Most people would have thought that the sail-driven decoys would have had a very short life, and that they would speedily have succumbed. On the contrary, though their work was more trying and demanded a different kind of seamanship, these ‘mystery’ ships went on bravely tackling the enemy.

The Lowestoft armed smacks, for instance, during 1916 had some pretty stiff tussles, and we know now that they thoroughly infuriated the Germans, who threatened to have their revenge. Looked at from the enemy’s aspect, it certainly was annoying to see a number of sailing smacks spread off the coast, each obviously trawling, but not to know which of them would in a moment cut her gear and sink the submarine with her gun. It was just that element of suspense which made a cautious German officer very chary of going near these craft, whereas he might have sunk the whole fishing fleet if he dared. It was not merely annoying; it was humiliating that a small sailing craft should have the impertinence to contend with the super-modern ship of a German naval officer. That, of course, was not the way to look at the matter; for it was a contest, as we have seen, in which brains and bravery were factors more decisive than anything else. The average British fisherman is ignorant of many things which are learnt only in nautical academies, but the last you could accuse him of being is a fool or a funk. His navigation in these sailing smacks is quaint and primitive, but he relies in thick weather chiefly on the nature of the sea-bed. He can almost smell his way, and a cast of the lead confirms his surmise; he finds he is just where he expected to be. So with his character. Hardened by years of fishing in all weathers, and angered to extreme indignation during the war by the loss of good ships and lives of his relatives and friends, this type of man, so long as his decoy smack had any sort of gun, was the keenest of the keen.

One of these smacks was the Telesia, armed only with a 3-pounder, and commanded by Skipper W. S. Wharton, who did extraordinarily well in this dangerous service. On March 23, 1916, he was trawling roughly thirty-five miles S.E. of Lowestoft, when about midday he sighted a submarine three miles off, steering to the north-east. At 1.30 p.m. the German, who was evidently one of the cautious type, and having a careful scrutiny before attacking, approached within 50 yards of the Telesia’s starboard bow, and submerged with her periscope just showing. She came back an hour later to have another look, and again disappeared until 4.30 p.m., when she approached from the north-east. Having got about 300 yards away she attacked, but she had not the courage to fight on the surface a little sailing craft built of wood. Instead, she remained submerged and fired a torpedo. Had that hit, Telesia and her men would have been blown to pieces; but it just missed the smack’s bows by four feet. Skipper Wharton at once brought his gun into action, and fired fifteen rounds at the periscope, which was the only part of her that could be seen, and an almost impossible target. The enemy disappeared, but arrived back in half an hour, and this time the periscope showed on the starboard quarter, coming straight for the smack, and rising out of the water at the same time. Again she fired a torpedo, and it seemed certain to hit, but happily it passed 40 feet astern. At a range of only 75 yards the smack now fired a couple of shots as the enemy showed her deck. The first shot seemed to hit the conning-tower, and then the fore part of the hull was observed coming out of the water. The second shot struck between the conning-tower and the hatch, whereupon the enemy went down by the bows, showing her propeller. She was a big craft, judging by the size of her conning-tower, and certainly larger than those which had recently been sinking Lowestoft smacks. Skipper Wharton, whilst fishing, had himself been chased, so he was fairly familiar with their appearance. Whether the enemy was actually sunk is a matter of doubt. Perhaps she was not destroyed, although UB 13 was lost this month; how and where are unknown. One thing is certain, however, that the little Telesia caused her to break off the engagement and disappear. The smack could do no more, for the wind had now died right away, and this fact demonstrated the importance of these decoy smacks being fitted with motors, so that the craft would be able to manoeuvre in the absence of wind; and this improved equipment was now in certain cases adopted. Skipper Wharton well deserved his D.S.C. for this incident, and two of the ship’s company also received the D.S.M. The whole crew numbered eight, consisting of Skipper Wharton, a naval chief petty officer, a leading seaman, a marine, an A.B., and three fishermen.

