumed 
 his old course and his zagzagging. Judge of his sur- 
 prise, therefore, when, half an hour later, the suspicious 
 sail once more reappeared, and this time half a 
 point further forward. Such a happening was more 
 than suspicious. Without further ado the Cotovia was 
 headed almost due south, and steam worked up for full 
 speed. Twelve knots was quickly attained, but, in spite 
 of this, the stranger still continued to gain and to 
 rapidly overhaul the Cotovia from astern. As she got 
 closer still there could no longer be any possible room 
 for doubt — it was a submarine which they were looking 
 at, and one whose large conning tower had, in the 
 distance, looked like the square upper sails of a ship!. 
 
 Half an hour after noon, the submarine being then 
 about five miles distant, the ball commenced by the 
 U-boat firing a shot which fell into the water nearly a 
 mile short. At 9,000 yards range the Cotovia replied 
 with her 10-pdr. Russian gun, and shortly afterwards 
 she also brought her smoke apparatus into use. But 
 this, as in the case of the Olga, proved to be quite ineffec- 
 tive, the smoke not rising sufficiently high above the 
 water. The submarine's attack then became most deter- 
 mined, and, unlike most of heir confreres, she did not 
 trouble to keep outside the range of the Cotovia's 
 weapon, but kept doggedly closing. Thus the action 
 raged, with at first apparently no hits to register on 
 either side. 
 
 By 3 p.m. the Cotovia had fired sixty-one rounds and 
 was beginning to run short of ammunition. Thinking 
 
The Biter Bit 167 
 
 there was little or no hope of saving his ship, the master 
 then burnt all his secret orders and wireless codes, and 
 provisioned his boats preparatory to the worst. At ten 
 minutes past three, however, the submarine unexpectedly 
 ceased fire, and, to economise ammunition, the Cotovia 
 did the same, hoping that later on the U-boat might 
 present a more favourable target. It was then noticed 
 for the first time that the submarine was listing con- 
 siderably to port, and had commenced to swing round 
 in the same direction. A moment later and the sub- 
 marine was lying broadside on to them with her engines 
 stopped. In this position the German fired two final 
 spiteful rounds at the Cotovia from her after gun, and 
 those two rounds it was which sealed her own fate. The 
 shells passed within a few feet of the Cotovia, but did 
 her no harm, and to them she replied with half a dozen 
 rounds from her own miniature cannon. Of these two 
 at least got home — one striking the submarine's water- 
 line below the base of the conning tower, the other land- 
 ing on her deck just before it. This was the last shot 
 of the action. As the Britishers gazed they saw the 
 submarine heel over more and still more, then gradually 
 sink out of sight horizontally, her engines stopped, and 
 her crew all on deck. It was the last that was ever seen 
 of them, for it was a long way to Germany, and I don't 
 fancy any of them ever got there. Doubtless they have 
 gone to join their companions of the U 75 in that place 
 wherein " there is no more sea." 
 
 In explanation of the fact that it was the submarine 
 who first broke off the action, it is probable that, in the 
 heat of action, the Cotovia, unknown to herself, had 
 damaged the submarine's foremost gun. The fact only 
 became evident by the submarine turning away. Once 
 more had the bull-dog tenacity of a British merchant 
 seaman defeated Hun " f rightfulness." 
 
 These four actions which I have just related took 
 place while the Yukanskie division were still awaiting 
 at Murmansk the breaking up of the ice. There were 
 
168 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 many other minor incidents, but the only one I consider 
 worthy of setting forth here is a little episode which 
 befell the British submarine E 39 — she being one of the 
 two whom the Intrepid had escorted to the Arctic. 
 This British submarine, E 39, was, on the 26th of May, 
 cruising on the surface in latitude 70.50 north, longitude 
 31.15 east, sharply on the qui vive for enemy under- 
 water craft. It was just ten p.m. when, on her port 
 bow and some 600 yards distant, the air-splash caused 
 by the discharge of a torpedo was both seen and dis- 
 tinctly heard. Almost at the same moment the conning 
 tower of a U-boat momentarily broke the surface and 
 then disappeared. Like lightning, the E 39 starboarded 
 her helm, in order to get end on to the enemy, and thus 
 to present to her the smallest target possible. She was 
 barely in time, for, as she turned, a " Mouldy " (torpedo) 
 whizzed past within a few inches of her stem. 
 
 Making a pretence of not having noticed anything, the 
 E 39 continued upon her course on the surface, while 
 the U-boat, for her part, remained submerged and in- 
 visible. Thus they continued until eleven p.m. (it of 
 course being broad daylight in those latitudes), at which 
 hour the Britisher, in her turn, dived, and returned 
 underwater to look for her late antagonist. All night 
 she cruised thus, only showing the tip of her periscope 
 above water, and remaining in the vicinity of the pre- 
 vious day's incident. Nothing however was seen, so, 
 at ten thirty a.m., she rose to the surface once more to 
 recharge her batteries. She had been thus engaged 
 for about half-an-hour, when, on the port bow, she 
 sighted a periscope distant four hundred yards. Once 
 more the E 39 " acted innocent " — and continued her 
 course on the surface — to subsequently dive and return 
 as before. But the enemy boat was not seen again ; she 
 had probably thought better of the matter, and moved 
 to some " healthier " spot. 
 
 It was a blind game, this submarine hunt submarine, 
 and one in which luck was undoubtedly the predominant 
 
The Biter Bit 169 
 
 factor. Such as it was, however, a few, if not a great 
 number of successes were scored by it during the war. 
 The recharging of batteries was a matter which always 
 had to be done from time to time, and for this it was 
 necessary to rise to the surface. In dark weather at 
 night this was a fairly safe operation; but in the con- 
 tinuous daylight of the Arctic summer it was a matter 
 fraught with considerable peril, and therein was the 
 factor of luck greatly magnified. It might happen that 
 when your own boat rose to the surface to recharge, 
 an enemy submerged lay close at hand — in which case 
 you were fully exposed to the enemy torpedoes, while 
 the enemy himself remained safe, unguessed at, and 
 invisible. And a torpedo, striking a submarine, entailed 
 almost certainly the instantaneous annihilation of her 
 whole crew. But the luck might equally well be the 
 other way round; in which case it was the enemy who 
 was annihilated, without being given a chance to strike 
 back. However, our submarines in the Arctic, though 
 they never had the good fortune to destroy any of 
 those of the enemy, by their presence undoubtedly gave 
 him a fit of nerves, and caused him to remain under as 
 much as possible. They thus greatly hampered his bale- 
 ful activities in the pursuit of merchantmen, for the 
 range of vision from a low-lying periscope is very 
 limited. 
 
 But our stay at Murmansk was now drawing to a 
 close. I will now take the reader with me to Yukanskie, 
 for which anchorage we sailed at seven p.m. on the 6th 
 of June, 1917. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 BACK AT YUKANSKIE THE RIVALS TRY TO WIPE EACH ONE 
 THE OTHER'S EYE; WHILE " FRITZ " IS HOT ALONG THE 
 ICE, AND SWANK IS PROVED A PEARL OF PRICE. 
 
 ON reaching open water outside the Kola Inlet at 
 about nine p.m. on the 6th of June, we discovered 
 that we were in for a boisterous night. There was a 
 fierce north-west wind blowing, accompanied by a big 
 sea and exceedingly heavy snow, the latter completely 
 shutting out the land for the greater part of our voyage. 
 Zigzagging continually, we made the best speed we 
 could, this, however, being limited to fourteen knots, 
 owing to the presence of our slower companion, the 
 Iphigenia. By six o'clock the following morning we 
 were in sight ojf Cape Cherni, two hours' steam to the 
 westward of Yukanskie, and shortly afterwards we 
 entered the small harbour of Ivanoski, which nestles 
 under its lee. At Ivanovski we found our two colliers 
 and two out of the three armed boarding steamers, the 
 third being on patrol duty not far away. Hitherto we 
 had been in deep water, and, therefore, in no great 
 danger from mines; but to the eastward of Cherni the 
 water shoals rapidly, and the probabilities were that the 
 U-boats had been before us and mined the approaches 
 to Yukanskie. For this reason the squadron had first 
 assembled at Ivanovski, the slower ships being sent in 
 advance, and thence, the mine-sweeping trawlers having 
 arrived, we sailed in company at one p.m. on the 7th 
 of June. 
 
 170 
 
Back at Yukanskie 171 
 
 As we once more proceeded east at nine knots the 
 trawlers, with their mine-sweeps out, headed our long 
 and somewhat straggling procession, we, of course, 
 being very careful to keep in their wake and follow 
 directly astern of them. Somewhat to our surprise, no 
 mines were encountered, and we eventually anchored at 
 Yukanskie at 8.30 p.m. without further incident. It 
 was with a sense of relief that I heard the chain-cables 
 rattle out of our hawse-pipes after my twenty-four hour 
 vigil. As they did so there came a rift in the black snow- 
 clouds, and the all-night sun burst forth in his glory; 
 his rays, reflected pinkly from the shimmering fields of 
 snow, gave us a dazzling welcome, and Yukanskie itself, 
 perhaps one of the loneliest and most barren places on 
 earth, was for a moment beautiful. Thanks, I suppose, 
 to our associations of the previous year, it imparted for 
 the nonce a restful and homelike feeling, and yet, like all 
 things of beauty, it brought back a restless longing for 
 our own homes in smoky England, at that moment more 
 than thirteen hundred miles distant. 
 
 This restful feeling was not long to endure, however. 
 I scarcely seemed to have got to sleep (though, as a 
 matter of fact, it was not until five o'clock the following 
 morning) when I was aroused by the decoding officer. 
 He reported that the A.B.S. Grive, whom I had left on 
 patrol duty off Cape Cherni, was in action with an enemy 
 submarine. 
 
 The encounter which was then taking place was in a 
 position fifteen miles north-west of Cherni, where the 
 Grive was on the look-out to meet and direct incoming 
 merchant vessels at the spot at which they converged 
 fan- wise from the north on Yukanskie. It was at 
 4.45 a.m. when one of these vessels, the valuable and 
 heavily-loaded Manchester Engineer, zigzagging her 
 cumbrous way eastward for Yukanskie, suddenly found 
 herself the focus of a hail of projectiles, these being her 
 first intimation of the presence of a hitherto unobserved 
 submarine. The Manchester Engineer, taken by surprise 
 
i 72 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 though she was, did her best to reply to this fusilade 
 with her own little twelve-pounder. But from the first 
 things went badly for her; she was greatly outranged 
 and, almost at the start, her side was ripped open by a 
 German shell. She would have undoubtedly been " done 
 in " had not the Grive, who happened to be in sight and 
 to have observed what was toward, at that moment come 
 up. The submarine, preoccupied with her prey, did not 
 at first notice the Grive's approach, or, if she did, she 
 probably took her for another merchantman. It thus 
 happened that the Grive managed to get in nearly ten 
 minutes' firing before the U-boat tumbled to the altered 
 circumstances of the case and made a rapid exit in the 
 direction of the sea bottom. Unfortunately, submarines 
 are a somewhat small target, and the range was long — 
 8,000 yards. Visibility was also very bad at the time, 
 owing to the distortion caused by the refraction of the 
 atmosphere, and also to the difficulty of picking out a 
 grey submarine against the similar coloured background 
 of the Sem Islands. Had this not been so, the end of 
 this story would probably have been different. As it 
 was, the Grive could but follow up along the track left 
 by the diving submarine, and drop a depth-charge or two 
 by way of final benediction at the spot near which it was 
 hoped the submerged and invisible submarine was 
 cruising. 
 
 Probably neither the Grive's projectiles nor her depth- 
 charges did the U-boat any physical damage. But the 
 moral effect of depth-charges was likely to be consider- 
 able, for at that time submarine crews were known to 
 be in abject terror of them and greatly to over-estimate 
 their explosive force. For terror of depth-charges many 
 an underwater boat commander had been known to bring 
 his craft to the surface and to surrender when, in actual 
 fact, his boat was little, if at all, injured, and quite capable 
 of remaining submerged. In consequence of this known 
 fact British commanders never lost any opportunity, 
 however remote, of dropping these useful deterrents. 
 
Back at Yukanskie 173 
 
 For the latter could be relied upon to shake up the 
 morale, and possibly the physical efficiency, of this, the 
 most slippery of all their enemies. 
 
 Yukanskie itself we did not find to be changed much 
 since the previous year. The Russians, however, had 
 erected during the winter a considerable number of huts 
 to form a settlement, as well as a wireless station and a 
 building to receive the end of the submarine cable being 
 brought from England. The latter was to communicate 
 with Murmansk and Arkhangel, and had a loop passing 
 through Yukanskie. We had brought with us from 
 home a new large-scale chart of the harbour, based upon 
 the Russian survey of the previous autumn. It was one 
 upon which the Russians themselves gazed with envy, 
 for their own hydrographical department had failed to 
 give birth to a corresponding production. Such as it 
 was, this plan of Yukanskie was far better than any we 
 had hitherto possessed; but even so it was still painfully 
 inaccurate, the very leading marks into the harbour itself 
 having been marked on a wrong bearing. This in reality 
 did not matter much, for, during the winter, the Russians 
 had succeeded in wrecking so many vessels on the various 
 rocks that the latter had, by reason of the wrecks upon 
 them, become so well advertised as to render a chart 
 almost superfluous. 
 
 Needless to say, I took an early opportunity of calling 
 
 on my Russian friends, Commandant C and his wife. 
 
 The latter, I ascertained, had not moved outside her front 
 door since the previous November, on the date upon 
 which the Intrepid had sailed for home. 
 
 There were by this time dwelling at the log-village 
 which had arisen at Yukanskie some three or foui; 
 hundred Russians — workmen, soldiers, sailors and a few 
 of their wives. But of far greater interest than these, 
 especially to my younger officers, was an ancient Russian 
 whaler which had arrived, and was now occupying the 
 best anchoring billet in the harbour. The reason for 
 this interest was not far to seek, for this ancient whaler 
 
174 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 was posing as a hospital ship, though there was nothing 
 in her fittings, either internal or external, to support the 
 fact, save an ill-painted red cross on her side. But it was 
 not her potentialities to relieve , siek and suffering 
 humanity which interested the gay and gallant youth of 
 the Intrepid. Far from it ; it was the flutter of a feminine 
 skirt on board the old whaler which had caught the eye 
 of one of them. Further investigation through a tele- 
 scope proved that there were no less than three real live 
 red cross nurses on board the vessel — all of them flaxen 
 haired and of the most comely type. 
 
 The ship having been christened the Intrepid, it was 
 but natural that her officers should wish to live up to the 
 name under which they- sailed. A deputation was 
 accordingly deputed to visit the ancient whaler, having 
 for its avowed object the proposed entertainment of the 
 three red cross nurses at a sylvan picnic ashore by the 
 aforementioned young officers. The invitation was 
 graciously accepted, and arrangements were made that, 
 on the following day, the motor-boat should call for the 
 ladies and take them with their hosts to a pleasant and 
 secluded waterfall. We regarded the matter as being 
 as good as settled ; but therein we had reckoned without 
 our Jacob — the officers of the supplanting Niffie Jane. 
 At the appointed hour our motor-boat called alongside 
 the whaler's gangway, just in time to observe the 
 Iphigenia's boat leaving by the opposite one, and taking 
 in her our three red cross nurses. These guileless 
 maidens, to whom all sailors and all ships' boats looked 
 alike, had been shamelessly abducted by the Niffie Janes. 
 For the latter had represented that they were the In- 
 trepid' 's officers and thajt their boat was the Intrepid' s 
 boat. 
 
 Needless to say, an incident such as this did not tend 
 to improve the but lightly veiled hostility already exist- 
 ing between the two rival sister ships-^—a rivalry greatly 
 increased by our defeat in the boat race. The Nijji.es 
 had once more scored heavily over us ; but within a month 
 
Back at Yukanskie 175 
 
 we had our revenge. We succeeded in raising a laugh 
 at their expense which entertained the whole squadron 
 and whose echoes reverberated for many months after- 
 wards. It came about thuswise : — 
 
 Upon the squadron's arrival at Yukanskie the two 
 rivals set about their own special, jobs, both of them for 
 the time being as busy and ambitious as bumble-bees. 
 The Intrepid's special line was the erection of a war 
 signal station on the highest point of Vitte Island. 
 From thence a view of the sea for thirty miles in every 
 direction could be obtained, and the ships in harbour 
 could be informed by signal of everything which came 
 in sight. Within a week of its inception was this, our first 
 labour, concluded. We were able to gaze with the pride 
 of a property owner upon a brand-new signal station, 
 with platform, signal-mast, semaphore, and sentry-box 
 complete; also a well-appointed domicile, which had 
 been rendered mosquito-proof, in which the crew could 
 sling their hammocks. Its crowning triumph was the 
 oven, designed and made on board from steel plates, in 
 which the crew could roast their meat. We found our- 
 selves with a breathing space, during which we could 
 look around and watch the progress of our rivals. 
 
