The Mystery Ship 2

The Mystery Ship 2

"When do you want this instrument of torture?" asked Meredith, as he

examined the fractured ends.

 

"By three on Wednesday afternoon," replied McIntosh.

 

Kenneth shook his head.

 

"Can't be done, old son--that is, if you want me to tackle it

to-morrow."

 

"Why not?"

 

"'Cause I'm on patrol to-night."

 

A terrible reverberation as the engine-room staff gave a preliminary

run with the powerful motors corroborated Meredith's statement.

 

"But I'll do it now, if you like," he added. "You might ask Coles to

bring along some seaming-twine and beeswax."

 

"Don't envy you, old thing," remarked Jock, returning with the

required articles. "It's coming on thick. Personally, I'm jolly

glad."

 

"Why?"

 

"The matter of those X-lighters," replied McIntosh. "We are handing

them over to the R.A.F., and we've been expecting some one from that

crush down to inspect 'em. And we look like going on expecting. 'Tany

rate, the S.N.O.'s fed up with the lighters, so I've orders to take

'em round to Donnikirk and dump 'em on the R.A.F. people. Hanged if I

want the job! Plugging along with four-knot barges isn't in my line,

so I hope it's foggy."

 

Meredith nodded sympathetically, as his deft yet horny fingers waxed

the twine and began the intricate task of "whipping" the broken

pieces of the golf club. He little knew the part those unwieldy

X-lighters would play in his subsequent experiences afloat.

 

The X-lighters were almost flat-bottomed barges, about a hundred feet

in length and with a beam of roughly twenty feet. Originally built

for work in connection with the naval river flotillas in Mesopotamia,

they had found their way to a northern base. Then as a result of

negotiations between the Admiralty and the Air Ministry, the former

expressed their intention of turning over the lighters to the Royal

Air Force for kite-balloon work.

 

Anxious to get rid of the cumbersome craft, which occupied a large

amount of valuable mooring-space in Auldhaig Harbour, the Senior

Naval Officer had decided not to await the long-delayed visit of the

Air Force representative, but to send the barges round to their new

base.

 

"You're quite right, old man," observed Meredith, when, the task of

mending the golf club completed, he accompanied Jock McIntosh on

deck. "It's going to be a beast of a night. An' No. 1071's doing the

Outer Patrol stunt this time."

 

"Well, good luck!" exclaimed McIntosh.

 

Kenneth smiled sourly.

 

"Good luck!" he echoed bitterly. "Nothin' doin', I'm afraid. It's out

nosing through the fog, seeing nothing and doing nothing. Haven't had

so much as a sniff at a strafed U-boat yet, and don't seem like doing

so until the end of the war--whenever that comes off."

 

"Sooner the better as far as I'm concerned," said McIntosh. "I'm fed

up to the back teeth absolutely."

 

"Think so?" asked Meredith quietly. "From a purely personal point of

view, we'll be jolly sorry when the war is over. Most of us will be

wishing ourselves back in the M.L.'s before many weeks have passed."

 

"I'll risk it," rejoined Jock. "Give me the piping times of peace any

old day--s'long as we win, which we're bound to do. Hello! here's

Wakefield. Now the fun's about to commence. I'll hook it."

 

And with a friendly gesture of greeting to the returning officer

commanding H.M.M.L. 1071, McIntosh leapt over the rail, crossed the

deck of an intervening craft, and ascended the accommodation-ladder

of the parent ship _Hesperus_.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

ON PATROL

 

 

"BRIGHT sort of evening, Meredith," was Wakefield's greeting as he

came on board. "I see you've had the engines running. Any trouble

down below?"

 

Cedric Wakefield was a burly, pleasant-faced youth of twenty-four,

upon whose broad shoulders rested the weight of responsibility of

M.L. 1071, her crew and equipment. In those far-off days before

practically the whole civilised world was plunged into the throes of

war Wakefield was farming in Canada. Had anyone suggested that within

a few months he would be treading the deck of a diminutive warship

flying the White Ensign, Wakefield would have scouted the idea. The

peril of the German menace had hardly made itself felt as far as

Western Canada was concerned; while the young Englishman, coming

straight from a Public School to the thinly populated slopes of the

Rockies, little thought that the call of duty would bring him home

hot-foot to fight for King and Country.