On the following April 23 Telesia—this time under the name of Hobbyhawk and under the command of Lieutenant H. W. Harvey, R.N.V.R.—together with a similar smack named the Cheero, commanded by Lieutenant W. F. Scott, R.N.R., put to sea from Lowestoft. They had recently been fitted with specially designed nets, to which were attached mines. It had been found that with 600 yards of these nets towing astern the smack could still sail ahead at a speed of 3 knots. A bridle made out of a trawler’s warp was stopped down the towing wire and from forward of the smack, so that she would look exactly like a genuine smack when fishing with the ordinary trawl. All that was required was that the submarine should foul these nets astern, when, if everything worked as it should, destruction to the enemy would follow.

At 5.45 that afternoon, when 10 miles N.E. of the Smith’s Knoll Pillar Buoy, the nets were shot and the batteries connected up to the net-mines. The wind was light, so Cheero, towing away to the south-east, was going ahead very slowly. Each of these two smacks was fitted with a hydrophone by means of which the beat of a vessel’s engines could be heard, the noise of a submarine’s being very different from that of reciprocating engines in a steamer. About 7 p.m. Cheero distinctly heard on her instrument the steady, quick, buzzing, unmistakable noise of a submarine, and the noise gradually increased. About three-quarters of an hour later the wire leading to the nets suddenly became tight and stretched along the smack’s rail. The strain eased up a little, became tight again, then an explosion followed in the nets, and the sounds of the submarine’s engines were never heard again. The sea was blown by the explosion 20 feet high, and as the water was settling down another upheaval took place, followed by oil. The crew remained at their stations for a few minutes awaiting further developments, and then were ordered to haul the nets, but a great strain was now felt, so that instead of two men it required six. As the second net was coming in, the whole fleet of nets took a sharp angle down, and a small piece of steel was brought on board. Other pieces of steel came adrift and fell into the sea. As the third net was being hauled in, the whole of the nets suddenly became free and were got in quite easily, whilst the crew remarked on the strong smell of oil. It was found that one mine had exploded, and when the nets were eventually further examined ashore in Lowestoft there could be no doubt but that a submarine had been blown up, and more pieces of steel, some of considerable size, dropped out. Thus UC 3, with all hands, was destroyed. She was one of the small mine-layers which used to come across from Zeebrugge fouling the shipping tracks along the East Anglian coast with her deadly cargoes, and causing the destruction of merchant shipping, Allied and neutral alike. On May 18 of the same year Hobbyhawk (Telesia) and a similar smack, the Revenge (alias Fame), had a stiff encounter with a submarine in about the same place, but there is reason to suppose that in this case the enemy was not sunk.

This idea of commissioning sailing smacks as Q-ships now began to be adopted in other areas. Obviously only that kind of fishing craft could be employed which ordinarily were wont to fish those particular waters; otherwise the submarine would at once have become suspicious. Thus, at the end of May, a couple of Brixham smacks, which usually fished out of Milford, were fitted out at Falmouth, armed each with a 12-pounder, and then sent round to operate in the Milford district. These were the Kermes and Strumbles respectively. They were manned by a specially selected crew, and the two commanding officers were Lieutenant E. L. Hughes, R.N.R., and Sub-Lieutenant J. Hayes, R.N.R. But although they were given a good trial, these craft were not suitable as soon as the autumn bad weather came on. Their freeboard was too low, they heeled over too much in the strong prevailing winds, so that it was difficult to get the gun to bear either to windward or leeward; and, except when on the top of a sea, their range of vision was limited, so before November was out these ships ceased to be men-of-war and were returned to their owners.