 The Niffie Jane, however, was not lightly to be beaten. 
 Less elegant perhaps than our own work, theirs was 
 certainly not less ambitious. The Iphigenia was in par- 
 ticular the parent ship of the British trawlers, in contra- 
 distinction to the role of the Intrepid, whose duties lay 
 with the armed boarding steamers and Russian trawlers. 
 The former's ambition, therefore, was to construct safe 
 housing on shore for the multitudinous stores which she 
 carried for her trawlers — stores with which her own 
 limited hold space was overflowing. It was with this 
 object in view that she had collected an enormous 
 number of the drifting pine-logs which were floating 
 about the harbour, and, after infinite labour, had hauled 
 them up on shore and commenced the erection of a vast 
 log store-house in the supposed Russian style. 
 
176 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 It was the sight of this massive mausoleum, sprawling 
 its clumsy wooden length over the landscape, which 
 arotised our mirth and mischief-loving instincts. It pre- 
 sented to us the opportunity for which we had long 
 sighed, of getting our own back from the hated Niffie 
 Jane. Day after day we watched the titanic labour, and, 
 as we watched, brooded on our wrongs re the matter of 
 the Red Cross nurses. A month elapsed, and at length 
 the edifice was complete, presenting to our inappreciative 
 eyes the forlorn and deserted aspect of a sea-bathing 
 establishment in the " off " season. Into just such an 
 establishment we determined to convert it, and at the 
 same time considerably to brighten up its appearance. 
 
 That night, at about 11 p.m., an hour by which the 
 sun's shadows were long drawn out and it was hoped 
 that all good sailormen would be in bed and asleep, a 
 group of strange-looking individuals, attired as harmless 
 Laps, might have been seen landing in a ship's dinghy 
 and clambering up the rocks towards the Niffie' s mauso- 
 leum. With them they carried sundry pots, boards and 
 carpenter's tools, and having arrived abreast this St. 
 Paul's-by-the-Sea, they began to act in a very un-Laplike 
 manner. One party rapidly painted the whole fabric 
 from end to end with gorgeous scarlet and white stripes. 
 A second, armed with nails, hammers and saws, quickly 
 altered the surrounding scenery after the manner of stage 
 carpenters, and, having done this, affixed a number of 
 ready-prepared notice-boards which they had brought 
 with them. A third party with busy fingers greased the 
 whole landing slip from end to end. These operations 
 completed, the whole group, after having taken a series 
 of photographs of the result of their labours, retreated 
 to their boat and sought safety on board their own ship. 
 
 It was Revenge, sweet and beautiful as the heart of 
 man could desire. A Cockney excursionist, could he but 
 had been brought thither in an aeroplane and dropped 
 in front of the Iphigenia's log-hut, must inevitably have 
 believed himself at Margate. The crimson and white 
 
Back at Yukanskie 177 
 
 stripes with which the edifice was decorated were but a 
 small part of the scheme, for, painted on a board which 
 ran the whole length of the building, was inscribed in 
 twelve-inch letters : " Niffie Jane's select bathing estab- 
 lishment." Following this were other notices, which 
 stated : " Pay here before bathing " ; " Tea and shrimps, 
 6d."; and "Very mixed bathing " (this a cut at the 
 hospital nurses). To further, add to the holiday touch, 
 various other legends ran : " Photos taken while you 
 wait," and " Coco shies, three balls a penny." The 
 massive log door having defied all efforts to force it, the 
 matter was compromised by painting across it " Bank 
 of England," and, lest the war should be entirely for- 
 gotten, a notice was put above the flat roof : " Landing- 
 place for aeroplanes." The final touch before departure 
 was the complete greasing of the landing-slip from end 
 to end; nothing less surefooted than a spider or a fly 
 could by any means traverse it. To it was then affixed a 
 notice: " C 's water-chute," C being the Engi- 
 neer officer of the Iphigenia, the architect and author of 
 the abomination. 
 
 At an early hour the next morning the delinquents 
 were called, and their joy was made complete by 
 observing through their telescopes the approach of the 
 creator to his creation. Hastily he stepped ashore, 
 anxious to observe what fungus growth had, during the 
 night, disfigured his handiwork. Oblivious of the notice- 
 board, he sprang on to the jetty, and the resulting double 
 somersault with which he realighted in his boat assured 
 the watchers that the " chute " was functioning pro- 
 perly and that their night's labour had not been in vain. 
 
 Once aroused, a blood feud such as this between two 
 rivals such as the Intrepid and Iphigenia could, of 
 course, not end there; moreover, the memory of it was 
 constantly being kept green by the fact that each ship, 
 on her way in or out of harbour, made a point of sig- 
 nalling to the Niffie, complimenting her on the improved 
 appearance of her hut, and asking for particulars as to 
 
 M 
 
178 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 the " mixed bathing," et cetera. With varying success, 
 the combat between the two rivals swayed backwards 
 and forwards until the end of the season. 
 
 At that time the trawlers were bringing in large quanti- 
 ties of fish, trawled in the intervals of mine-sweeping, 
 for the use of the squadron. This fish often amounted 
 to several tons a day, and was more than could be eaten, 
 although we gave vast quantities to the Russians on 
 shore. To prevent the surplus being wasted, the Intrepid 
 made a small wooden hut in which the fish could be 
 smoked, and this hut it was which the Niffies decorated, 
 in their turn, after a feeble fashion. But it was not long 
 before the Intrepid retaliated and again wiped their 
 rival's eye. 
 
 It happened that two trawlers had both damaged their 
 propellers and required to have them shifted at the same 
 time; wherefore the work was divided between the two 
 cruisers, each undertaking to put one trawler to rights. 
 The Iphigenia, who had at various times expressed great 
 contempt for the Intrepid' s method of doing this under 
 water by means of divers — stigmatising the latter as 
 slow, uncertain, and dangerous — proceeded to take her 
 charge to Ivanovski for the purpose of beaching her. 
 This, of course, necessitated her stopping all repair work 
 on other trawlers, and the employment of her whole 
 ship's company of two hundred men on the work in 
 hand. Not until she had left did the Intrepid commence 
 work with her own two divers and half a dozen men, 
 and within twenty-four hours she had completed it. 
 Two days later, after many bombastic wireless signals 
 reporting progress, the Niffie reappeared on the scene 
 accompanied by her trawler, expecting to find the 
 Intrepid not yet half-way through her job. To her 
 intense chagrin, not only did she find the job completed, 
 but the trawler herself, with steam up, awaiting to chal- 
 lenge her arrival at the entrance. Thus did the rivalry 
 continue with unflagging zeal, with plot and counter- 
 plot, jibe, jeer, and repartee, until finally the gales and 
 
Back at Yukanskie 179 
 
 icy grip of winter rendered further communication 
 between the ships impossible. To the rest of the 
 squadron, as well as to our own two selves, these little 
 bouts were a never failing source of amusement. 
 
 But the reader must not imagine that in such light 
 comedy only was passed the life of the Arctic Squadron. 
 Tragedy lurked in every mile of ocean highway, and the 
 Kaiser's U-boats were becoming more and ever yet more 
 pressing in their attentions. 
 
 The 7th of June was the day on which we had arrived 
 at Yukanskie, and the reader will remember that it was 
 early on the following day that the Manchester Engineer 
 had been attacked off Cherni. The same afternoon the 
 lighthouse-keeper on Svyatoi Nos raised an alarm by 
 signalling that he had sighted a periscope in the bay. 
 As invariably proved the case with Russian reports, this 
 was a mistake, for what he had taken to be a periscope 
 turned out to be nothing more than the staff of one of 
 the dan-buoys which we had laid down to mark the 
 swept-channel into Yukanskie. Such alarms were, how- 
 ever, very harassing, for they entailed that every small 
 ship in the harbour was at once rushed to sea to deal 
 with the supposed enemy at our door. 
 
 The next day, the 9th of June, frantic wireless S.O.S. 
 
 signals began to come in from the Russian s.s. Nonni 
 
 about 9.30 p.m., stating that she was being chased by a 
 
 submarine a hundred and forty miles to the north of 
 
 us. The chase continued all night, and for me, sitting 
 
 in my cabin sending out wireless orders in all directions, 
 
 it was as good as a game of chess. The Nonni wailed 
 
 that she was being fired on, and I told her to keep up 
 
 heart, for help had been sent to her. At 10.40 p.m. she 
 
 reported in despair that she had sighted ice ahead. At 
 
 this I ordered her to throw herself and force her way 
 
 through, for the submarine was unlikely to follow her. 
 
 This she did, and my surmise proved to be correct, for 
 
 the U-boat, having fired a vain torpedo, finally gave up 
 
 the chase and turned away, being out of sight by 
 
 M2 
 
180 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 2.30 a.m. The Nonni, for her part, continued to bleat 
 her wireless distress signals into the ether until, by nine 
 o'clock in the morning, the increasing distance prevented 
 them being longer audible to us at Yukanskie. 
 
 Whilst this chase of the Nonni was in progress, I had 
 directed the Stephen Furness— 'then on patrol and on her 
 way to assist — to search along the edge of the ice and 
 endeavour to see if she could not locate the submarine. 
 This she was proceeding to do, when, at four forty-five 
 a.m., other S.O.S. signals commenced to come in. 
 These were from the British s.s. Perla, en route from 
 Genoa to the Murman Coast, and then in a position in 
 latitude 71.27 north, longitude 35.28 east. They stated 
 that she was being chased by a submarine along the edge 
 of the ice. Half-an-hour later the Perla repeated her 
 S.O.S. signal; then there was silence, and, for the time 
 being, I knew no more of her fate. 
 
 The Stephen Furness was by then searching along the 
 edge of the ice, and, at two fifty p.m., she boarded a sus- 
 pected Norwegian schooner similar to one which had 
 been reported by the Nonni as being in company with 
 the submarine. There was not, however, sufficient 
 evidence to convict the schooner, and the Stephen 
 Furness had reluctantly to let her go. The fact of the 
 schooner having been seen in such suspicious company, 
 though compromising, was probably entirely involun- 
 tary on her part, and other matters were pressing. 
 Within half-an-hour, the Stephen Furness had sighted a 
 steamer apparently coming towards her, and which she 
 at first took to be the much harassed Nonni. On closer 
 approach, however, she noticed that this steamer was 
 very low in the water, and, a moment later, at three 
 p.m., she observed that there was a submarine on the 
 surface on the other side of the ice-spit. Fire was at once 
 opened by the Stephen Furness; but the range was over 
 four miles, and atmospherics were very bad owing to 
 mirage and the refraction caused by the proximity of ice. 
 She had time to fire but four rounds when the submarine 
 
H.M.S. "VINDICTIVE." ARCTIC SQUADRON, 1917. 
 (Later, with Intrepid, Iphigenia, 8c, of Zeebrugge fame.) 
 
Back at Yukanskie 181 
 
 dived, and, at the same moment, the steamer, which had 
 been getting lower and lower in the water, sank. A few 
 moments passed, and then an object which appeared to 
 be the conning-tower of a submarine became visible in 
 the vicinity of the sunken steamer. Once more the 
 Stephen Furness opened fire, but at once checked it on 
 discovering that the suspicious object was no conning- 
 tower, but a ship's boat with a sail hoisted. At that 
 moment dense fog intervened; but at three-forty, this 
 having lifted, the boat was once more sighted and its 
 crew rescued and taken on board. They proved to be 
 the survivors of the British s.s. Marie Elsie, torpedoed 
 at nine o'clock that morning, of whose crew three had 
 been killed by the explosion, but of the remainder, 
 twenty-five had got away in the boat before the ship 
 sank. 
 
 In pursuance of my orders, the Stephen Furness re- 
 mained in the vicinity for some hours to search for the 
 submarine; but at midnight, nothing further having 
 been seen of her, she shaped a course for Cape Cherni. 
 It was just before ten o'clock the following morning, 
 the nth of June, that, making her way south, she 
 sighted yet another ship's boat. This turned out to be 
 one of those belonging to the ill-fated Perla, and her 
 finding gave the first definite information that that ship 
 had been sunk. From this boat's crew it was also 
 learned that there were still four other of the Perla' 's 
 boats adrift among the ice, and they two-hundred miles 
 from land. Turning back on her course, during the suc- 
 ceeding four hours the armed boarding steamer suc- 
 ceeded in finding three out of these four boats, and in 
 rescuing, all told, sixty-two souls. But the fourth boat, 
 having in it two officers and thirteen men, was for a long 
 time unaccounted for : fortunately, as I learned later, 
 their crew were found by a Norwegian motor-boat and 
 subsequently transferred by the latter to a British patrol 
 trawler. 
 
 For three-and-a-half hours the unhappy Perla had 
 
1 82 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 carried out a gallant but unequal contest with the 
 U-boat, and then, all her ammunition having been ex- 
 pended, and the ship herself badly smashed up and three 
 men killed by the German's shrapnel, her captain had 
 abandoned her in the boats. On their leaving her, the 
 submarine had sunk the ship in the usual way, both by 
 exploding bombs in her hold and also by torpedoing. 
 The U-boat had then departed, leaving the crew in open 
 boats twO-hundred miles from land, and with two of 
 their number very seriously injured. These both died 
 in the boats> and were buried at sea before the 
 Stephen Furness appeared on the scene. 
 
 Submarines thus working among the ice were a new 
 factor in Arctic warfare, and a far from pleasant one. 
 Up till then allied merchantmen had been in the habit 
 of making a detour as far north as possible, in order to 
 avoid the more ordinary submarine haunts which were 
 nearer the coast. But now, hidden among the ice, the 
 submarines could remain safely on the surface and await 
 their prey; in a very short time they would become 
 covered with icicles, and thus rendered practically in- 
 visible against their surroundings. 
 
 Along the ice also, at that season of the year, were 
 large numbers of Norwegian sealers, who greatly com- 
 plicated matters. The British Admiralty had, from in- 
 formation in its possession, issued special warnings re 
 these boats. Many of them, it was strongly suspected, 
 would be used by Germany as look-out and stalking 
 horses for steamers by submarines. They might even 
 be expected to carry concealed guns and torpedoes. 
 
 As a result of these suspicions, British men-of-war had 
 strict orders to bring into port for examination all 
 Norwegian sealers not found in possession of an agree- 
 ment to sell their catch to a British purchasing agency. 
 In the Arctic, however, this order proved to be quite 
 unworkable, and it lapsed without ever hjaving been 
 brought into force. The first reason for this was that 
 these sealers, when discovered, were generally wedged 
 
Back at Yukanskie 183 
 
 far into the ice, and could not be got at. Secondly, so 
 far as I could ascertain, not a single one of these sealers 
 when boarded was ever found to be in possession of the 
 required papers, and the majority had never even heard 
 of them. Add to this the language difficulty, and the 
 fact that if they were taken into port it would necessi- 
 tate towing them several hundred miles — through 
 submarine infested waters, a highly dangerous under- 
 taking—and some of the difficulties of enforcement will 
 be understood. 
 
 Looked at in another way, such conduct would also 
 have been bad policy. It would have alienated Nor- 
 wegian sentiment, which, among seamen at any rate, 
 was eminently pro-British. The bond fide sealers hated 
 the German U-boats, which had badly treated them. On 
 the 10th of June there were just outside territorial 
 waters off Vardo, Norway, two German submarines, 
 who had recently sunk three of these Norwegian boats 
 and robbed the crews of a great many others of practi- 
 cally everything they possessed. Yet at that very 
 moment there was at Vardo a German steamer who had 
 the impertinence to remain, discharging her cargo of 
 paraffin, coal, and salt, and to embark also a return cargo 
 of fish and meat. She all the time .was strongly 
 suspected of acting as supply ship to these very sub- 
 marines. Poor little Norway was in a very difficult posi- 
 tion between the Devil and the deep sea, a position 
 which required of our trawler officers in the Arctic that 
 they should proceed with the greatest circumspection 
 and tact, as well as firmness. 
 
 But to return to our moutons, or, rather, to Yukan- 
 skie, where affairs were at their busiest, and where the 
 Russians, having overcome the first disorganising flood 
 of revolution, were at length beginning to show some 
 sign of spirit. Two heavy six-inch guns on twin 
 mountings had already been disembarked for the defence 
 of the place. A salvage ship having also arrived, 
 attempts were being made to float off the ice-breaker 
 
184 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Canada, which had blown ashore during the winter — an 
 operation which, in the end, proved completely success- 
 ful. Marvellous to relate, two Japanese twelve-pounder 
 quick-firers had actually been mounted on one of the 
 islands as a protection against submarines. Having 
 heard much from my Russian friends of the instant pre- 
 paredness of these guns, I took an early opportunity of 
 visiting them, and found the sentry on submarine look- 
 out rolled up in his blanket fast asleep and no one else 
 in sight. Him I photographed, also the guns, and then 
 departed, as unobserved as I had come. 
 