 

But when war broke out with startling suddenness Cedric promptly

"packed up," worked his passage from Quebec to Liverpool as a

fireman, and upon arrival in the Old Country promptly joined the

R.N.V.R. as an ordinary seaman. In less than twelve months he was

granted a commission, and after a brief course in gunnery and

navigation was given command of a motor launch.

 

Quiet-spoken, he found that the fact of being in command was not

without its disadvantages. At first he possessed hardly sufficient

self-confidence to give an order loudly and peremptorily. But by

degrees the force of authority asserted itself, and when necessary he

could bellow like a bull and make himself heard in a gale of wind. He

was daring, but at the same time cautious. He could make up his mind

in an instant, and rarely was his judgment at fault, while his

courageous bearing in many a tight corner had won the admiration and

confidence of his crew.

 

Judging by their previous occupations, the crew of M.L. 1071 were a

"scratch lot." There were two clerks, a butcher, a chauffeur, an

insurance agent, a London County Council schoolmaster, an hotel

porter, a theological student and a poacher, although the latter was

camouflaged under the designation of farm labourer. And these men,

volunteers all, had been banded together under the White Ensign to do

their level best to make things mighty unpleasant for Fritz by means

of a quick-firer and an assortment of particularly obnoxious

depth-charges. True, up to the present, opportunities for direct

action had been denied them, but nevertheless it was not for want of

trying.

 

It was certainly a beast of a night. The moon had risen, but her

light hardly penetrated the white eddying wreaths of vapour. Viewed

from the deck of M.L. 1071, the hull of her parent ship appeared to

terminate twenty yards away, while her steel masts and fighting-tops,

grotesquely distorted by the erratic mists, were visible at one

moment like pillars of silver, while at another they appeared to be

cut off at less than fifteen feet above the deck. Already three of

the six vessels detailed for the forty-eight hours' patrol had been

swallowed up in the mist, as with lights screened they groped their

way blindly towards the invisible mouth of the harbour and the

seemingly boundless expanse of sea and fog beyond.

 

With the air reverberating with the roar of the exhausts and the deck

quivering under the pulsations of the throttled motors, Wakefield and

Meredith made their way to the diminutive wheel-house, where the

coxwain (ex-theological student) was standing by the steering-wheel

and peering with a studied professional manner into the dimly

illuminated compass-bowl.

 

"All ready?" inquired the skipper in stentorian tones. "Let go

for'ard!... Let go aft!"

 

The engine-room telegraph bells clanged as Wakefield thrust the

starboard indicator to easy ahead and the port one to half-speed

astern. Literally spinning round on her heel, M.L. 1071 edged away

from the _Hesperus_, the towering hull of which was quickly swallowed

up in the mist.

 

"Good enough, Sub!" exclaimed Wakefield. "We're right in the wake of

the next ahead. Now carry on. It's my watch below. Give me a shout if

anything's doing, and get them to call me at four bells."

 

Left in charge, Meredith prepared to make the best of his four hours'

"trick." Experience had long since taught him that warmth and dryness

were absolutely essential on night patrol. Clad in two thick woollen

sweaters, serge-trousers and pilot-coat, and wearing woollen gloves,

sea-boots, muffler, oilskins and sou'wester, he was well equipped for

the work in hand. The three-sided erection known as the wheel-house

afforded little protection from the spray, as the windows had to be

kept wide open otherwise the moisture settling on the glass panes

would render the mist still more baffling than it actually was.

 

Right for'ard the dim outlines of the look-out could be discerned,

as, crouching to dodge as far as possible the clouds of spray, the

man peered through the darkening mist. It was his duty to see that

M.L. 1071 kept fairly in the bubbling wake of the boat next ahead.

Fifty yards astern another M.L., unseen but plainly audible, was

likewise making use of the swirl of No. 1071's twin propellers as a

guide through the fog-laden water.

 

So well, so good. Provided the flotilla kept station in "single

column line ahead," there was little cause for the science of

navigation except on the part of the navigating officer of the

leading M.L. It was a case of seamanship, a sort of marine

follow-my-leader work, until on arriving at a certain rendezvous the

boats had to work independently; and No. 1071 had been detailed for the Outer Patrol stunt.