The Sea Raiders by E. Keble Chatterton

Author:E. Keble Chatterton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: E. Keble Chatterton
Published: 2016-11-12T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

AN HISTORIC DUEL

WE have seen how well organized was the German Mercantile Marine, and that those ships acted in accordance with the handbook of procedure telling them what to do and where to go in the event of war. This manual had been issued in 1912 after the Agadir crisis, when Britain and Germany were much nearer to fighting than many people realise. It was laid down that care should be taken to avoid the usual steamship routes, reach port at night, approach it from the open sea; and it was further ordered that the distinguishing funnel markings were to be painted over.

But long before this date the British Government had gone into the question of dealing with its own merchant shipping under such circumstances, and by the agreement with the Cunard Company alone, made in 1903, every vessel of this line was to be at the Admiralty’s disposal. Various well-known units, such as Aquitania, Mauretania, Campania, Caronia, and Carmania were at one time or another commandeered, but it is with the last-mentioned that we are about to devote our consideration, since her exploit is unique in the whole of the Great War’s history. Indeed, we have to go back several generations into the sailing-ship age before we find any parallel. Whilst German-American passenger ships were turned into armed merchant cruisers for the purposes of raiding commerce, a number of British liners were similarly converted but for exactly the opposite intention. Germany’s commercial shipping as a whole acted on the defensive, sought immunity in neutral harbours, and therefore could not be harried: Britain’s liners and tramps generally carried on much as usual. Those few passenger steamers which were armed offensively could not be employed to raid German commerce; for all seaborne Teutonic trade suddenly faded out when the bugles of war sounded. But it was for protecting British trade and seeking out raiders that certain liners of the Cunard and other companies were required. Some liners, dating from the first autumn, were needed as we have seen for enforcing the northern blockade.

Our story begins at 8 a.m. on August 7, 1914, three days after hostilities broke out, and the scene is the Liverpool landing-stage, where Carmania had just arrived from across the Atlantic and was landing her passengers as quickly as they could step across the gangways; but then she was taken into dock to discharge her cargo, to coal, and fit out as an armed merchant cruiser. The change over from the character of a luxurious transatlantic floating hotel to a grim warship proceeded with amazing speed. Gangs of workmen were soon painting the red funnels black, shipwrights were cutting away bulwarks on one of her decks to allow guns to train round the necessary arcs; armour plates were placed over vital spots, rope protection to deflect splinters was devised, all woodwork between decks was stripped off, passengers’ cabins put ashore for fear of fire, magazines built into the holds, speaking-tubes installed to connect with the steering-room aft,

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