 The Princess Maud, carrying the anti-submarine boom 
 defence, had arrived on the 12th of June with her two 
 attendant trawlers, and was now busy getting it into 
 position. Both she and many other incoming steamers 
 had intercepted my warning wireless messages as to the 
 position of submarines hiding among the ice, and had 
 consequently been able to alter course out of the danger 
 area. 
 
 The pressure of service work at the commencement ot 
 the season was great ; but it was rare indeed for it to be 
 so continuous as to entirely prohibit those mild forms of 
 hospitality embraced by the giving of inter-ship dinner 
 parties. My confreres at Yukanskie were, for the most 
 part, men called from every corner of the globe and from 
 every kind of avocation, to return once more in war-time 
 to the seafaring life of their youth. Their tales, both of 
 civil life and of the war itself, were both many and 
 varied, though perhaps not always as veracious as they 
 were interesting. One specially distinguished liar was 
 a versatile Irishman employed on the boom defence, 
 whose career, among other things, had embraced the 
 professions both of gold-miner and diamond digger. He 
 related to me one incident which he stated He had him- 
 self witnessed — the arrival at Portsmouth of a destroyer 
 which had just rammed a submarine. This remarkable 
 vessel (so my informant asseverated) had on her arrival 
 still hanging from her bows the conning tower of the 
 
Back at Yukanskie 185 
 
 destroyed U-boat; but, what was still more remarkable, 
 two live Hun officers were still in it. I cannot doubt 
 that this officer believed that he had actually seen this 
 strange and incredible spectacle, but its tout ensemble 
 reminded me altogether too much of canaries in a cage. 
 When I asked him if they had not also fed the Hun 
 officers through a port-hole with bird seed, he became 
 unduly hot, and seemed to think that I was doubting his 
 veracity. 
 
 Another of my officers had been an engineer in a 
 Q-ship, a vessel eminently successful in the decoying of 
 submarines; during the period that he was in her she 
 was responsible for the destruction of three U-boats. Of 
 these he told me many interesting stories, but his story 
 which specially interested me was one of hearsay only, 
 and was not a matter of which he could give me a first- 
 hand account, but I believe it to be true, nevertheless. 
 
 This story was concerning the legendary ( ?) Mary Rose, 
 a name which of late has been much before the public, 
 and a vessel reputed to be a privately owned Q-ship, 
 having no official authority whatever for her existence, 
 and the very first of her kind. This Mary Rose, I was 
 informed, was a small barquentine, fitted with sail power 
 only, the hobby of whose owner-master it was to cruise 
 off the Isle of Wight in the early years of the war in a 
 neighbourhood then very popular with submarines. To 
 the outward eye she was unarmed; but her master, 
 sitting in his cabin in the stern, had under his hand two 
 small torpedo tubes and a twelve-pounder gun. With 
 these weapons he was popularly believed to have sunk 
 no less than seven submarines, but this is a quite in- 
 credible number. However, one day the Mary Rose 
 disappeared from her old cruising ground and was seen 
 no more, and no information was ever forthcoming as 
 to how she met her fate. Probably one of her torpedoes 
 missed its quarry, and, this having happened, she could 
 expect no mercy. Between Q-boats and U-boats there 
 was little or no quarter ever given on either side, but 
 
186 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 both sides liked, if possible, to bring back one live 
 antagonist, as evidence and proof positive of the destruc- 
 tion of an enemy. 
 
 Readers may remember that at that time there was a 
 perfect epidemic of ships blowing up mysteriously in 
 harbour. One officer informed me in explanation of this 
 that, to his own knowledge in the case of the battleship 
 Russell, the electric light circuits had been found joined 
 up to detonators in her magazine. It required but for 
 someone to enter the magazine and switch on the light 
 for her to have blown up also like so many others. 
 Fortunately the danger was discovered in time. 
 
 Another of my guests was at the battle of the Falkland 
 Islands, and he amused me by describing how his old 
 ship, the Canopus, was covered in with trees, so as to 
 be invisible, and lay at the entrance to the harbour, her 
 bottom resting on the mud. It was thus that when Von 
 Spee's squadron arrived on the scene she was able to 
 get in four rounds with her heavy guns before ever the 
 enemy perceived her presence. The above yarns I give 
 for what they are worth, but I am not prepared to vouch 
 for the authenticity of any one of them. They are 
 typical of many thousands of others which were flying 
 round the service at that time, and were generally 
 believed in. 
 
 Up till midsummer 1917, for all the large number of 
 Russian mine-sweeping trawlers working on the Mur- 
 man Coast, I cannot call to mind a single occasion on 
 which they had ever dredged up a mine; whereas their 
 British confreres had destroyed many scores of them. 
 Food, money, and clothing were, however, all beginning 
 to run short in the Russian service, and it was in a 
 measure due to this scarcity that we were able in 1917 
 to induce a part of the Russian Navy to render useful 
 service. In great part, the British clothed, fed, and paid 
 the Russian crews; it was in hopes of a continuance of 
 such favours that the Russian seamen were at length 
 induced to drop some of their deep-rooted prejudices and 
 
Back at Yukanskie 187 
 
 antipathies, and, in fact, to actually put to sea and learn 
 from the British something of the practical work of 
 mine-sweeping. 
 
 We had among our number a British officer, Herrival 
 by name, and a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer 
 Reserve, who specialised in this intricate art of getting 
 work out of a Russian — an art analogous to that of 
 " flogging a dead horse," and, in spite of the animal's 
 apparent demise, in making it to go. 
 
 The Russian trawlers themselves were of much the 
 same size as the British ones, but, to work them, they 
 carried a crew nearly double as numerous as our own. 
 Yet, in spite of this numerical superiority in complement, 
 and of the Russian vessels being both the newer and 
 faster, never by any chance did they succeed in keeping 
 a sufficient head of steam, but lagged behind. 
 
 This being the case, it gave a golden opportunity for 
 the display of our highest national attribute — swank. 
 To the laggard Russian trawler would be sent one 
 solitary British stoker to assist in raising steam. He, 
 having turned all the Russians out of the boiler-room, 
 would then, single-handed and in a very short time, raise 
 a tremendous head of steam. So much was this so, that 
 all her safety-valves would be lifted, and, blowing off, 
 would advertise the fact with a noise that the rest of the 
 flotilla could not fail to hear. To the fatalistic Russian 
 mind, a practical demonstration of fact such as this was 
 invaluable. Moreover, to show how easily it was all 
 done, the British representative during these demonstra- 
 tions was wont to make a show of coming on deck, and, 
 reclining luxuriously upon the Russian's hatch-way as 
 though he had nothing to do, ostentatiously smoke a 
 cigarette. At this, the Russian onlookers marvelled 
 and spat much, after the manner of the Slavonic races; 
 then, for very shame, they set to work in real earnest to 
 see whether they in their turn could not keep up this head 
 of steam which the wonderful Britisher had raised. 
 
 It was in ways such as these that the yachtsman, 
 
188 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Herrival, triumphed over Russian lethargy; and, when 
 his trawler, the Daniel Henley, put to sea, it was rare 
 indeed not to see with her her full quota of eight Russian 
 trawlers. 
 
 What was more, the Russian crews, who had the power 
 of appointing their own officers, in many instances 
 showed their good sense by turning out a number of use- 
 less slackers, and by appointing in their place keener and 
 more efficient officers. 
 
 For a time indeed, to such a pitch did their national 
 pride rise, that some Russians were actually to be found 
 who criticised the perfection of their own administration, 
 and queried the necessity of the British having to do all 
 the repair work to their vessels, when they themselves 
 had admittedly the best-fitted-out repair ship on the 
 station. This was a vessel which swung round her anchor 
 at Alexandrovsk (near Murmansk) and did nothing. 
 For a time at least, and until the utter rot of Bolshevism 
 set in, the Russian trawlers did some quite useful service. 
 
 The weather all this time was gradually getting 
 warmer, but, even as late as the 12th of June, there were 
 severe frosts; it was on the same date that I duly noted 
 the appearance of the first mosquito of the season. 
 Warned by the painful experiences of the previous year, 
 we at once made every preparation for the onslaught we 
 knew to be imminent, and commenced to house in the 
 ship fore and aft with mosquito-netting. Three days 
 later, the War Signal Station being completed, I installed 
 in it the crew, amongst whom was a special taxidermist 
 and trapper, late of the British Museum, but on the ship's 
 books officially entered as a leading torpedoman. At 
 the skinning of animals he was certainly most proficient, 
 but at their trapping and slaughter he was unfortunately 
 not so adept. After a short trial he had to be relegated 
 to the equally scientific, but perhaps less thrilling, duties 
 of cook of the mess. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AN ARCTIC SUMMER, HOT AND COLD. SOME FUNNY FISHES 
 AND SOME GOLD. AT THRICE-REPEATED FATE WE PEEP, 
 AND SEE HOW GOATS ARE TURNED TO SHEEP. 
 
 THE season of 1917 had opened in the Arctic with a 
 great display of submarine activity; it was not 
 unnatural for us therefore to anticipate an even more 
 strenuous time to follow. But, strange to relate, after 
 the first active phase, which fizzled out in the middle of 
 June, we had absolute peace so far as U-boats were con- 
 cerned until the very end of August. This is a fact 
 which I find it very difficult to account for — the easing-up 
 of submarine activity just at the very height of the 
 Arkhangel season, and at a period when it might natur- 
 ally have been expected to be most effective. I can only 
 imagine it was due to the known loss of two submarines 
 in Arctic waters, which perhaps caused " Fritz " (not 
 knowing what weak forces we had at our disposal) to 
 pause for a moment and wonder whether the game was 
 worth the candle. The plain fact however remains that, 
 for a month and a half at a most critical time, the trawler- 
 escorted convoys passed every other day, east and west 
 along the Murman Coast, totally unmolested, and with 
 the regularity of a train service. These convoys were 
 carefully swept through supposedly dangerous areas, but 
 only one mine was discovered in advance of a convoy. 
 The senior officer of mine-sweepers had kept a careful 
 record of the registered numbers stamped on each mine, 
 and, from this record, he was able to deduce the fact that 
 
 189 
 
190 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 this mine was undoubtedly 'a relic of the great German 
 mine-field laid in 1915. 
 
 The summer of 1917 alternated from cold to warm. 
 On the 18th of June we had snow and frost; but, by the 
 24th, the thermometer had risen high above the seventies 
 and so remained for a week ; on one day it registered as 
 high as eighty-four degrees in the shade. The heat was 
 almost invariably followed by dense fog, and, on such 
 occasions, it was usual for one or more vessels who 
 were attempting to make the coast to get ashore. Such 
 eventualities entailed difficult salvage operations by the 
 British squadron in face of probable enemy submarine 
 attack. 
 
 With the heat came also mosquitoes in their myriads, 
 who, in the middle of July, for two or three days practi- 
 cally put a stop to all attempts to work in the open — this, 
 in spite of veils, unguents, deterrent lotions, and every- 
 thing else we could think of. After the heat, there 
 followed also in July spells of comparative cold, accom- 
 panied by heavy rains and the thermometer dropping into 
 the thirties. These spells of cool weather we welcomed, 
 however, for, for the time being, they quietened the 
 mosquitoes. 
 
 But in spite of peace from mines and submarines, there 
 was ample work of other natures — we were all kept fully 
 occupied. Not content with a signal station and fish- 
 curing establishment, the Intrepids were now building a 
 pier. The Yukanga River itself, which runs into the 
 harbour, was also carefully sounded and buoyed. This 
 enabled the trawlers to go safely up it, and to draw their 
 fresh water direct from overboard — such water supply 
 having up till then been one of our most difficult 
 problems. There was also the anti-submarine boom to 
 be got into place, and, in addition, a smaller boom was 
 laid at Ivanovski, then much used as a harbour of refuge. 
 There were as usual many trawlers' propellers to be 
 shifted, the damage to them in great part being caused 
 by the immense number of derelict logs floating every- 
 
An Arctic Summer 191 
 
 where on the surface, as well as by the vessels running on 
 to uncharted rocks. Finally, there was always the 
 boarding of all in-coming ships, and the organising, 
 ordering, protecting, and sweeping of all the tri-weekly 
 convoys. 
 
 Thus passed peacefully, but usefully, the greater part 
 of the summer of 1917. Prepared for every emergency, 
 we watched the changing panorama of Arctic life — birds, 
 flowers, butterflies and other insects. These, brought 
 to life by the warmth of the sun, grew to maturity in 
 the shortest pdssible time, and, having accomplished this* 
 disappeared again almost at once. 
 
 Thanks to this peaceful spell, we were, for a time, 
 able to employ the patrol-trawler on duty at the entrance 
 of the harbour at her peace avocation of trawling for 
 fish. The Arctic fish, mostly plaice, haddock, halibut 
 and cod, are incomparably fatter and better flavoured 
 than anything I have tasted at home. Dragging her 
 trawl along the coral bottoms close to Yukanskie, our 
 patrol vessel would often, in a very few hours, bring up 
 several tons of these wonderful fish. With the catch 
 would sometimes come a Greenland shark, a huge but 
 harmless animal, often measuring as much as sixteen 
 feet in length. The other usual contents of the trawl 
 were : clams a few, immense numbers of hermit and spider 
 crabs, sea-eggs, many species of starfish, and marine 
 worms innumerable. For us this fresh fish was a very 
 great treat : it was a change from the salt and tinned meat 
 on which we had for the most part lived. I heard no 
 more of the eating of seabirds, nor of the old dog-fox 
 which had been killed and eaten by the crew of the signal 
 station. 
 
 These trawler fishermen themselves I found to have 
 many unsuspected uses for the ten and twelve-rayed star- 
 fishes from deep water. These animals, they told me, 
 are a deadly poison; but, at the same time, are very 
 attractive to both cats and rats. The fishermen are, 
 therefore, in the habit of manuring their lands with these 
 
192 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 delicacies, for besides fertilising the soil, they get rid, 
 at one fell swoop, of those two twin pests of the small 
 cultivator: cats and rats. These die, poisoned by the 
 food which they cannot resist eating. 
 
 The trawlerman has also a universal remedy for all 
 hurts, especially for poisoned fingers. He merely im- 
 merses the injured part in handy lamp oil, the beneficial 
 effects of the paraffin being, I was assured, infallible. 
 
 Of all our annoyances in those days, the faulty mail 
 arrangements made at home were, I think, the most 
 aggravating, more especially so as they could have been, 
 but never were, easily remedied. Every day numbers 
 of steamers arrived from England, yet we often went for 
 a period of a month without receiving any letters. The 
 Admiralty had an obsession for putting many weeks' 
 mails on board one specially-favoured boat; which, as 
 often as not, was sunk, or damaged and obliged to 
 return. In vain I pleaded by telegraph that all our eggs 
 should not thus be put in one basket, and that a few bags 
 only of letters should be sent in each steamer. Like 
 Gallio, the official responsible "cared for none of these 
 things," and continued to blunder to the end. 
 
 On the 18th of July the Russians celebrated the open- 
 ing of their wireless station at Yukanskie — a fetation 
 which they optimistically prophesied would be able to 
 communicate direct with England, but which, as a matter 
 of history, never covered a quarter of that distance, and 
 was seriously damaged by fire four days later. There 
 were no spare instruments upon the spot with which to 
 replace those damaged. The station consequently re- 
 mained in a more or less broken-down condition during 
 the remainder of the season. However, we had by this 
 time discovered that an armed boarding steamer a 
 hundred miles out to sea formed an effective wireless 
 connecting link with the Glory at Murmansk; when such 
 was available, we were, for the most part, independent 
 of the chaotic Russian coast communications. 
 During the course of the summer the British cable- 
 
An Arctic Summer 193 
 
 ship Faraday arrived. She had run a submarine cable 
 direct from England to the Kola Inlet, and thence to 
 Arkhangel, making a loop in it so as to include Yukan- 
 skie. Delay there was whilst the Russians built a hut 
 to accommodate the end of the cable; and further delay 
 before operators could be found capable of working it. 
 But before the end of the season this direct cable route 
 was actually in operation, and as it did not run through 
 neutral countries, nor through other parts of Russia, we 
 hoped that for the future messages would not be tapped 
 en route or distorted. 
 
 The Faraday herself is a wonderful old ship, even then 
 more than forty years old, and her officers and crew 
 seemed all to form part of one happy family. In spite 
 of her immense size, tending to increase her vulner- 
 ability, her state of immobile helplessness, and the fact 
 that she was continually being employed in submarine- 
 infested waters, she passed unscathed through all the 
 perils of war, rock and tempest. It was a year later that 
 I saw her for the last time, in mid-Atlantic and a thou- 
 sand miles from anywhere, hard at her perilous work of 
 repairing some damaged submarine cable. How it was 
 that the U-boats overlooked her I cannot imagine. 
 
