The Diary of a U-boat Commander by Sir King-Hall Stephen (some good books to read txt) 📕

After an hour’s submerging we rose, and found dawn breaking over a leaden and choppy sea. Nothing being in sight, we continued on the surface for an hour, charging batteries with the starboard engine (500 amps on each), but at 9 a.m., the clouds lying low and an aerial patrol being frequent hereabouts, we dived and cruised steadily down channel at slow speed, keeping periscope depth.

Several times in the course of the forenoon we sighted small destroyers and convoy craft [1] in the distance, all steering westerly. They were probably returning from escorting troopships over to France last night. In every case we went to sixty feet long before they could have seen our “stick.” [2] Weissman is evidently as cautious in this matter as he is hardy in others; the more I see of him the more I like him; he is a man of breeding, and it is of value to serve in this boat.

[Footnote 1: Probably “P” boats.—ETIENNE.]

[Footnote 2: Periscope.—ETIENNE.]

As I write we are on the surface about ten miles east of the Isle of Wight, still steering down channel. Tonight at midnight we report our position to Zeebrugge, up till now we have maintained wireless silence for fear of the British and French directional stations picking up our signals and fixing our position.

After supper this evening Von Weissman explained to me the general plan of our operations for the next eight days. Our cruising billet is about 150 miles southwest of the Scillys, at the focal point where trade for Liverpool and Bristol and the up-channel trade diverges. Von Weissman says that this is a plum billet and we should do well.

I feel this is going to be better than those piffling little mine-laying trips, and though we shall be away ten days, it will qualify me for four days’ leave in Belgium.

*

There was nearly an awkward moment last night, or, rather, there was an awkward moment, and nearly an awkward accident. I relieved the navigator at midnight (the pilot is an unassuming individual called Siegel) and took on the middle watch. It was blowing about force 4 from the southwest, and a nasty short, lumpy sea was running which caught us just on the port bow. About once every ten seconds she missed her step with the waves and, dipping her nose into it, shovelled up tons of water, which, as the bow lifted, raced aft and, breaking against the gun, flung itself in clouds of spray against the bridge. In a very few minutes every exposed portion of me was streaming with water.

At about 2 a.m. I had turned my back to the sea for a moment, and my thoughts were for an instant in Bruges, when, on facing forward once again I saw a sight which effectually brought me back to earth.

This was the spectacle of two black shapes, evidently steamers, one on either bow, distant, I should estimate, 600 or 700 metres. I had to make a quick decision, and I decided that to fire a torpedo in that sea with any hope of a hit, especially with the boat on surface, was useless; furthermore, that at any moment either of the steamers might sight us from their high bridge and turn and ram.

These thoughts were the work of an instant, and I at once rang the diving bell, and, pushing the look-out before me, in five seconds I was in the conning tower and had the hatch down. I at once proceeded down into the boat, and the first thing that struck my eye was the diving gauge with the needle practically stationary at two metres.

The boat was not going down properly! and for an instant I was rudely shaken, until a cool voice from the wardroom remarked, “Helm hard a-port,” an order that was instantly obeyed, and as she began to turn the moving needle on the depth gauge began its journey round the dial. It was the Captain who had spoken. As soon as he heard the diving alarm he was out of his bunk, and a glance at the gauge he has fitted in the wardroom told him we were not sinking rapidly. In an instant he had put his finger on the trouble, which was that we were almost head on to the sea, with the result that he had given the order as stated above, which, bringing us beam on to the sea, had caused her to dive with ease. He is efficiency itself!

As I explained to him what had happened, the noise of propellers at varying distances from us overhead led him to state his belief that we had run into a convoy homeward bound to Southampton from the Atlantic.

He approved of my actions in every particular, save only in my omission to bring the boat away from the sea as I began to dive.

This morning we are beginning to get the full force of what is evidently going to be a south-westerly gale of some violence. The seas are getting larger as we debouch into the Atlantic. This looks bad for business.

*

At the moment we are practically hove to on the surface, with the port engine just jogging to keep her head on to sea and the starboard ticking round to give her a long, slow charge of 200 amps.

The wind is force 7-8 and a very big sea is running which makes it entirely impossible to open the conning tower hatch; the engine is getting its air through the special mushroom ventilator, which is apparently not designed to supply both the boat’s requirements and those of the engine; the whole ventilator gets covered with sea every now and then, during which period until the baffle drains get the water away no air can get in, so the engine has a good suck at the air in the boat, the result of all this being a slight vacuum in the boat. It is a very unpleasant sensation, and made me very sick. This is really a form of sickness due to the rarefied air.

