THE COMPLETE MILITARY WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING. Rudyard 1865-1936 Kipling
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Miles short! Who fired that shot?’
A shell had burst short of the mark, and the captain of that gun was asked politely if he supposed Government supplied him with three-pound shell for the purpose of shooting mackerel.
And so we went on, till the big guns had fired their quota and the Maxims ran out in one last fiends’ flurry, and target-practice for the month was over. The rock that had been grey was white, and a few shining cartridge-cases lay beside each gun.
Squirting Death Through a Hose
Then the horror of the thing began to soak into me. What I had seen was a slow peddling-out of Admiralty allowance for the month, and it seemed to me more like squirting death through a hose than any ordinary gun-practice. What will it be when all the ammunition-hoists are working, when the Maxims’ water-jacket puffs off in steam; when the three-pounder charges come up a dozen at a time to be spent twenty to the minute; when the sole limit of four-inch fire is the speed with which the shells and cases can be handled? What will it be when the Real Thing is upon us?
And the smiling, careless faces answered with one merry accord: ‘Hell! Every kind of Hell! But—things will happen.’
In ancient days there was an etiquette in sea battles. No line-of-battle ship fired at a frigate unless the latter deliberately annoyed her. Then she blew the frigate out of the water. What will be the etiquette next time? Suppose a cruiser met a battleship with one set of engines unusable crawling along at eight knots. Would she jackal the lame thing and tempt her into wasting ammunition? It is a risky game to play with sides no thicker than an average tea-tray; but under circumstances it might be lucrative. Would she—and a fast cruiser can do this—try to rush her by night, destroyer-fashion? At the beginning of the war she might do all sorts of things; at the end of it she would take exactly that kind of liberty which experience of the other side’s personnel had shown to be moderately safe. There is no saying what she could or could not do in heavy weather, and Navies that do not like heavy weather; tumble-home boats unused to working in a sea; a beaky and a plated Navy, with big tops that roll and strain, might suffer.
Therefore we must pray for foul weather, head-seas and steep swells, gale that bewilders, cold that numbs, and small fine rain that blinds, chills, and dispirits. Our men know them.
Men Who Take Their Chances
Under these conditions the possibilities of a good sea-boat are almost illimitable, given always the men who know how to handle her—the men who will take their chances. And as in the Army so in the Navy runs the unwritten Law: ‘You must not imperil the property of the taxpayer committed to your charge or you will be publicly broke; but if you do not take every risk you can and more also you will be broke in the estimation of your fellows. Your men will not love you, and you will never get on.’ To do him justice the junior officer steers a very fair line between the two councils. Thanks to our destroyers, which give him an independent command early in his career, he studies a little ingenuity and artifice. They are young on the destroyers—the chattering black decks are no place for the middle-aged—they have learned how to handle 200ft. of shod death that cover a mile in two minutes, turn in their own length, and leap to racing speed almost before a man knows he has signalled the engine-room. In these craft they risk the extreme perils of the sea and make experiments of a kind that would not read well in print. It would take much to astonish them when, at the completion of their command, they are shifted, say, to a racing cruiser. They have been within spitting distance of collision and bumping distance of the bottom; they have tested their craft in long-drawn Channel gales, not grudgingly or of necessity because they could not find harbour, but because they ‘wanted to know, don’t you know;’ and in that embroilment have been very literally thrown together with their men.
Enough To Sober Ulysses
This makes for hardiness, coolness of head, and above all resource. You realise it when you hear the dear boys talk among themselves. The Naval man’s experience begins early, and by the time he has reached his majority a Sub-Lieutenant should have seen enough to sober Ulysses. But he utterly refuses to be sobered. There is no case on record of a depressed Sub. It takes three of him to keep one Midshipman in order; but the combined strength of the Assistant Engineer, the Doctor, and the Paymaster will not subdue one Sub-Lieutenant. He goes his joyous way, impartially and picturesquely criticising his elders and his betters; diverse, undulating, and irrepressible. But when he stands on the bridge at midnight and essays to keep the proper distance in front of the next steel ram dreamily muttering through the water, ten knots an hour, two hundred yards behind him—why then the Sub sweats big drops till he gets used to it. Let us suppose he is third in a line of four, that the hour is near midnight, and he has been on watch since eight. So far, we have kept our distance beautifully: we have even sneered at the next line a mile away to the right, where they have once or twice been ‘all over the shop.’ In twenty minutes there will come relief, a bowl of hot cocoa, three pulls at a pipe, and blessed bed. The Sub watches the speed-lights of the next ahead, for as those lanterns change so must he adjust his pace. But the next ahead is using up all the basest coal she can find, and the wind blows not less than two million samples of it into his straining eyes. He has—he had—the distance absolutely correct; he would swear to it. The Quartermaster by the tiny wheel half heaves up one big shoulder. Till that moment he has given no sign of life. The Sub’s heel taps impatiently on the planking; his mouth hovers over the engine-room voice tube; his lips open to speak to the Quartermaster in case—in case it should be necessary to sheer out of line; for something has gone wrong with the next ahead. She has badly overrun her station, and sheers to the left of our leading ship. The Sub wipes the cinders out of his left eye and says something.
Now Begins the Fun
Now begins the fun. The leading ship has slowed a certain number of revolutions—say, from ten knots to nine and a half; but she has not changed her speed-lights in time. We slide out to the right of our next ahead, swiftly and quietly. And now we must all mark time, as it were, till our leader straightens herself. That which was a line has suddenly become a town on the waters; representing roughly three-quarters of a million sterling in value, ten thousand tons weight, and eight hundred lives. Our next ahead lies on our port bow, and—oh, horror!—our next astern is alongside of us. Heaven send that the Captain may not choose this hour to wake. The Sub has slowed her down to eighty-five, but engines are only engines after all, and they cannot obey on the instant. Meantime we can see into the chart-room of her that should have lain behind us. A Navigating Lieutenant sprawled half over the table, cap tilted over forehead to keep out the glare of the lamp, is poring on a chart; we can hear the officer of the watch on her bridge speaking to his Quartermaster, and there comes over to us a whiff of Navy tobacco. She is slowing—she has slowed with a vengeance, and when ships slow too much they lose steerage-way, and, what is far worse, they wake the Captain. This strikes the Sub with lurid clearness; but the impetus of the recent ten knots is on us all, and we are all going much faster than we think. Again his foot taps the deck.
Are They Never Going to Slow?
Are they never going to slow in the engine-room? The pointer on the dial before the Quartermaster moves through some minute arc, and our head falls off to the left. It is excessively lonely on this high and lofty bridge, and the spindle-shaped hull beneath looks very unmanageable. Our next ahead draws away slowly from our port bow, and we continue at a safe distance to starboard of her. The line is less of a lump and more of a diagonal than it was. Our next astern is sliding back to where she belongs. Now, two revolutions at a time, the Sub lets us out till he sees our erring sister ahead return to her place, and joyfully slinks in behind her. The Sub mops his heated brow, thanking Heaven that the Captain didn’t wake up, and that the tangle was straightened before the end of the watch. But speed-lights unless properly handled—as ours are handled—are, he doubts not, an invention of the Devil. So, also, is the Fleet; so are all cruisers; and the sea and everything connected therewith.
Now comes the judgment! Our leader, of course, cannot signal back down her line, but the signal must be repeated from the leading ship of the line to starboard. Thus, you see, we read it diagonally. A dull glow breaks out at the mast-head of that transmitter of