 During the summer of 1917 the internal affairs of 
 Russia became worse and worse, and a debacle set in on 
 their western front. It was not easy at all times for us 
 to keep up heart, when it seemed that all our labour 
 would be useless, and that the country might at any 
 moment declare for a treacherous peace. The Russian 
 Navy had no heart in their work, but at times we pre- 
 vailed on them to work with us in a more or less 
 satisfactory manner. Many of their trawlers they 
 allowed us to fit up with British mine-sweeps, and these 
 did useful work; but at all times it was a very ticklish 
 job to humour them and keep them going. A shipload 
 of Russian Jews had recently arrived at Arkhangel from 
 England, mostly the sweepings of the East End of 
 London. These had been deported as undesirables, and 
 
 N 
 
194 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 also with a view to their being employed on military- 
 service in their own country. This scum of Whitechapel 
 were to be the future tools and instigators of Bolshevist 
 ho'rrors— a name which, by the way, we had not then 
 yet heard of. Their influence, however, was soon to 
 become apparent in the Fleet, as throughout the rest of 
 Russia. At Yukanskie the Russian seamen insisted on 
 their senior officer, a competent man, being relieved. 
 This was for purely personal reasons — years before, in 
 the course of his duty, he had sentenced one of them to 
 six months' imprisonment. 
 
 This was a summer of fogs; from the 20th of July 
 until the 2nd of August we found ourselves enveloped 
 in an almost continuous fog blanket. As a result, more 
 than one in-coming ship struck the rocks ; but they were 
 one and all got off and successfully patched up. It was 
 probably due to this dark, damp weather that by the 
 8th of August enormous quantities of mushrooms, toad- 
 stools and other fungi had begun to show up on shore, 
 a phenomenon which we had not noticed during the pre- 
 vious season. From our Russian friends we learnt that 
 none of these fungi were poisonous, and, in fact, that 
 all were edible — only some more so than others. A few 
 minutes' walk and anyone could gather many sackfuls of 
 them, they proving to be delicious eating. From the 
 Russians also we learned to thread them on strings and 
 dry them. Dried in this way they become as hard as 
 wood, but will keep for months, after which period they, 
 having been soaked for an hour in water, regain once 
 more all the qualities of the fresh-gathered article, and 
 are once more fit for eating. 
 
 During 1917 we had no bear on board the Intrepid to 
 enliven the ship; but we possessed a good substitute in 
 Nigger, the ship's dog, a black, curly-haired retriever. 
 The cutest of canine pets, of tricks he had many ; but his 
 special accomplishment was the stealing of handker- 
 chiefs. Let him see but one corner of a white handker- 
 chief protruding from a breast pocket and, in a flash, 
 
An Arctic Summer 195 
 
 Nigger had leapt up and annexed it. Unfortunately 
 Nigger was no respecter of persons, and, like the bear, 
 his little jokes were apt to get us into trouble. The 
 Commodore, coming to inspect the ship with all the 
 pomp and panoply due to his exalted rank, was visibly 
 startled when Nigger sprang upon him, and as quickly 
 disappeared with his " wipe " — this to an accompaniment 
 of but half-suppressed titters from the assembled ship's 
 company. 
 
 On one occasion, whilst the men were engaged in 
 blasting rocks to build a pier, a whole family of white 
 ermines, as tame and cheeky as possible, was brought 
 to light. Unfortunately I did not discover this until 
 the last two or three were making a rapid exit earth- 
 wards once more, but I asked the men why they had not 
 secured them. They replied that they had taken them 
 for " white rats," and thus, owing to an unfortunate 
 lack of knowledge of natural history, the animals 
 escaped, still clothed in their own valuable pelts. 
 
 It was at the same time that we had another excite- 
 ment, owing to the supposed discovery of gold. Gold 
 there undoubtedly is on the Murman coast, but none, I 
 believe, in paying quantities — a remark which applies 
 equally to copper, zinc, and lead, samples of all of which 
 minerals we found. The original discovery of the sup- 
 posed gold was made by myself. Happening to fracture 
 a block of quartz, I found therein several nuggets of a 
 metallic substance, gold in colour. These I took on 
 board and submitted to the examination of the chief 
 engineer, who considered himself something of a metal- 
 lurgist. He, having duly tested my samples with acid, 
 pronounced them to be genuine gold, a verdict which 
 was also corroborated by one of the men who professed 
 at one time to have been a gold-digger. Dreams of 
 another Klondyke began to float before my eyes and 
 those of others. All who could scrambled ashore, and, 
 armed with coal-hammers and shovels, commenced to 
 dismantle the island. Disillusionment, however, was not 
 
 N2 
 
196 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 long in following, adding a fresh sting to our already 
 cut and blistered fingers. There happened to be in the 
 squadron an officer who genuinely had been for many 
 years a bona fide digger. He, seizing one of my 
 precious samples, struck it a violent blow with a hammer, 
 whereupon it shattered to fragments as though made of 
 glass. My gold was but iron pyrites; had it been true 
 metal, instead of splintering it would have flattened out 
 under the blow. Once more we returned to " the trivial 
 round, the common task " of squadron routine — an 
 occupation less exciting, but certainly less laborious, 
 than that of gold-seeking. 
 
 With the declining summer the fogs daily became yet 
 more dense and frequent in their occurrence. It was 
 during one of these, at seven-thirty a.m. on the 9th of 
 August, that the A.B.S. Carron got ashore. This was 
 bad enough, but within ten minutes of this happening I 
 was also getting wireless reports from the big British 
 munition-carrier Baron Balfour that she also was on the 
 rocks in some unknown position. The thick, damp fog 
 was at the moment absolutely impenetrable, and what 
 greatly aggravated the situation was the fact that 
 neither of the two ships themselves really knew within 
 fifty miles the true locality of their stranding — for had 
 they known this they most certainly would have taken 
 every precaution never to have got there. 
 
 Nowadays, with directional wireless, it would be a 
 comparatively easy matter to locate the vessels. A wire- 
 less bearing could be taken which would give the direc- 
 tion, and the strength of the signals themselves would 
 give an indication as to the distance. But in 1917 these 
 useful scientific developments were quite unknown in 
 Arctic waters, and there was nothing for it but to search 
 for the vessels as best we could. 
 
 As usual, it was the good old British trawlers who went 
 first to the rescue. Throughout the war, whenever there 
 was any particularly difficult and dangerous work to be 
 done which nobody else cared about, it* was the trawlers 
 
An Arctic Summer 197 
 
 who were generally sent to do it. All available were at 
 once rushed off to sea to search the coastline east and 
 west in that blanket of fog. Ere long they had found 
 the Baron Balfour, which was discovered badly ashore in 
 a very exposed position at a place called " Oleni Russki." 
 Already one of her holds was full of water, and she was 
 held in position by a rock which had pierced her bottom. 
 The Carron, for her part, had stranded at a place called 
 Fadyev Point, a well-known spot, for she was the fourth 
 steamer who had already run ashore there that season. 
 
 This matter of navigation on the Murman coast was, 
 I think, responsible for the loss of more ships during 
 1917 than all the efforts of enemy submarines put to- 
 gether. Vessels had to round Norway as far north as 
 possible, out of sight of land, and for days they often 
 had no opportunity of fixing their position. Underfoot 
 ran a current of unknown strength, fogs were almost 
 continuous, the coastline when sighted was featureless 
 and but half surveyed, and close in shore, owing to the 
 presence of iron ore, the compass was totally unreliable. 
 Add to this the innumerable snowstorms, which 
 blanketed all lights and shut out everything as effectually 
 as the fogs, combine with this the zigzagging and 
 erratic courses rendered necessary by the presence of 
 enemy submarines, and the wonder is not that so many 
 ships were stranded and lost, but that the great majority 
 of ships got safely into port as they did. 
 
 The Carron some two hours after stranding fortu- 
 nately managed to get off, and proceeded to Yukanskie 
 under her own steam. There was a hole torn in her 
 bottom two and a half feet long, and more than fifty 
 rivets had been sheared from under number two hold, 
 but fortunately they had been able to keep the water 
 under with their pumps. Once alongside the Intrepid 
 our three divers were put to work on her, and within a 
 fortnight her bottom had been patched, the missing 
 rivets replaced, and the ship thoroughly reinforced with 
 concrete and rendered once more watertight. This work 
 
198 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 was all done by the Intrepid's divers, working under 
 water, and generally in the most confined of spaces. 
 However, owing to the distortion of her frames caused 
 by stranding, it was not considered advisable to keep her 
 on the station during the winter months. She was sent 
 home, and in that she was fortunate, for thereby she 
 escaped the fate of her three companion boarding- 
 steamers, all of whom were sunk by submarines. 
 
 The Baron Balfour was, however, a much more diffi- 
 cult problem than the Carron, she being further away 
 and unable to move. Accordingly the A.B.S. Grive, with 
 the Iphigenia and four or five trawlers, were despatched 
 to see what they could do. Arrived, they at once com- 
 menced the ticklish job of salving her; lying as she was 
 in her then exposed position on the edge of a reef, it 
 required but the faintest puff of wind from seaward, and 
 in all probability she would at once have gone to pieces. 
 On that exposed coast the work was almost equally 
 dangerous to the vessels employed on the salvage, and 
 the locality itself was also notorious as a former centre 
 of submarine activity. 
 
 But the Baron Balfour was a most valuable vessel, 
 packed to her full capacity with munitions of war, and 
 worth, with her cargo, £2,000,000. Consequently her 
 salvage was a risk well worth the taking, and, in the 
 result, fully justified, for success crowned the effort. Not 
 only did the submarines not get wind of the matter in 
 time to interfere, but the weather itself held up and 
 remained supernaturally calm. The divers were soon 
 got down to examine the rock which had penetrated her 
 bottom, but found themselves greatly hampered by the 
 dense growth of seaweed, which prevented them seeing 
 anything. Her cargo was also an awkward article to 
 deal with, for among it was a consignment of poison 
 gas, and this, leaking badly, reduced many of the salvors 
 to insensibility. Six days later, however, the ship was 
 successfully floated off from her exposed position, and 
 then once more beached in a sheltered cove which 
 
An Arctic Summer 199 
 
 fortunately lay near at hand. This had hardly been accom- 
 plished when the weather, which until then had been so 
 fine, suddenly changed, and it came on to blow fresh 
 from the north-west. But the work could now proceed 
 unhindered by weather, and under altogether easier con- 
 ditions. Within two and a half weeks of her first strand- 
 ing the Baron Balfour was safely convoyed to Arkhangel. 
 
 But there is a fatality in the affairs of men, a thing 
 " that is written " and cannot be gainsaid or overcome. 
 Lest my readers should think me unduly superstitious, I 
 will look ahead with my story and narrate the Baron 
 Balfour's subsequent fate. 
 
 The Baron Balfour got safely to Arkhangel, and there 
 she duly discharged her cargo of munitions and started on 
 her homeward voyage. It was eleven weeks since she 
 had stranded, and the time was six forty-five a.m. on the 
 28th of October, as, in company with a convoy, she 
 approached the scene of her late mishap. Her officers 
 were interestedly looking out to observe the place where 
 the ship had stranded, and, in fact, had just sighted it, 
 when the vessel was struck by a torpedo— and sank 
 almost instantly. But the fatality which dogged the ship 
 and her crew did not end there. Her survivors were 
 brought to Yukanskie, and, arrived there, were 
 divided between two other vessels for passage home. 
 Hardly were these ships clear of the harbour when they 
 were in collision with each other and had to return. 
 " It was written." The reader may judge with what 
 feelings of unmixed relief we finally saw these modern 
 Jonahs, and all the bad luck which they seemed to carry 
 with them, clear of the station. 
 
 It has rightly been said that " cleanliness comes next 
 to Godliness." Their Lordships of the Admiralty, pos- 
 sibly fearing that the vulgar might believe that they 
 attached more importance to the former rather than to 
 the latter desideratum, have, in their regulations, made 
 it abundantly clear that " divine worship according to the 
 liturgy of the Church of England is to be duly and 
 
200 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 reverently performed," also, that all those on board 
 H.M. ships are expected to attend such services. 
 
 Fifty years ago this was a regulation which probably 
 evoked little or no opposition. But during the Great 
 War, where all sorts and conditions of men were thrown 
 in together and subjected to discipline for the first time, 
 and where each had his own strongly developed beliefs, 
 doubts, and lethargies, it was no easy matter to collect 
 a sufficient number of worshippers who would voluntarily 
 attend such services. Every officer and man on board 
 is required to subscribe himself as belonging to some 
 religious denomination or other, and, such being the 
 case, can be compelled by the regulations to attend the 
 worship of his own particular sect. Personally, how- 
 ever, I am a believer in what is known as " moral 
 suasion," or what perhaps our German friends have 
 styled " peaceful penetration ." I had no desire to use 
 compulsion in such a matter, but, as such a state of affairs 
 could obviously not continue, I devised other means for 
 due compliance with the regulations. 
 
 Accordingly, I had the officers and ships' company 
 divided into two classes; they were composed of those 
 who voluntarily attended the services and those who did 
 not. The former were known as the " sheep," and the 
 residue were the " goats." This arrangement having 
 been duly made known to all concerned, upon the bell 
 tolling for church, the " sheep " were mustered in a 
 warm, snug corner under cover. Thence thev, having 
 lustily sung some half-a-dozen hymns and recited a por- 
 tion of the church service, were, after about half an hour, 
 dismissed. Not so the " goats " — with them it was far 
 otherwise. They were fallen in in the starboard gang- 
 way, a nice airy spot, and for an hour their officers read 
 to them choice extracts from the Articles of War, or, 
 alternately, the doctor lectured to them on such subjects 
 as the penalties attached to evil living. Bare-headed 
 they listened in silence, and so good was the effect 
 of these eloquent discourses that long before the 
 
An Arctic Summer 201 
 
 thermometer had touched the zero point with the 
 advancing winter, practically the whole of them had 
 reviewed their religious opinions, and announced their 
 desire to become "sheep." Thereafter, there were no 
 malingerers from our church service. 
 
 On the 24th of August there arrived at Yukanskie the 
 season's first consignment of Admiralty sheep. These 
 were duly landed on Vitte Island, as was the case the pre- 
 vious year ; but this time we had little or no trouble with 
 them. Warned by our sorrows of the previous season, 
 we had been at pains to point out that an active mountain- 
 climbing breed was not desired; but that, on the con- 
 trary, a fat and sedentary variety, more easily converted 
 into mutton, would be acceptable. 
 
 Cloud-berries were, in the autumn of 1917, growing in 
 enormous numbers on some of the islands which enclosed 
 the harbour of Yukanskie; these the men collected, and 
 from them made a pink and pippy form of jam. Our diet 
 was now no longer confined to the salted and tinned pro- 
 visions which had been our mainstay for the first year in 
 the Arctic. We had in season wild vegetables, mush- 
 rooms, sea birds, and game, both deep water and shell- 
 fish, and finally the mutton from our island sheep ranch. 
 It was an easement of the food problem which our 
 wildest hopes had never pictured. But, best of all, on 
 the more distant of the three islands, some explorer had 
 unexpectedly discovered an excellent site for a football 
 ground. Everywhere else there was nought but solid 
 rock and granite ; but there, perched on the summit, was 
 a splendid smooth expanse measuring six hundred by 
 eight hundred yards. It was without a stone, composed 
 of dry peat two feet in thickness, and carpeted with 
 lichen. No safer spot for games could possible have 
 existed, for so springy was the peat foundation that it 
 resembled rubber. The men, fighting out once more 
 their ships' rivalries at football, rebounded from its 
 surface with all the agility of chamois. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF COURTLY UNDERWATER KNIGHT,. OF BLAZING WRECK 
 AND HORRID FRIGHT; OF LANDS WHEREIN THE COWS 
 EAT FISH, OF SPY AND BEAR HUNTS FEVERISH. 
 
 BEFORE the month of August had fully run its 
 course a change had come over the peaceful scene 
 which I depicted in the last chapter, and in this Eden of 
 the Arctic the Kaiser's tin serpents had once more put 
 in an appearance. 
 
