Part 9 (2/2)
”It's extraordinary the amount of knocking about the big s.h.i.+ps can stand. One saw them hit, and they seemed to be one ma.s.s of flame and smoke, and you think they're gone, but when the smoke clears away they are apparently none the worse and still firing away. But to see a s.h.i.+p blow up is a terrible and wonderful sight; an enormous volume of flame and smoke almost 200 feet high and great pieces of metal, etc., blown sky-high, and then when the smoke clears not a sign of the s.h.i.+p.
We saw one other extraordinary sight. Of course, you know the North Sea is very shallow. We came across a Hun cruiser absolutely on end, his stern on the bottom and his bow sticking up about 30 feet in the water; and a little farther on a destroyer in precisely the same position.
”I couldn't be certain, but I rather think I saw your old s.h.i.+p cras.h.i.+ng along and blazing away, but I expect you have heard from some of your pals. But the night was far and away the worse time of all. It was pitch dark, and, of course, absolutely no lights, and the firing seems so much more at night, as you could see the flashes lighting up the sky, and it seemed to make much more noise, and you could see s.h.i.+ps on fire and blowing up. Of course _we_ showed absolutely no lights. One expected to be surprised any moment, and eventually we were. We suddenly found ourselves within 1000 yards of two or three big Hun cruisers. They switched on their searchlights and started firing like nothing on earth. Then they put their searchlights on us, but for some extraordinary reason did not fire on us. As, of course, we were going full speed we lost them in a moment, but I must say, that I, and I think everybody else, thought that that was the end, but one does not feel afraid or panicky. I think I felt rather cooler then than at any other time. I asked lots of people afterwards what they felt like, and they all said the same thing. It all happens in a few seconds; one hasn't time to think; but never in all my life have I been so thankful to see daylight again--and I don't think I ever want to see another night like that--it's such an awful strain. One does not notice it at the time, but it's the reaction afterwards.
”I never noticed I was tired till I got back to harbour, and then we all turned in and absolutely slept like logs. We were seventy-two hours with little or no sleep. The skipper was perfectly wonderful. He never left the bridge for a minute for twenty-four hours, and was on the bridge or in the chart-house the whole time we were out (the chart-house is an airy dog-kennel that opens off the bridge) and I've never seen anybody so cool and unruffled. He stood there smoking his pipe as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.
”One quite forgot all about time. I was relieved at 4 A.M., and on looking at my watch found I had been up there nearly twelve hours, and then discovered I was rather hungry. The skipper and I had some cheese and biscuits, ham sandwiches, and water on the bridge, and then I went down and brewed some cocoa and s.h.i.+p's biscuit.”
Not in the thick of the fight, Not in the press of the odds, Do the heroes come to their height Or we know the demi-G.o.ds.
That stands over till peace.
We can only perceive Men returned from the seas, Very grateful for leave.
They grant us sudden days s.n.a.t.c.hed from their business of war.
We are too close to appraise What manner of men they are.
And whether their names go down With age-kept victories, Or whether they battle and drown Unreckoned is hid from our eyes.
They are too near to be great, But our children shall understand When and how our fate Was changed, and by whose hand.
Our children shall measure their worth.
We are content to be blind, For we know that we walk on a new-born earth With the saviours of mankind.
IV
THE MINDS OF MEN
HOW IT IS DONE
What mystery is there like the mystery of the other man's job--or what world so cut off as that which he enters when he goes to it? The eminent surgeon is altogether such an one as ourselves, even till his hand falls on the k.n.o.b of the theatre door. After that, in the silence, among the ether fumes, no man except his acolytes, and they won't tell, has ever seen his face. So with the unconsidered curate.
Yet, before the war, he had more experience of the business and detail of death than any of the people who contemned him. His face also, as he stands his bedside-watches--that countenance with which he shall justify himself to his Maker--none have ever looked upon. Even the ditcher is a priest of mysteries at the high moment when he lays out in his mind his levels and the fall of the water that he alone can draw off clearly. But catch any of these men five minutes after they have left their altars, and you will find the doors are shut.
Chance sent me almost immediately after the Jutland fight a Lieutenant of one of the destroyers engaged. Among other matters, I asked him if there was any particular noise.
”Well, I haven't been in the trenches, of course,” he replied, ”but I don't think there could have been much more noise than there was.”
This bears out a report of a destroyer who could not be certain whether an enemy battles.h.i.+p had blown up or not, saying that, in that particular corner, it would have been impossible to identify anything less than the explosion of a whole magazine.
”It wasn't exactly noise,” he reflected. ”Noise is what you take in from outside. This was _inside_ you. It seemed to lift you right out of everything.”
”And how did the light affect one?” I asked, trying to work out a theory that noise and light produced beyond known endurance form an unknown anaesthetic and stimulant, comparable to, but infinitely more potent than, the soothing effect of the smoke-pall of ancient battles.
”The lights were rather curious,” was the answer. ”I don't know that one noticed searchlights particularly, unless they meant business; but when a lot of big guns loosed off together, the whole sea was lit up and you could see our destroyers running about like c.o.c.kroaches on a tin soup-plate.”
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