I had a great surprise when I looked at the barograph this morning as the needle had gone right off the paper at the bottom, and at first glance I thought we had struck a tropical depression of the first magnitude, which, flouting all the laws of meteorology, had somehow found its way to the English Channel; but the engineer explained to me that, as I have already stated, the low atmospheric pressure in the boat was due to the conning-tower hatch being shut down.

[Illustration: “As the dim lights on the mole disappeared, the ceaseless fountain of starshells mingling with the flashing of guns, rose inland on our port beam.”]

[Illustration: “We hit her aft for the second time.”]

I have discovered that Von Weissman is a martyr to sea-sickness—all day he has been lying down as white as a sheet and subsisting on milk tablets and sips of brandy; yet such is the man’s inflexibility of will that he forces himself to make a tour of inspection right round the boat every six hours, night and day. It is this will to conquer which has made Germans unconquerable, though “Come the four corners of the world in arms” against us, as the great poet says.

We are, of course, keeping watch from inside the conning tower; it is, at all events, dry, but as to seeing anything one might as well be looking out through a small glass window from inside a breakwater! To bed till 4 a.m.

*

A most unprofitable day. I grudge every day away from Zoe on which we do nothing. This morning about noon the gale blew itself out, but a heavy confused sea continued to run.

At 2 p.m. we saw a most tantalizing spectacle. A big tank steamer, fully 600 feet long and of probably 17,000 tons burthen hove in sight, escorted by two destroyers. To attack with the gun was impossible, as we could only keep the conning tower open when stern to sea, and in any case the two destroyers prevented any surface work. We tried to get in for an attack, but we had not seen her in time, and the best we could do was to get within 3,000 yards, at which range it would have been absurd to have wasted a torpedo, the chances of hitting being 100 to 1 against, even if the torpedo had run properly in the sea that was on.

I had a good look at her through the foremost periscope in between the waves, and it maddened me to see all that oil, doubtless from Tampico for the Grand Fleet, going safely by. The destroyers were having a bad time of it, crashing into the sea like porpoises, their funnels white with salt, and their bridges enveloped in sheets of water and spray. They little thought that, barely a mile away, amidst the tumbling, crested waves a German eye was watching them!

There is no doubt these damned British have pluck, for it was the last sort of weather in which one would have expected to find destroyers at sea, and yet I suppose they do this throughout the winter.

After all, one would expect them to be tough fellows—they are of Teutonic stock—though by their bearing one might imagine that the Creator made an Englishman and then Adam.

Let’s hope we get some decent weather tomorrow. I have just been refreshing my memory by reading of what I wrote in the book, concerning the day in the forest with the adorable girl. There is an exquisite pleasure in transporting the mind into such memories of the past when the body is in such surroundings as the present, if only I could will myself to dream of her!

*

A fine day in every sense of the word. The weather has been and remains excellent, and I have been present at my first sinking. It was absurdly commonplace. At 10 a.m. this morning a column of smoke crept upwards from the southern horizon.

Von Weissman steered towards it on the surface until two masts and the top of a funnel appeared. We dived and proceeded slowly under water on a southerly course.

Half an hour passed and Von Weissman brought the boat up to periscope depth and had a look. He called to me to come and see, an invitation I accepted with alacrity.

With natural excitement I looked through the periscope and there she was, unconsciously ambling to her doom like a fat sheep.

She was a steamer (British) of about 4,000 tons, slugging home at a steady ten knots, but she was destined to come to her last mooring place ahead of schedule time!

We dipped our periscope and I went forward to the tubes. Five minutes elapsed and the order instrument bell rang, the pointer flicking to “Stand by.” I personally removed the firing gear safety pin and put the repeat to “Ready.” A breathless pause, then a slight shake and destruction was on its way, whilst I realized by the angle of the boat that Weissman was taking us down a few metres.

That shows his coolness, he didn’t even trouble to watch his shot.

Anxiously I watch the second hand of my stop watch. Weissman had told me the range would be about 500 metres—30 seconds—31—32—33—has he missed?—34—35—3—A dull rumble comes through the water and the whole boat shakes. Hurra! we have hit, and the order “Surface” comes along the voice pipe.

The cheerful voice of the blower is heard, evacuating the tanks; I run to the