 It was at 5.30 p.m. on the 28th of August that frantic 
 S.O.S. signals began to come in. They were from the 
 Russian s.s. La Marseillaise, who was being attacked by 
 a submarine in latitude seventy-two and a half north, 
 longitude twenty-nine degrees east, a position three hun- 
 dred and forty miles distant from Yukanskie. I did not 
 succeed in getting the whole of her story until three days 
 later, when the survivors of the ship were brought into 
 harbour; but it may interest the reader to unravel it bit 
 by bit, as I myself had to do at the time. Here are the 
 wireless signals : 
 
 5.30 p.m. — S.O.S. Alio. 72.40 N. 28.30 E. La 
 Marseillaise. (S.O.S., of course, means that a ship is 
 in peril and in need of immediate assistance. Alio 
 means that there is a suspicious vessel in sight, but that 
 she has not yet committed any definitely hostile act. The 
 numbers refer to the ship's position in latitude and longi- 
 tude, and are followed by the ship's name.) 
 
 5.40 p.m. — Intrepid asked " en clair " : " What is your 
 course and speed ? " 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 203 
 
 5-55 P-m- — L,. M. replied: " Seven miles south-east we 
 fired the submarine. We fired the submarine all the time. 
 She is emerged and follows us." (The La Marseillaise 
 intended to convey that she was going at seven knots 
 on a south-easterly course, that a submarine had come 
 to the surface, and that she was firing at It.) 
 
 6.0 p.m. — Intrepid asked: " Did the submarine fire on 
 you ? " (This was in view of the probability that the 
 submarine was not hostile, but one of the British ones 
 then working from Murmansk.) 
 
 6.10 p.m.—L. M. replied: " No, she did not, but she 
 is turning around us and we are firing her all the time." 
 
 6.30 p.m. — L. M. made: "Submarine is firing us. 
 S.O.S. S.S.S. 72.38 N. 29.00 E. La Marseillaise." 
 (S.S.S. following S.O.S. means that the vessel making 
 it is in danger from submarine attack, and that the sub- 
 marine has already commenced definitely hostile action. 
 The ship's position and name are then repeated.) 
 
 6.40 p.m. — Intrepid replied: "Help is being sent. 
 Darkness will help you." (The Stephen Furness, who 
 was patrolling on the fortieth meridian on the look out 
 for some expected troopships, had already been ordered 
 in cypher to go to the assistance of La Marseillaise. But 
 I obviously could not tell the latter the nature of the 
 assistance being sent or where it was coming from, for, 
 she having no cypher, it would have had to be made in 
 plain language, and would have been taken in by the 
 submarine as well.) 
 
 After this came silence, and no replies came in answer 
 to any of the Intrepid' s signals. I feared that the worst 
 had happened, and attached a tragic significance to a 
 solitary wireless signal intercepted at 9 p.m. This signal 
 may have been sent by anyone, but wireless signalling 
 has a personal touch in it, in the same way as hand- 
 writing or typing, and can be recognised by a skilled 
 operator. Those who took in the message on board the 
 Intrepid were of the opinion that it had been made by 
 the operator on board the La Marseillaise. It read: 
 
204 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 " Merci beaucoup, monsieur, adieu. . . ." and then 
 broke off short. 
 
 The whole of the next day, the 29th of August, I was 
 still without news concerning the fate of La Marseillaise, 
 although the Stephen Furness had arrived at the position 
 of her last cry for help, and had thoroughly searched the 
 neighbourhood. It was, in fact, not until the morning 
 of the 31st, upon which date the British s.s. Cameron 
 arrived at Yukanskie with the survivors, that I was able 
 to piece the story together. 
 
 It was briefly as follows : At 5.30 p.m. on the 28th of 
 August La Marseillaise was zigzagging her way to 
 Yukanskie at her best speed of seven and a half knots 
 when, right astern of her, a periscope was sighted, distant 
 only two hundred yards. At this two shots were fired, 
 whereupon the periscope dipped; but, twenty minutes 
 later, the submarine herself appeared on the surface four 
 miles astern. The La Marseillaise at once reopened fire, 
 but her projectiles fell a long way short of the target, 
 and, after this had continued for ten minutes, the sub- 
 marine replied by firing shrapnel. These, however, did 
 not actually hull the ship, but fell among the steamer's 
 rigging. The steamer's cargo consisting of munitions, 
 the fears of her crew soon became too much for them, 
 especially as they could make no effective reply. Having 
 endured the perils of the bombardment until 7 p.m., they 
 then abandoned the ship in their boats, whereupon the 
 submarine at once closed them. 
 
 All are agreed that this U-boat commander behaved 
 with courtesy, and, at 7.40 p.m., he ordered the boats 
 to proceed to the southward, where, he said, they would 
 meet a British cruiser. The boats accordingly proceeded 
 under sail, while the submarine herself made off, taking 
 the La Marseillaise with her as her prize. Before taking 
 her, however, the Germans most thoroughly looted her 
 of all provisions, wines, clothes, and brass-work. 
 
 In order to assist them in the work of navigating 
 La Marseillaise, the Germans took with them five of the 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 205 
 
 latter's Russian crew; these they employed at stoking 
 in the boiler-rooms. Presently the prize arrived in the 
 vicinity of a timber-laden ship — believed to be the Othello, 
 homeward bound from Arkhangel — of whose crew they 
 could see no signs. The Germans had evidently cap- 
 tured her at an earlier stage of their proceedings, and 
 had tried to sink her. But the Othello, being timber- 
 laden, had foiled their best efforts. They now used the 
 La Marseillaise to ram the Othello in a further attempt 
 to sink the latter, but again effected nothing beyond 
 twisting round the former's bows. As a last resource 
 the Germans then lashed the two ships together with 
 wire hawsers, after which they exploded bombs in the 
 La Marseillaise's hold, hoping, no doubt, that as the 
 latter sank she would drag the Othello to the bottom 
 with her. This final effort was, however, apparently no 
 more successful than the previous ones, for, when last 
 seen, both ships were still afloat. In fact, a water-logged 
 vessel answering to the description of the Othello was 
 sighted more than once subsequently off the coast. 
 
 After leaving the two ships, the submarine then towed 
 the five Russian firemen in their boat to the southward 
 until one a.m. on the morning of the 29th of August, at 
 which hour she left them. Altogether this Russian 
 stoking-party had a strange experience, and were treated 
 unusually well by the Germans. Together the two 
 nationalities ransacked the provisions, champagne, and 
 whisky on board the La Marseillaise — a consequence 
 following this being that one of the Russians got very 
 drunk. At the moment when the submarine was about 
 to part company with the boat, this individual sprang 
 back on board the submarine, brandishing a revolver in 
 either hand, and shouted in English that he would " kill 
 
 the whole German crew single-handed." The 
 
 Germans received this threat with the utmost good 
 nature, and, a few minutes later, the drunken man having 
 subsided hopelessly intoxicated on the deck, they tenderly 
 lifted him up and put him back in his own boat. 
 
206 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 This submarine commander, in the course of conver- 
 sation, mentioned that he had sunk seven ships within 
 the last two days, and, indeed, there was much float- 
 ing wreckage about corroborative of his statement. 
 Assuming his statement to be correct, the victims were 
 probably sunk a great deal further ■ to the westward, for 
 no information on the matter came my way at Yukanskie. 
 
 With reference to that last doubtful wireless signal 
 ending " adieu . . ." If the signal were indeed 
 made by the La Marseillaise, it must have been made 
 by the Germans themselves, for, by comparing the 
 times, it was known that they were then in possession 
 of her. 
 
 September brought no abatement in the number of the 
 fogs, whilst the gales blew with even more frequency 
 and greater violence. It was on the 2nd of September 
 that, during one of these dense fogs, the French 
 s.s. Loire ran on shore at Litzki Island, ninety-five miles 
 west of Yukanskie, the hour being eleven o'clock at 
 night. Once more the indomitable boarding-steamers 
 and trawlers were despatched to search for her in that 
 pea-soup atmosphere, and, by six o'clock the following 
 morning, the trawler Bombadier had found her. But, 
 alas ! the towing wires, pumps, diving apparatus, and 
 cement which I had despatched to assist in the work of 
 salvage were on this occasion useless to effect anything. 
 With the falling tide the vessel had broken her back, 
 and, an untended lamp having accidentally become over- 
 turned, the timber-laden ship had caught fire. By the 
 time the trawlers arrived on the scene she was blazing 
 fiercely fore and aft. The work of rescue of her crew 
 of thirty-one men and a stewardess by these same 
 trawlers was both arduous and dangerous, for the heat 
 of the flames set off the ship's gun ammunition, and, as 
 it exploded, shells whizzed in every direction. 
 
 But the trawlermen did something more than rescue 
 the crew, for they found on board four live sheep which 
 had been left to perish, and these they annexed by right 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 207 
 
 of capture. The senior officer of the trawlers present 
 having adorned the tails of the animals with rosettes of 
 red tape, they were put on shore to graze with the rest 
 of the Admiralty flock at Yukanskie. This done, a 
 general signal was made to all the ships present, stating 
 that the red tape was a mark denoting private ownership, 
 and that the animals so distinguished were not to be 
 killed and eaten with the ordinary herd. 
 
 The incident of the La Marseillaise had once more put 
 us very much on the alert for U-boats, but nevertheless 
 we again had peace, although reports of submarine 
 activity continued to come in from more distant waters. 
 One vessel called the N ovington had a strange experi- 
 ence. She was in a north bound convoy from Lerwick 
 when, on the 29th of August, she was startled to see a 
 torpedo coming straight at her, which, a few seconds 
 later, struck her on the port side abreast the engine 
 room. But, for some unknown reason, the torpedo did 
 not explode. In place of exploding, it rebounded from 
 her side, then, gathering speed, it once more rushed at 
 her. This condition of things continued for some 
 minutes, during which the torpedo contined to butt at the 
 ship, rebound, then hurl itself forward once more. 
 Naturally the N ovington' s crew were in a great state of 
 alarm, expecting each minute that the torpedo would 
 detonate. However, the captain, presently collecting his 
 wits, eventually put his engine-room telegraphs to full 
 speed astern. A few minutes later, to everyone's intense 
 relief, the unpleasant visitor passed round the ship's 
 bows and disappeared on the other side. 
 
 On the 7th of September we had a great disappoint- 
 ment. An overdue steamer, the Polladern, arrived with 
 a long-expected consignment of sheep. But it was found 
 on boarding her that she had a bad outbreak of small- 
 pox on board, and that six of her coloured crew were 
 already down with it. The doctors of the squadron had 
 a busy time vaccinating the remainder; and, alas! our 
 mutton had to go on to Arkhangel untasted by us. 
 
208 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 In view of the activity of German submarines, the 
 Admiralty, after much deliberation, had at length decided 
 to carry out the policy which they had been meditating 
 since the beginning of the season. Allied shipping 
 bound for Arctic Russia was to proceed by way of 
 neutral waters through the Norwegian fiords as far as 
 Vardo in the extreme north, and thence we were to 
 convoy it to Arkhangel. The time had come for us to 
 have a temporary flit from our home at Yukanskie to 
 Pechenga in the extreme west. Pechenga was opposite 
 Vardo, and only eleven miles from Norwegian waters — 
 a more ideal situation whence to organise and start off 
 the convoys it would be difficult to imagine. The 
 problem was one which we had been studying since the 
 early spring, and to solve which we had prepared elabo- 
 rate plans. On the evening of the 8th of September the 
 Intrepid, taking with her the main body of the trawlers, 
 left for this new base, leaving a boarding-steamer to 
 deal with affairs at Yukanskie. The Iphigenia, for her 
 part, went in the opposite direction — eastwards to 
 Arkhangel. This was with a view to her overhauling 
 and getting into some state of repair the large number 
 of Russian ice-breakers which were lying there. Had 
 this matter been left to the Russians themselves, when 
 the ice came (a thing which generally happened very 
 suddenly, and without any warning, in November or 
 December) the probabilities were that hardly one of 
 them would be immediately available, with the conse- 
 quence that the merchant fleet would be frozen in until 
 the following summer. 
 
 Zigzagging at fourteen and a half knots, the Intrepid 
 arrived at Murmansk at dawn on the 9th of September, 
 and, having sheltered there all day, left after dark the 
 same evening. The following morning at six a.m. she 
 arrived off the entrance of the Pechenga Fiord; having 
 anchored outside for a short time, while a boat went 
 ahead, sounded the entrance, and buoyed the submerged 
 rock which partly blocks it, the ship entered. The 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 209 
 
 scenery outside this fiord is the most wild and rugged 
 imaginable. The entrance lies between black, beetling 
 precipices, down which dash many beautiful cascades, 
 the blackness of the rocks themselves being relieved by 
 sparkling twisted sheets of mica and the vivid hues of 
 many iron ores, of which they are in part formed. But 
 once the narrow entrance is passed a beautiful lagoon 
 opens out, at whose head is the Trifona River. The 
 mountains, well timbered, slope smilingly down to the 
 waters of the harbour, around whose edge are built a 
 number of houses constructed in the Norwegian style. 
 Around the houses are patches of cultivation and fields- 
 things which we had almost forgotten the appearance of 
 among the bare granite tundras of storm-swept Yukan- 
 skie. Pechenga, though so far to the north of 
 Yukanskie, is also some hundreds of miles to the west of 
 it. It consequently benefits from the warmth of the Gulf 
 Stream sweeping round the North Cape, and has an 
 altogether milder and more equable climate than the 
 latter place. 
 
 For our then purposes Pechenga appeared to be an 
 ideal base. Deep water comes so close to its entrance 
 that it is practically unmineable. Owing also to its 
 narrow entrance, with a right-angled turn and a rock 
 in it, it can easily be defended against the ingress of 
 U-boats by a single drifter armed with depth charges. 
 In extent the harbour is large enough to hold a hundred 
 ships — a far larger number than we were ever likely to 
 be required to squeeze into it. Moreover, its gentry 
 shelving bottom gives excellent holding ground for 
 ships' anchors, and the harbour itself, being enclosed by 
 high mountains, is completely ' land-locked, sheltered 
 from gales, and contains no hidden dangers. Having 
 laid out a large light-buoy at the entrance, we felt that 
 we were firmly established, and commenced to organise 
 the Vardo-Arkhangel convoys, the round trip for whose 
 escorting trawlers was about a thousand miles, and in 
 ordinary weather took from six to seven days. 
 
 o 
 
210 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Lying in that blessed, peaceful fiord of Pechenga we 
 spent six and a half happy weeks, from the ioth of 
 September to the 27th of October. After the wind-swept 
 sterility of Yukanskie this land-locked harbour, with its 
 fields of potatoes, its rivers, and its birch-clad mountains, 
 was indeed rest to our war-wearied souls. The hundred 
 or two of inhabitants were Finns, a kindly and, by com- 
 parison with the Russians, a very cleanly race. We were 
 very soon on the best of terms with them, and each morn- 
 ing some scores of them would present themselves on 
 board to consult the ship's surgeon, they having no 
 doctor of their own within a distance of many versts. 
 Honest they were, too, for they wished to pay for this 
 medical attention; but on our doctor refusing to accept 
 money, they pressed on us many little gifts, such as 
 soured cream — than which, eaten with sugar, there is 
 no pleasanter dish. Of cattle there appeared to be quite 
 a number locally, but I fear our British kine would hardly 
 appreciate the diet upon which these animals were forced 
 to subsist — and also flourished. Hay they sometimes 
 got, but this, I fancy, was a rare delicacy, if one may 
 judge by the infinite pains which were taken to dry and 
 preserve it. Fences of saplings some ten feet high were 
 built, and upon the narrow summits of these fences a 
 few hundredweights of hay were airily perched. In the 
 winter months the fodder for cattle is, in the main, soup 
 made from fish heads; these latter were hanging up in 
 bundles to dry from every roof beam. The log dwellings 
 of the inhabitants themselves were all fitted with 
 windows, and in the latter I could see many a geranium 
 and other cultivated plant. A quite usual form of house 
 was one made by roofing it with the severed half of one 
 of the large local fishing boats, and this formed a pictu- 
 resque, if not very spacious, dwelling. Each house had 
 also its bath-shed attached, these being of the usual 
 Russian type, I believe. As I had not seen one of them 
 before, I was much interested in its working arrange- 
 ments, these being very primitive, but apparently 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 211 
 
 effective. The heating arrangements are simple. In 
 one corner is erected a kind of altar of rough stones, 
 and about this a large fire is built, and kept going all 
 day, until the stones become very hot. The fire is then 
 drawn off, and every chink in the room closed. When 
 the bathers are ready, cold water is thrown on the heated 
 stones, whereupon dense clouds of steam arise from 
 them, and it is this hot steam which constitutes the bath. 
 
 Sixteen versts inland from Pechenga lies the ancient 
 monastery of Trifona, founded by Saint Trifon many 
 centuries back. Originally this monastery was close to 
 the sea, but, it having been repeatedly sacked and burnt 
 by sea-rovers and pirates, it was eventually re-erected at 
 a safer spot inland. It is still considered one of the most 
 sacred places in North Russia, and in years of peace is 
 much visited by pilgrims. I had no opportunity to go 
 so far afield myself, but many of my officers went there, 
 and were much interested in the work of the monks, 
 though in 1917 the greater part of the latter had been 
 impressed for military service. Those who remained 
 were fine bearded men, and, although in general I am not 
 a great admirer of " face moss," one of the monks whom 
 I encountered greatly impressed me with the beauty of 
 his silken beard. It was a beard which had never known 
 either razor or scissors, and fell in great soft, shining 
 coils — as attractive in their way as a woman's tresses. 
 Nowadays the monastery puts much of its energy into 
 brick-making, in which useful industry it carries on quite 
 a flourishing export trade. During the war, as in the 
 rest of Russia, Chinese were being employed to do most 
 of the work. 
 
 During our stay at Pechenga, many stories of bears 
 which had been seen in the vicinity came to us, and a 
 party of the ship's officers determined to organise a hunt. 
 Having procured a local guide, they tramped all day 
 along the chain of lakes and birch-clad mountains to the 
 scene of the supposed bear's depredations. Arrived 
 there, they were all very much exhausted, and, the bear 
 
 02 
 
2i2 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 not having put in an immediate appearance as they had 
 hoped, they sat down to lunch. And here the history of 
 this epic ends, for, having lunched, they all with one 
 accord fell asleep; by the time they awoke, the sun was 
 low in the heavens, and they had to tramp back to the 
 ship at the best speed they could make. Unkind critics 
 of this venture hinted darkly that it was just as well for 
 the huntsmen that they did not encounter the bear, for 
 they asserted that the ammunition taken with the party 
 was mostly of a liquid nature, and that, had bruin really 
 turned up, he would have encountered the fire of no lethal 
 weapon more dangerous than the popping of soda-water 
 corks. 
 
 The first snow at Pechenga came towards the end of 
 September, and I took the first available opportunity to 
 land with my gun to see if I could not pick up some of 
 the smaller feathered or ground game in the vicinity of 
 the ship. In this, however, I was disappointed, although 
 I saw both ptarmigan, capercailzie, and hare. The 
 reason for this was that at that stage of the autumn, all 
 these Arctic animals were very wild, and could not be 
 approached as they can be in the spring. In September 
 the wild animals were mostly piebald in colour, half in 
 their win,ter and half in their summer coats, and were 
 consequently extremely conspicuous — a fact of which 
 they seemed to be fully aware, and entirely disinclined to 
 take any risks. I never succeeded in getting within 
 many hundred yards of any of them, and returned on 
 board empty-handed. The very fine mussels and cockles 
 with which the sandy shores of the fiord were covered 
 proved to be a more facile prey, and one in which the 
 sailors of the squadron rejoiced greatly. In spite of the 
 fact that the collection of these ^hell-fish entailed wading 
 for many hours in the ice-cold water, there was never 
 any lack of enthusiastic hunters. 
 
 Though there had been many snowfalls, it was not 
 until the 28th of September that the snow began to lie 
 without melting. Each day it came lower down from 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 213 
 
 the hill-tops, until within a week it had reached the water's 
 edge, and, by the 6th of October, it was waist-deep every- 
 where. Occasional partial thaws there were, but 
 October was a month of much snow and of heavy gales, 
 and, as the daylight became shorter and shorter, the 
 Aurora began to make a more or less nightly appear- 
 ance. On the 7th of October ice began to form inshore, 
 and by the next day the surface of the harbour (the water 
 of which was nearly fresh, owing to the number of rivers 
 flowing into ii) was covered by a thin crust. This sur- 
 face ice greatly impeded boat work, and we began to 
 wonder whether we should not soon have to leave our 
 pleasant anchorage, or risk being frozen in for the 
 winter. However, a heavy thaw set in in the middle of 
 the month, the ice disappeared, and the heavy rains which 
 followed washed away most of the snow. 
 
 Besides my ordinary work as Senior Naval Officer at 
 Pechenga, I at that time began to find myself becoming 
 engrossed in duties quite out of the ordinary line of my 
 naval experience. One of these partook of the nature of 
 spy hunting. This matter commenced upon the day 
 upon which we had first arrived at Pechenga. On visit- 
 ing the local telegraph office, the ship's postman had been 
 handed, with a bundle of service cypher telegrams, 
 another telegram written in English, and addressed to 
 " Robinson, Pechenga." Thinking that this telegram 
 might be intended for one of the officers or men of the 
 squadron, the postman brought the telegram back with 
 him; but, strange to relate, there was no Robinson 
 among the allied ships. The telegram was then opened, 
 and it read as follows : 
 
 Robinson, Pechenga. — Received Gk. 3,000 rubles from firebrace 
 and transferred to Miss Harriott He will pay the remainder next 
 week in marks regards. — Shame Halt. 
 
 To say the least of it, this telegram struck me as very 
 suspicious. The mention of a German coin, such as a 
 mark, I regarded doubtfully. Miss Harriott I could not 
 believe to be a real name, and the signature " Shame 
 
214 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Halt " seemed to sniff of Sinn Fein or some such rebel 
 organisation. We had but just arrived at an isolated 
 spot on the extreme edge of Russia, a spot visited by no 
 English ships for years, and one which, so far as we 
 knew, had no English-speaking inhabitants. On our 
 arrival, we had been handed this very fishy telegram — 
 a telegram which, being in English, would convey no 
 more information to the local authorities than if it had 
 been in cypher. We were only a few hours' walk from 
 the frontier of Norway, and close at hand in that 
 country lay Kirkenaes, a spot at which I knew there were 
 a German agent and several German ships. In addition, 
 there were no frontier guards nor customs barrier 
 between the two countries, and everyone who wished 
 could pass from one territory to the other without a pass- 
 port, question, or hindrance. In fact, I had already 
 ascertained that at that time great numbers of ex-German 
 prisoners were escaping by this route from North Russia. 
 They, still clad in their old tattered army uniforms and 
 provided with maps, had, for the most part, tramped 
 hundreds of miles overland by unfrequented routes. 
 Descending in swarms on isolated houses in this sparsely 
 populated country, they had terrorised the inhabitants 
 into giving them food which they dared not refuse. 
 Thus provided for, these prisoners (whom in my heart I 
 could not help sympathising with) passed daily almost in 
 sight of the British Squadron at Pechenga on their way 
 to Kirkenaes. Arrived there, they were fitted out by 
 the German agent and repatriated. 
 
 Pechenga had for the moment become the head- 
 quarters of the principal British naval forces in North 
 Russia, and it was a place at which arrived daily 
 enormously valuable ships and war cargoes, and whence 
 convoys sailed tri-weekly. It was in the power of a 
 German agent on the spot to do immense damage by 
 reporting the arrival and departure of shipping. To 
 impart such information to the German U-boats con- 
 stantly cruising in the neighbourhood would also have 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 215 
 
 been a very easy matter, especially as these submarines 
 were constantly violating the neutrality of Norwegian 
 territorial waters. 
 
 From the above, the reader will realise that matters 
 were ripe for an attack of spy mania, and, to tell the 
 truth, ever since I was a boy, more than thirty years ago, 
 and discovered my first bird's nest, the mystery of hidden 
 things has always had a fascination for me. I accord- 
 ingly determined at once that the matter should be 
 inquired into, but, though at first the affair promised well 
 and the scent was hot, in the end it fizzled out into 
 nothing. To this day I am in doubt whether Robinson 
 was a spy or an ordinarily harmless individual. 
 
 My first inquiries through the British Senior Naval 
 Officer in the Glory at Murmansk were encouraging. 
 At my request he ascertained from the Russian authori- 
 ties that Robinson was an English Jew, and was also 
 believed to be a German spy. From local inquiries, I 
 ascertained that Robinson had recently left Pechenga, 
 and that he was associated with several individuals, 
 mostly students, wanted by the Russian police — one of 
 these having only a short time before made his escape 
 from custody. All these individuals were nominally 
 prospecting for minerals along the coast, and several 
 further telegrams for Robinson, which we intercepted, 
 seemed to corroborate the bona fides of this supposition 
 — that he was a mining expert. The crux of the whole 
 matter, however, was that Mr Robinson and his com- 
 panions, whatever in actual fact -they may or may not 
 have been, were all safely across the Norwegian frontier. 
 We never had on opportunity of satisfying our justifiable 
 curiosity concerning them. 
 
 In connection with this matter and others, a British 
 R.N.R. officer, Lieutenant X., of whose coming I had 
 been notified, shortly afterwards arrived from Mur- 
 mansk. He was employed by the secret service, and was 
 one of the most interesting individuals whom it has been 
 my good fortune to meet. If only he had had but the ability 
 
2i 6 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 to relate in writing some of his life's adventures, they 
 would have formed a volume which would have placed 
 the writings of most fiction mongers entirely in the 
 shade. He had been a prisoner of war in Bulgaria, and 
 there saw all his companions shot as spies, he alone 
 escaping and traversing the country disguised as a Turk. 
 He had been across Siberia on a sledge, and, as a ship- 
 wrecked mariner, had traversed Patagonia on foot. He 
 spoke fluently innumerable languages, and had all his 
 life been engaged on the most dangerous kinds of work. 
 At the moment when I first met him at Pechenga he was 
 even then on a most risky mission, so that, literally, 
 from day to day, his life hung but upon a thread. 
 Having fitted him out as well as we could for his journey, 
 we watched him start off with his Russian companions, 
 and wished them God speed in their new quest. 
 1 News from the front in Russia at that time was far 
 from cheering and generally conflicting. The Russian 
 railwaymen were on strike, Riga had fallen, and the 
 Russian troops were threatening to leave their trenches. 
 An incident of the fall of Riga, which I have not seen 
 mentioned in the English papers, I give here; my in- 
 formation was from Russian sources, but I believe it to 
 be true. It appears that the Russian troops had sur- 
 rendered practically without a struggle, but, before 
 doing so, had seized and bound their own officers. These 
 officers they turned over thus bound to the German 
 commander-in-chief, doubtless expecting to be duly 
 rewarded for their treachery. Such an example to his 
 own troops, however, did not suit the Kaiser, who hap-r 
 pened to be present. He forthwith caused the Russian 
 officers to be released and honourably treated, whilst the 
 men of the mutinous regiments he ordered themselves 
 to be bound. This done, he had one out of every fifty 
 publicly hanged, while, of the remainder, he caused a 
 large percentage to be flogged. On hearing this story, 
 and knowing the then state of Russia, I fear we, with 
 one accord, exclaimed, " Good old Bill ! " 
 
Spy and Bear Hunts 217 
 
 It was at about this time that we heard of the raid 
 by three German cruisers on the Norway-bound convoy 
 from Lerwick. In that raid they had sunk nine neutral 
 merchant ships and two British destroyers, and left their 
 crews to perish in the open sea. As it was thought that 
 these cruisers might come north, for some days we kept 
 steam at short notice, ready for all emergencies. The 
 news of the German naval mutinies at Kiel came to cheer 
 us, however, a rare gleam of sunshine breaking through 
 the storm-clouds of war, and the first tangible result of 
 British propaganda. 
 
 But the Arkhangel season was now drawing to a close, 
 and the day fast approaching when the waters of the 
 White Sea might be expected to freeze over. The last 
 allied merchant ship for the far north had already sailed 
 from home, and, consequently, Pechenga itself was 
 about to lose its raison d'etre as a centre for the organ- 
 ising of convoys. During the remainder of the winter 
 such commerce as came to North Russia would pass 
 through Murmansk. For this reason Pechanga was 
 abandoned on the 27th of October, and the Intrepid 
 returned for a season to Yukanskie to guard and over- 
 look the homeward bound shipping from Arkhangel. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE BITER BIT NO HUMOUR SEES, AND SHIPPING LEAVES 
 THE FROZEN SEAS J SOUTHWARD ALL KEELS TO FAIR 
 LERWICK, LEAVING BEHIND THE BOLSHEVIK. 
 
 OUR stay at Pechenga had indeed been a peaceful and 
 successful one, but, though we ourselves lay in 
 such a quiet backwater of the war, there came to my 
 notice at the time many submarine incidents which may 
 be of interest to the reader. 
 
 During the first week of September, 1917, U-boats in 
 general were very busy round the north of Norway, and 
 while about a hundred miles from the North Cape one of 
 them succeeded in torpedoing the Russian s.s. Dront and 
 killing fourteen of her crew, including two women. 
 
 But the very next day retribution befel a submarine — 
 a submarine which, in all probability, was the same one 
 that had sunk the Dront. The reader may remember 
 how in the early spring the British s.s. Palmbranch had 
 sunk the mine-laying U 75 off the entrance to the Kola 
 Inlet. The incident I am now about to relate centres 
 in the s.s. Olive Branch, another vessel of the same line, 
 who sank her cruel antagonist under circumstances 
 equally dramatic and even more incredible. It was a case 
 which, I imagine, a court of law would have defined as 
 an " act of God." 
 
 It was on the 2nd of September, 1917, that the British 
 s.s. Olive Branch was peacefully pursuing her way to 
 Murmansk, she being then in latitude 72.27 north and 
 one hundred and fifty miles from the North Cape. She 
 
 218 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 219 
 
 was quite unconscious of any danger when she was 
 grimly made aware that things were not what they 
 seemed by being struck in the engine-room by a torpedo. 
 The ship did not immediately sink, and time permitted of 
 the crew getting clear of her in their boats, which they 
 at once lowered. Barely had they done this, however, 
 when the submarine came to the surface and closed on 
 the sinking vessel. The German in command of the 
 U-boat was evidently of an impatient nature, and, 
 becoming restless at his victim's slow rate of sinking, 
 closed to within two hundred and fifty yards of her to 
 despatch her with his gun, quite indifferent to the ques- 
 tion as to whether any of the OKve Branch's crew still 
 remained on board their ship or not. At such point- 
 blank range the Hun could not possibly miss his target, 
 and one round sufficed — both for the submarine and for 
 the ship. The Olive Branch happened to be one of the 
 many ships loaded with munitions and high explosive, 
 and as the first and only shell struck home she blew up 
 with a deafening roar. Such an explosion at close 
 quarters would in any case probably have severely shaken 
 the submarine, but a much more dramatic and unex- 
 pected fate was in store for her. It happened that stowed 
 on the fore-deck of the Olive Branch there was a heavy 
 motor-lorry, and this, lifted by the explosion, came 
 hurtling through the air and fell with a crash on to the 
 submarine. Under the impact the U-boat instantly sank, 
 leaving her crew, who were mostly on deck enjoying 
 the spectacle, struggling in the water. A number of these 
 swimmers, many of them armed, struck out in the direc- 
 tion of the Olive Branch's boats and begged to be taken 
 in. The boats were already packed to a dangerous extent 
 with their human freight; they were also short of food 
 and water, more than a hundred miles from land, and 
 the Arctic winter was at hand. Even had the danger of 
 adding to their number a large party of armed Germans 
 been disregarded, it was still humanly impossible to pack 
 them into the boats. The Germans were accordingly 
 
220 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 left to their fate, to deal, as well as they could, with the 
 trap which they themselves had digged. In the result, 
 none of them ever returned to tell the tale. The boats, 
 however, after great peril and privation, eventually 
 reached Norway many days later. 
 
 But the strangest part of the tale is yet to follow, for. 
 it seems to plumb to the depths the German lack of 
 humour, and to prove yet again that race's inherent in-r 
 ability to see the world through anything but Teutonic 
 spectacles. For some weeks the German Press was silent 
 on the loss of this submarine, after which it blazed forth 
 in hot denunciation. Evidently some information had 
 been forthcoming from neutrals, this probably having 
 filtered through from Norway, where the Olive Branch's 
 crew had landed. Wollf's Wireless Bureau wailed the 
 pitiful story to the world — in English— and we happened 
 to intercept it at Murmansk, where my ship was then 
 lying. I kept a copy of the wireless message for some 
 months, but have since then unfortunately mislaid it. It 
 ran practically as follows, if my memory serves me 
 right : 
 
 "One of our humane U-boats, having torpedoed a 
 British steamer, came to the surface to see what assist- 
 ance she could render to the crew (Note. — The " assist- 
 ance " rendered was the shelling of an apparently 
 helpless ship at point-blank range), not knowing the 
 dangerous nature of her cargo. At that moment, unfor- 
 tunately, the vessel, which was loaded with munitions, 
 blew up, and so damaged our submarine that she sank, 
 leaving her crew struggling in the water. The latter, 
 with their revolvers in their mouths (Note.— Italics are 
 my own), swam to the steamer's boats and implored to 
 be taken in. But the brutal Englishmen, fit compatriots 
 of their countrymen of the Baralong, refused to do this, 
 and our gallant seamen perished to a man." 
 
 The Kola Inlet had also a little incident of its own. 
 It was on the night of the 7th of September > with heavy 
 snow falling and everything blotted out from sight by 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 221 
 
 the inkiness of the night, that the Russian battery at 
 Toros Island, near the entrance, reported that a sub- 
 marine had come in close under them. In fact, so close 
 did the U-boat approach that the battery guns could not 
 be depressed sufficiently to fire at her. In the end, the 
 garrison sallied forth and loosed their rifles at the three 
 men who were visible on the alleged U-boat's deck, 
 whereupon the visitor at once made off. Knowing, how- 
 ever, the unreliability of Russian reports, it is at least 
 equally likely that this supposed submarine was in 
 reality some unfortunate fishing boat which had put in 
 there for shelter. 
 
 From September until March the fogs and snowstorms 
 of the Murman coast are chronic, rendering the diffi- 
 culties of navigation almost insurmountable to those 
 unacquainted with the locality. A British cruiser (which 
 shall be nameless) had, indeed, spent a whole week off 
 the Kola Inlet the previous Christmas, vainly trying to 
 find the entrance. She had then returned home without 
 succeeding. 
 
 But to return to our submarines. These, after being 
 fairly quiet in September, became in October once more 
 very pressing in their attentions. On the 7th of October 
 the British s.s. British Transport arrived and reported 
 having sunk a submarine off the west coast of Ireland. 
 She, more fortunate than most other merchant steamers, 
 was provided with two up-to-date modern guns. Where- 
 fore, when a submarine commenced shelling her, she 
 easily compelled it to keep out of range during daylight, 
 and to submerge. However, when darkness fell, the 
 U-boat evidently thought that her own turn had come. 
 Under cover of the night, and proceeding on the surface 
 at full speed, she got ahead of the steamer without the 
 latter being aware of what had happened. The first 
 intimation that, the British Transport had of her danger 
 was by observing the white streaks of two torpedoes, 
 which missed her by inches as she sped on her zig- 
 zag course. Almost at the same moment she saw the 
 
222 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 submarine close under her starboard bow, and, porting 
 her helm, she rammed the latter not far from its stern. The 
 U-boat was, of course, now helpless, and clanged noisily 
 along the British Transport's side, as the latter, surging 
 forward, trod her adversary under foot. The German 
 crew on deck yelled loudly for help as their doomed 
 vessel drifted out of sight. But the only help they got 
 Was a salvo from the steamer's guns, at a range at which 
 the latter could not miss. When last seen, the U-boat 
 was still afloat, with her stern under and her bows high 
 in the air. She had obviously only a few minutes to 
 live. 
 
 However mercifully inclined our seamen may have felt 
 towards the crews of U-boats, in practice it was quite 
 impossible to help the latter without the gravest danger 
 to themselves. It was as though with bare hands a man 
 were to attempt to assist a hornet or poisonous snake. 
 Few U-boat commanders seemed to understand the 
 meaning of the words mercy or gratitude, and the sting 
 of the submarine, her guns and torpedoes, continued to 
 be deadly for just as long as any of the crew remained 
 alive. As was on more than one occasion shown, this 
 sting was relentlessly used by Germans against a bene- 
 factor whenever a chance occurred to reverse their 
 relative positions. Besides this, U-boats of ten worked in 
 pairs. The only reasonably safe course was to clear out 
 as quickly as possible from an unhealthy neighbourhood. 
 
 On the 24th of October the submarines were very close 
 at hand. Two steamers, the Zillah and Ilderton, were 
 torpedoed off the old spot near Kildin Island, just east- 
 ward of the Kola Inlet. Of these two, the former, being 
 timber laden, remained afloat for some days ; but, owing 
 to the heavy weather, we were unable to salve her. 
 Indeed, every vessel available was occupied looking for 
 the crews of the two ships, adrift in their boats in those 
 pitiless waters. The majority of these were, I think, 
 found; but one boat, with sixteen hands in it, was, I 
 believe, never accounted for. 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 223 
 
 It was on the evening of the 27th of October, the moon 
 being at the full, that we finally abandoned Pechenga. 
 Fortunately, the danger caused by this undesirable 
 illumination was partly discounted by clouds and a heavy 
 sea as we zigzagged our way eastward at nearly sixteen 
 knots. The U-boat we knew must be lying somewhere 
 near our track; but how near she had been we did not 
 know until our arrival at Yukanskie the following day. 
 There we learned from our collier, the Chelford, the 
 extent of our danger. The latter had been steaming 
 considerably inshore of us, and could see us clearly 
 silhouetted against the moon ; and, as we passed her about 
 midnight, she could see plainly astern of us a submarine 
 following at her best speed. The Intrepid's own speed, 
 and the heavy head sea, had, however, evidently been 
 too much for " Fritz," and he had had to abandon the 
 chase. 
 
 Had further proof of this been wanting, we soon 
 received it; for, hardly had we anchored at Yukanskie, 
 when we had news that the west-bound convoy was being 
 attacked by a submarine in another favourite locality 
 by the Sem Islands. It was the unfortunate Baron Bal- 
 four, whose fate I have previously narrated, who was on 
 that occasion " done in." Every small ship available 
 at once put to sea to assist in a submarine hunt, even 
 the Russians present lending a helping hand. There 
 were at that time four good Russian destroyers present 
 on the station, they having recently arrived after a half- 
 year's journey from Vladivostock. The senior officer of 
 this unit had to a great extent succeeded in keeping 
 his crews from mixing with the other Russian naval 
 units. Their discipline was therefore much better, for 
 they were uninfected with the bacillus of Bolshevism 
 which elsewhere daily gathered force. 
 
 Despite a carefully organised hunt, nothing further 
 was seen of " Fritz," neither did we hear any more of 
 submarines until a week later. Then, on the 4th of 
 November, the Russian s.s. Irina was torpedoed and 
 
224 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 sunk within a few miles of the spot which had been the 
 scene of the Baron Balfour's stranding and subsequent 
 torpedoing. 
 
 The unfortunate Irina had got separated from her 
 convOy, and, despite all orders to the contrary, was pro- 
 ceeding on a course which took her close inshore. 
 During the latter stages of the war many mercantile 
 captains seemed to have become incapable of resisting 
 the allurement and false sense of security which the sight 
 of land gave them. In reality, of course, their ships 
 would have been much safer if they had remained several 
 hundred miles out at sea for as long as possible ; for the 
 chances of their then being sighted by submarines would 
 have been very much lessened. But, human nature 
 being what it is, I suppose it was only natural that the 
 fears of sea captains should constantly be pleading 
 against reason. For if, when several hundred miles 
 from land, their ship were torpedoed, they knew that their 
 chances of winning through would be very much smaller 
 than they would have been had their vessel been close to 
 the shore. Wherefore, many masters chose the more 
 ignoble part of seeking first their own personal safety, 
 and forgot that their chief aim should have been the 
 safety of the ship. 
 
 Whatever may have been the reason for the Irina' s 
 captain disobeying his orders, I do not know. He was 
 himself one of the first to suffer by his disobedience, 
 for he was killed by the explosion of the torpedo, which 
 blew off the stern of his ship. Besides him, a stewardess 
 and four others were killed instantly. One of the four 
 was a British naval officer taking passage from 
 Afkhangel to joint the Glory at Murmansk. The Irina 
 was timber-laden, but, in spite of that fact,yshe sank 
 within a few minutes, the rest of the crew, however, 
 managing to get safely away in the boats. 
 
 The submarine shortly afterwards came to the surface 
 and, closing the boats, commenced to interrogate their 
 crews. Finding, however, that the master had himself 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 225 
 
 been killed, the German commander, after making a few 
 little jokes on the matter, presently departed. The boats 
 succeeded in reaching the coast the same afternoon; 
 there they were given temporary shelter by the inhabi- 
 tants until found by a searching trawler the next 
 morning. 
 
 For a month after this we lingered on at Yukanskie, 
 seeing the last of the ships from Arkhangel safely 
 started on their homeward voyages. In addition, there 
 was the anti-submarine boom to be got in and stored, 
 and the huge buoys of the War Channel to be weighed 
 and embarked. It was on the 8th of November, 1917, 
 that we first heard of the Bolsheviki successes, and 
 learned at the same time that, in all probability, there 
 would be no going home for us that winter. It was a 
 grievous disappointment to us as well as to the Iphigenia, 
 who received like orders, hers having, however, an 
 additional proviso — that she was to winter at Arkhangel 
 for the purpose of protecting life and property. 
 
 Meanwhile the political horizon in Russia became daily 
 blacker and blacker, and added greatly to the depression 
 which, on board ship, we found inseparable from the 
 rayless winter night then finally closing in around us. 
 Gale followed gale in endless succession, and the ther- 
 mometer dropped lower and lower, until the mercury 
 entirely disappeared into the bulb of the glass. 
 
 It would, indeed, have been remarkable had we not 
 all 'felt depressed, for it seemed that after all those 
 strenuous years spent by the British Navy in North 
 Russia their labour had been wasted and was in vain. The 
 only war news which we obtained was generally gleaned 
 from the German wireless, and this, naturally, was not 
 made to sound encouraging from the British point of 
 view. With Russia fallen away, Roumania in fragments, 
 Italy having a debacle on the Isonzo, it looked to us as 
 if the entente must finally bend and break before the 
 united forces of German militarism. It was a black hour 
 for us, and we had no idea what to expect; we felt it 
 
226 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 to be quite on the cards that our late Russian allies 
 might turn on us and, off-hand, treacherously torpedo 
 us. With steam ready at short notice, our bunkers filled, 
 and our guns loaded, we for some days awaited events. 
 The telegraphs were in Russian hands, and had they 
 wished they could, of course, at any time have stopped 
 our communicating with England. But nothing hap- 
 pened, and, so far as our particular little corner of 
 Russia was concerned, for the time being the assumption 
 of power by the Bolsheviki made no visible atom of 
 difference. 
 
 On the 13th of November, under the influence of a north- 
 easterly gale, the temperature began to drop very 
 rapidly. Frost and snow became continuous, and it 
 looked as if the long-deferred cold season were about 
 to set in in real earnest. By the 17th ice had begun to 
 form on the bar at Arkhangel, but, thanks to the enemy 
 submarines having all, apparently, returned to Germany, 
 we were left with only the inclemency of the climate to 
 contend with. In fact, the Vindictive and eight out of 
 our twenty-three trawlers were allowed to sail for home. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that, on the 19th of 
 November, I made a start on a long-promised visit to 
 Arkhangel. Taking passage in the Commodore's yacht 
 Salvator, I left Yukanskie at six in the morning, the 
 weather having by then become exceedingly cold; in 
 fact, during the whole of the six days I was absent, the 
 thermometer' registered continuously from forty to sixty 
 degrees of frost. 
 
 As always during cold spells in the Arctic, the icy air 
 striking the warmer water caused a dense mist to arise. 
 In a very short time this mist, coming into contact with 
 the rigging, froze into solid masses. Within an hour 
 the yacht was sheathed from stem to stern in an icy 
 shroud, and carried a quantity of congealed fluid which, 
 in the rigging alone, must have weighed over fifty tons. 
 We passed the first ice forming in the waters of the 
 White Sea; it took the circular form of water-lily leaves. 
 

 c 
 
 3 
 
 a, 
 w 
 
 2 
 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 227 
 
 and these knocked together with a musical clink as the 
 ship slid through them. Having somehow groped our 
 way through the mists, we arrived off Arkhangel bar 
 at 4 a.m. the following morning. The lightship was then 
 in process of being removed for the winter, but we were 
 fortunate enough to obtain a pilot, and started up river. 
 The frail yacht was, however, not built for work in the 
 ice. Having reached Economia, only half way up to 
 Arkhangel, and the ice by that time being three inches 
 thick, she had to give up the unequal struggle. It was 
 with difficulty that she got alongside the bank, where she 
 tied up with the assistance of a tug. Continuing my 
 voyage in the tug herself, we forced our way through an 
 ever-thickening crust of ice the remaining twelve miles 
 to Arkhangel, arriving there at five in the evening. 
 
 The river approaches to Arkhangel are through low- 
 lying, marshy country. This, at the time when I arrived, 
 being covered with snow and ice, it was almost impos- 
 sible to decide from their appearance which of the two 
 was the land and which the frozen surface of the river. 
 There was really no guide by which we could keep the 
 tug in the channel, except the tracks of broken ice left 
 by other vessels which had preceded us. Had it not been 
 for these, we should probably have made many attempts 
 to take the ship overland. 
 
 Arkhangel itself is much further south than Yukan- 
 skie. In fact, it is just outside the rim of the Arctic 
 Circle, and consequently gets a little of the sun right 
 through the winter. The prolonged twilight also gives 
 it several hours each day which are free from darkness. 
 On arrival there I received a very hearty welcome from 
 the Commodore, who, in spite of the sixty degrees of 
 frost registered by the thermometer, did not yet con- 
 sider it sufficiently cool to wear an overcoat. I found 
 him, however, in a decidedly worried state of mind over 
 the sudden advent of hard weather, for there still re- 
 mained in the port some thirty allied merchantmen — all 
 in various stages of loading or unloading. It was 
 
 P2 
 
228 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 necessary to get them all out with the utmost expedition, 
 for failing this, they would, in all probability, remain 
 frozen there for the next seven or eight months — and 
 at home there was already a sufficient shortage of ship- 
 ping without a waste such as that. The Commodore's 
 staff were even then scouring the river in all directions 
 trying to get a move on the lethargic Russians who, like 
 the guests bidden to the feast, as recorded in Holy Writ, 
 " with one accord all began to make excuse." Of the 
 forty ice-breakers then at Arkhangel not one was ready 
 for this expected emergency, and this in spite of all the 
 repair work done to them by the Iphigenia. Some there 
 were who stated that they were out of coal; others, that 
 their crews were on strike ; and yet others, again, that they 
 had developed new and unsuspected defects to their 
 machinery. Unashamedly the British officers offered 
 large bribes or tips to the captains of the recalcitrant 
 ice-breakers. It was the only way to persuade them to 
 get their ships ready for sea, and, if the ice-breakers did 
 not succeed in breaking a passage through the ice in the 
 course of the next few days, it would have become too 
 thick to handle— and thirty priceless merchant ships 
 would be frozen in. At that time bribery was the only 
 means by which anything could be accomplished in Russia. 
 It was by bribery alone, backed by British perseverance, 
 zeal and energy, that the situation was saved, and all 
 the ships were eventually got to sea. 
 
 The sudden advent of frost unfortunately entailed the 
 cutting short of my own visit. Hardly had I landed than 
 I had to set about making preparations for my return, 
 lest I also should be imprisoned there for the winter. It 
 was the most awkward season of the year for getting 
 about. Boats and ordinary vessels could not move on 
 the river, the ice being too thick for them. But the. ice 
 was not yet thick enough to bear the railway, which 
 ordinarily runs along the river surface during the winter 
 months, and forms the highway by which the collected 
 cargoes of many steamers are despatched into the 
 interior. For the moment I found any means of transit 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 229 
 
 were hard to come by, and the getting of myself away no 
 easy matter. In fact, it took me four days to cover the 
 twelve miles down river from Arkhangel to Economia— 
 four days of solid ice-smashing, during which I was 
 transferred from one ship to another, from tug to ice- 
 breaker, no less than a dozen times. 
 
 Ice-breaking, like horse riding, may be a good occu- 
 pation for those with sluggish livers, but I did not find 
 it one which appealed to me personally. Ice-breakers 
 are vessels of all sizes, built with sloping bows. An ice- 
 breaker breaking ice charges the latter at full speed, runs 
 her bows up on to it, and trusts to her weight to break 
 her through. She thus makes a channel of only her own 
 width, but one from which cracks and fissures open and 
 radiate in all directions, thus greatly weakening the ice 
 around. After her butt at the ice, the ice-breaker first 
 backs astern, then charges forward once more, and so 
 on ad nauseam. As a passenger, I found the sensations 
 engendered by the process most unpleasant. The 
 crunching, smashing, grinding noise is deafening, and 
 the vessel advances, bumps, tilts, backs, slithers, and 
 sways unceasingly. By no possibility could I keep my 
 feet or myself anchored in the same spot without grip- 
 ping desperately with my hands whatever lay closest. 
 Nothing was for One moment at rest, nor could the next 
 movement be foretold for even one second in advance. 
 I was soon tired out, and, to my mind, it was more like a 
 nightmare ride on a scenic railway than anything else 
 with which my experience enables me to compare it. 
 
 At Arkhangel, with sixty degrees of frost, the water 
 froze practically instantly as soon as the vessel had 
 passed, and men were crossing the fresh ice in her wake 
 within a few seconds of it. But wherever a patch of 
 clear water showed for an instant, there arose a dense 
 watery mist above it. Under the ice the water itself was 
 half frozen, and its density comparable with that of 
 clotted cream; this as the vessel's screws revolved flew 
 aside in viscous masses and exposed the dark depths of 
 
230 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 the river. One wondered sometimes whether it were not 
 frozen solid to the very bottom, and in fancy caught a 
 fleeting vision of the latter. So solid and so deeply 
 frozen had the river become in a few days that at one 
 place the ice-breaker in which I had the misfortune to be, 
 spent over eight hours forcing her way through a small 
 stretch of ribbed ice less than four hundred yards wide. 
 
 It was therefore with feelings of the greatest relief 
 that on the evening of the 24th of November I at length 
 reached the comparatively clear water off Arkhangel 
 bar. Even there it was congealing rapidly, and floes of 
 field ice stretched in all directions outside; but by 
 dodging and forcing our way through these we at 
 length reached Yukanskie at midnight on the 25th of 
 November. Once more in those familiar surroundings, 
 dreary though they were, I experienced that feeling of 
 satisfaction which a horse knows on returning to its 
 stable. Once more I was back in my temporary home — 
 a comfortable ship, where I could get a bath and speak 
 the same language as my companions. 
 
 During my flying visit to Arkhangel I had, of course, 
 little opportunity to see the sights of the place itself. It 
 gave me the impression of being a somewhat uninterest- 
 ing town of wooden houses built in the usual Russian 
 style, and sprinkled with churches, whose green domes 
 and gilded minarets looked beautiful in the rose-coloured 
 rays of the low-lying sun. However, between the inter- 
 vals of trying to get started on my return passage, I did 
 what I could to see something of the place. 
 
 Being a sailor, of course one of the first things which 
 I noted was that there appeared to be a large number of 
 pretty girls about. Their trim ankles, however, rising 
 out of large black snow-boots, give to the ladies a 
 strange appearance of being hoofed animals. So 
 swathed also were both men and women alike in long 
 fur coats and fur hats that it was by no means easy to 
 distinguish the sexes. One evening, after a visit to some 
 tenth-rate cinemas, I was taken by a naval friend to a 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 231 
 
 place called the Club Theatre. This was in reality a 
 social club with a theatre attached to it. In the theatre 
 on certain evenings dancing was indulged in. It was a 
 democratic assembly — soldiers, sailors, officers, and men 
 all mixed indiscriminately together, with a host of their 
 women-folk, mothers, sisters, wives, and demi-monde. 
 The dances were such as were customary at a servants' 
 ball at home before the war, and included D'Alberts, 
 Mazurkas, and the like. Returning to the Commo- 
 dore's house at about two a.m. after this function, I was 
 amazed by finding stretched across the doorstep what at 
 first I took to be an inebriated bear. Further investiga- 
 tion, however, proved it to be no bear, but the concierge, 
 wrapped in his skin rugs and fast asleep in the snow — 
 the temperature then being thirty degrees below zero. 
 This, I subsequently ascertained, was the good man's 
 usual sleeping-place, and one habitually used by Russians 
 whose avocation it was to guard houses during the night. 
 
 When I left the Iphigenia was still lying off Arkhangel, 
 loaded to the gunwale with stores and solidly frozen in 
 to the ice. In those troublous and revolutionary days 
 her presence had an undoubtedly calming effect on the 
 populace, although her actual gun-power — four ancient 
 four-point-seven guns — was negligible, and the ship her- 
 self was helpless, wedged as she was in the ice. At 
 Arkhangel at the time there were hundreds of heavy 
 howitzers and other guns which in a very few moments 
 could have shelled her out of existence had the Russians 
 been so minded. But the prestige of the British name 
 was very great, and the sight of Britain's flag was suffi- 
 cient. No such unpleasant eventuality occurred. 
 
 The chief danger lay in the fact that near at hand lay 
 huge stores of spirits, used in the manufacture of high 
 explosives. Had the working men raided these, any- 
 thing might have happened, and a general massacre of 
 the more well-to-do inhabitants would have been likely 
 to follow. It was for this reason that the more law- 
 abiding citizens looked with approval at the British flag, 
 
232 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 and were glad to see the Iphigenia, which, lying close in 
 to their town, looked much more formidable than she 
 really was. 
 
 At Yukanskie, in the meantime, we had bidden good- 
 bye to the sun until the following spring. Barring the 
 lugubrious twilight, which still continued to show up for 
 a few hours round about noon, we had no light worth 
 speaking about, save only those periods, lasting about 
 five or six days every month, during which the moon 
 never set. At times, when snow or storm clouds 
 obscured the sky, the darkness was more intense than 
 anything I can remember. But, when the sky and atmo- 
 sphere were clear, the snow reflected back the starlight 
 and gave a certain measure of light. 
 
 Rather sadly we watched ship after ship of the British 
 merchant fleet sail for home, followed in due course by 
 the boarding-steamers Grive and Stephen Furness, the 
 two yachts, and the trawlers. We found ourselves at 
 length at Yukanskie with nought else save the 
 Tithonus and two solitary trawlers. On the 30th of 
 November, the futility of any further hope of Russian 
 help in the war became manifest, for we received news 
 of the Bolshevik treaty of peace with Germany. 
 
 With the close of November the cold spell became a 
 little less pronounced, and the thermometer rarely regis- 
 tered more than from ten to twenty degrees of frost. By 
 that time, however, the ice had extended over a great 
 part of the Gorla, and our trawlers were no longer able 
 to reach Arkhangel bar. One lot of trawlers were, in 
 fact, caught by the ice, and, drifting helplessly hither 
 and thither, were by it carried unwillingly across shoal 
 patches off Cape Orlov. One of these vessels actually 
 grounded twice, but fortunately sustained no injury. In 
 the end they all succeeded in extricating themselves. 
 
 The last of the merchant ships having departed, the 
 Intrepid in her turn, and last of all, left Yukanskie on the 
 1st of December, and, in a gale of snow from the north- 
 west, proceeded for Kola Inlet. Our guns were soon 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 233 
 
 frozen into a solid block of ice one foot thick ; but with 
 constant chipping, and thanks to the special electric 
 radiators which we had fitted to each, they still remained 
 serviceable. 
 
 The inner half of the Kola Inlet we found on arrival to 
 be covered with ice some three inches in thickness. This 
 generally happens at intervals during the winter, but the 
 ice never endures there as it does at Arkhangel. After 
 a few days it breaks up, and drifts out to sea. In the 
 present instance we found this ice to be a great comfort, 
 for during the blind impenetrable darkness of fog and 
 snowstorm — when, owing to the proximity of land, we 
 had to stop the engines until the weather cleared — this 
 ice held the ship in one position, and kept her from drift- 
 ing into dangerous waters. Every now and then there 
 would come clear intervals, during which we were able 
 to fix our position and drive the ship ahead once more 
 through the thin ice. In this manner we arrived at 
 Murmansk at two p.m. on the 2nd of December, and I 
 found myself under the orders of my senior officer in the 
 old. battleship Glory. 
 
 At Murmansk we found everyone even more depressed 
 than we had been at Yukanskie. This was due, not only 
 to the political situation, but perhaps even more to the 
 four months of winter gloom and darkness which they 
 saw before them. Months during which they would 
 have neither recreation, exercise, mails, nor news, and 
 would have to do all reading and work by artificial light. 
 This was a state of things which we already knew to be 
 harmful to the eyesight, and a fruitful cause of insomnia 
 and mental derangement. 
 
 There were present at Kola a Russian battleship, a 
 cruiser, and a few smaller craft. When the fog tempo- 
 rarily lifted on the 7th of December, we were able to see 
 for the first time that the old Russian naval ensign had 
 been hauled down. In its place was flying the blood-red 
 flag of the Soviet. 
 
 The four Russian destroyers which had come from 
 
234 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 Vladivostock, and had been well disciplined and pro- 
 ally, had since we last saw them been re-officered with 
 Bolsheviki nominees. A week after our arrival these 
 put to sea on some unknown mission. As the Soviet 
 was at peace with Germany, and it seemed quite possible 
 that pro-German counsels might prevail, we never knew 
 from day to day whether these destroyers might not 
 return at any moment as our enemies, and sink us by a 
 treacherous torpedo. Of the other Russian vessels, the 
 battleship was believed to be pro-ally in sentiment, while 
 the cruiser Askold was known to be virulently Bolshevik. 
 Anything might be expected to happen. For days I held 
 the ship in readiness to slip her cables and ram the 
 cruiser should she show any signs of hostility. It would 
 have been our only chance, for, in gun power, we could 
 not have stood up to her for a moment. Nothing, how- 
 ever, did happen. The menace of Britain's sea power 
 made treachery, had it been intended, too risky. Having 
 done their worst to the pygmy forces on the spot, the 
 Russian ships would have had nowhere to escape 
 to, save as refugees to neutral Norwegian waters. 
 Moreover, in this far north of Russia, the whole 
 population was still dependent upon the sea for 
 supplies of food, clothing, and almost every necessary 
 of life. 
 
 Work was evidently no part of the regime of Soviet 
 ships. One of the few signs of life on board them was 
 the spectacle, recurrent twice daily, of a tug arriving 
 alongside to discharge or embark a cargo of fair but frail 
 femininity. There was a great stir one morning, for the 
 ice was too thick for the tug to be able to get alongside 
 the battleship; whereupon, some of its occupants 
 attempted to walk to her on the ice. One of the women 
 happened to fall through a crack into the water, and, 
 after much excitement and many thrills and chills, was 
 gallantly rescued by a sailor. This to an accompaniment 
 of loud " huzzahs " from the onlookers. 
 
 Consequent on the Bolshevik peace with Germany, all 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 235 
 
 Allied merchant shipping was ordered to leave Russian 
 waters forthwith without discharging cargoes. The 
 Iphigenia was also broken out of the ice at Arkhangel, 
 and arrived to reinforce us at Murmansk, whilst the 
 battleship Glory once more had her crew brought up to 
 full strength by reliefs from England. Prepared for 
 every emergency, we awaited events, sparing no effort to 
 get off the scene as soon as possible the merchant ships 
 still at Murmansk. 
 
 As may be imagined, life with us at that time was not 
 exactly a round of gaiety; therefore, with a view to 
 cheering things and people up, I resolved to essay the 
 publication of a ship's paper. This was no easy matter, 
 owing to the shortage of all materials generally con- 
 sidered essential for the production of a periodical. 
 Neither paper nor printing-press did we possess, but 
 where there is a will there is a way. By the use of type- 
 writers, hectographic ink, and some gelatine reproducing 
 apparatus, we brought to birth a really remarkable first 
 number, it being profusely illustrated by lithographs in 
 red- and violet-tinted inks. The official title of this ship's 
 magazine — a magazine which contained eighteen pages 
 of foolscap size — was The White Sea Whisperer and 
 Arctic Advertiser; a footnote adding that with it was 
 incorporated the Poetical Pink'un. 
 
 The idea of a ship's paper caught on from the first, 
 and contributions — of a sort — fairly rained in. As the 
 reader may have guessed from the title, the paper was 
 not of a specially refined nature, and was apt to indulge 
 in personalities of the most searching nature. But, such 
 as it was, no copy of Punch in the Arctic ever caused half 
 so much joy as did this low rag. It gave a chance to 
 everyone to poke fun at his messmates — an opportunity 
 which was taken every advantage of. The edition — 
 owing to shortage of paper and gelatine — was limited 
 to thirty copies ; these were sold at half a crown apiece, 
 and ten times that number could easily have been dis- 
 posed of. With the proceeds quite a respectable sum 
 
236 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 was available, which was forwarded to Lady Jellicoe's 
 Fund. 
 
 Alas that the first number of such a successful paper 
 should also be its last ! We had in it discovered a means 
 for the alleviation of our winter tedium and depression, 
 and were busily prospecting round for further supplies 
 of paper when the Intrepid received unexpected orders 
 to proceed home forthwith. 
 
 On the 21st of December, 1917, we put to sea in the 
 darkness at nine o'clock in the morning. Outside there 
 was a roaring gale, and this we carried with us the whole 
 thirteen hundred miles of our homeward voyage. The 
 gale, however, was behind us and helped us to make a 
 record passage, for we arrived at Lerwick at dawn on 
 Christmas morning. Although she was then more than 
 twenty years old the Intrepid was a wonderful steamer, 
 and as sound as a bell. Nothing in the way of weather 
 seemed to stop her, although my cabin under the fore- 
 bridge was smashed to matchwood, and the staunchions 
 supporting the deck were bent nearly double under the 
 fo'c'sle by the weight of the descending seas. 
 
 Sheathed in ice, the Intrepid coasted down the western 
 side of the Shetlands in a blinding snowstorm, and but 
 by the thickness of her paintwork did a torpid patrol 
 trawler, whom she encountered, avoid destruction. At 
 midnight the latter suddenly emerged out of the whirl- 
 ing whiteness of falling snowflakes, and was right under 
 our bows before we could see her. We missed her by 
 inches. 
 
 It was with a sigh of thankfulness and relief, following 
 on much anxiety, that I heard the splash of our anchor 
 as it dropped to the bottom of Lerwick Harbour just as 
 the clocks chimed eight that snowy Christmas dawn. 
 Presently the sun came out and, as in the Arctic, shone 
 over uplands of shining white. 
 
 At Lerwick we heard the sad news of the loss of the 
 two armed boarding steamers, Grive and Stephen Fur- 
 ness. For two years they had been our tried and trusted 
 
Shipping Leaves the Frozen Seas 237 
 
 companions m the Arctic. Daily and hourly had they 
 risked destruction from submarines in those waters and 
 emerged unscathed. And now at Lerwick, within touch 
 of their homes, they had fallen victims to lurking 
 U-boats; the Stephen Fumess. losing her captain, five 
 officers, and eighty-five men — nearly half of her small 
 company. 
 
 On the following day we sailed for Chatham, our 
 good luck following us all the way; for, though ships 
 were being sunk all around us, we saw nothing of enemy 
 submarines or their works. A British submarine we 
 did, indeed, come in contact with, though we saw her 
 not — only a light, presumably on her periscope, which, 
 from the surface of the water, flashed a challenge to us 
 as we sped past. 
 
 We had come home actually faster than the telegrams 
 announcing our departure. This was responsible for 
 some little delay en route, and it prevented our arriving 
 at Chatham before New Year's Eve. A week later the 
 ship paid off. Her paint work not being as spotless 
 as was customary in home waters, the fact evoked some 
 caustic remarks from the little tin god who presided at 
 that function. Dressed as he was in his immaculate gold 
 lace, aiguillettes and tailor-pressed uniform, 1 would have 
 given much to have taken him and dumped him for a 
 few months at Yukanskie. There he would have learned 
 that in war time, in waters where work, frost and gales 
 are continuous, and life and death themselves are trivial 
 matters, it is not always possible to have paintwork up 
 to that standard considered so essential in Chatham 
 dockyard. 
 
 Of the larger ships which worked with me in 'the 
 Arctic, only the battleship Glory and the damaged Carron 
 now survive. As the reader already knows, the Grive 
 and Stephen Fumess had already been sunk off Lerwick, 
 and the Tithonus, following after at a later date, met 
 with the same fate at the hands of a submarine. A few 
 months later the Vindictive, Intrepid and Iphigenia were 
 
238 Under the Black Ensign 
 
 to be the makers of that immortal page of history which 
 was written when they, with others, successfully blocked 
 the exit of U-boats from Zeebrugge and Ostend. Very 
 few of their old crews were then on board them, but 
 some were. I have been told that one of my old petty 
 officers in the Intrepid, a man always conspicuous for 
 his keenness and courage, was the last man to leave the 
 Mole. It was a gallant ending for the old ships; may 
 their bones rest in peace and not be given over to the 
 shipbreakers. 
 
 Although in the dark days at the close of 1917 it 
 seemed to many of us that our three years' effort in 
 Arctic Russia had been wasted, yet now, looking back, 
 I know that things were far otherwise. Without our 
 contemptible little Navy in those waters, without the 
 zeal and effort which we put into our work, Russia 
 would, for all practical purposes, have been cut off from 
 her allies from the very commencement of the war. Her 
 long, long line of railway across Siberia would have been 
 the only mouth by which, during her three war years, 
 she could have been fed on the indispensable require* 
 ments of war. Without Arkhangel, and latterly Mur- 
 mansk, through which to obtain her supplies, she must 
 have succumbed within twelve months, instead of en- 
 during for three years as she actually did do. And with- 
 out those three years of Russian assistance could the 
 other allies have held out ? 
 
 I cannot answer. But that there would have been a 
 far greater expenditure of blood and treasure is a matter 
 of which there can be no reasonable doubt. 
 
 THE END. 
 
PRINTED BY THE FIELD PRESS LTD., WINDSOR HOUSE, 
 BREAM'S BUILDINGS) LONDON, E.C. 4. 
 
- Hi ' mm 
 
 
 rap H 
 
 " ■■.'-.'.;-'.:■■'■- r ', : ;