Along the Yorkshire coast is found a type of open boat which is never seen farther north than Northumberland and never farther south than Lincolnshire. This is the cobble, a peculiar and rather tricky kind of craft used by the fishermen of Whitby, Scarborough, Bridlington, Filey, and elsewhere. They carry one lug-sail and can be rowed, a single thole-pin taking the place of a rowlock. The smaller type of cobble measures 28 feet long by 2¼ feet deep, but the larger type, capable of carrying nine tons, is just under 34 feet long by 4¾ feet deep. Here, then, was a boat which, with her shallow draught, could with safety sail about in the numerous minefields off the Yorkshire coast. No submarine would ever suspect these as being anything but fishermen trying to snatch a living. In the early summer of 1916 two of these boats, the Thalia and Blessing, were commissioned. They were sailing cobbles fitted with auxiliary motors, and were sent to work south-east of the Humber in the Silver Pit area. Here they pretended to fish, towing 300 yards of mine-nets, 30 feet deep, in the hope that, as had happened off Lowestoft, the submarine would come along and be blown up. However, they had no luck, and after a few months’ service these boats also were returned to their owners. But in spite of this, Q-sailing-ships were still being taken up, the difficulty being to select the right type. Even in the Mediterranean the idea was employed. Enemy submarines had been destroying a number of sailing vessels, so the Admiralty purchased one local craft, gave her a small auxiliary motor, and towed her to Mudros, where she could be armed and equipped in secrecy. One day she set forth from Malta in company with a British submarine, and two days later was off the coast of Sicily. Here the sailing craft attracted a large enemy submarine, the British submarine of course watching, but submerged. Unfortunately, just when the enemy might have been torpedoed, the heavy swell caused the British submarine to break surface. The enemy was quick to observe this, dived for his life, and disappeared. The rest of the story is rather ludicrous. The British submarine remained submerged in the hope that the enemy would presently come to the surface, while the sailing craft lost touch with her consort and turned towards Malta, using her motor. The next incident was that she sighted 6 miles astern an unmistakable submarine, which was at once taken for the enemy. Being without his own submarine, the somewhat inexperienced R.N.V.R. officer in command made an error of judgment, and, abandoning the ship, destroyed her, being subsequently picked up by a Japanese destroyer. It was afterwards discovered that this was our own submarine who had been working with the sailing craft, and was now on her way back to Malta!

The other day, laid up hidden away at the top of a sheltered creek in Cornwall, I came upon an interesting brigantine. Somehow I felt we had met before, but she was looking a little forlorn; there was no life in the ship, yet she seemed in that curious way, which ships have in common with human beings, to possess a powerful personality. Freights were bad, the miners were on strike, and here was this good little vessel lying idle, and not so much as noticed by those who passed. Then I found out who she was. Here was an historic ship, the famous Helgoland, which served right through to the end of the war from the summer of 1916. Now she was back in the Merchant Service, and no one seemed to care; yet hundreds of years hence people will write and talk of her, as they still do of Grenville’s Revenge or the old clipper-ships Cutty Sark and ThermopylÆ.

Helgoland had been built in 1895 of steel and iron at Martenshoek in Holland, where they specialize in this kind of construction, but she was now British owned and registered at Plymouth. She measured 122 feet 9 inches long, 23 feet 3 inches beam, drew 8 feet aft, and her tonnage was 310 burthen and 182 net. In July, 1916, this ship was lying in Liverpool undergoing an extensive overhaul, and here she was taken over from her owners and sent to Falmouth, where she was fitted out forthwith as a Q-ship. Armed with four 12-pounders and one Maxim, she was known officially in future under the various names of Helgoland, Horley, Brig 10, and Q 17. Her crew were carefully chosen from the personnel serving in Auxiliary Patrol vessels at Falmouth, with the exception of the guns’ crews; the ship’s complement consisting of two R.N.R. officers, one skipper, one second hand, two petty officers, six Royal Navy gunnery ratings, eight deckhands of the Trawler Reserve, one carpenter, one steward, and one cook, the last three being mercantile ratings. Of her two officers one was Temporary Sub-Lieutenant W. E. L. Sanders, R.N.R., who, by reason of his sailing-ship experience, was appointed as mate. This was that gallant New Zealander who had come across the ocean to help the Motherland, performed amazing service in Q-ships, fought like a gentleman, won the Victoria Cross, and eventually, with his ship and all his crew, went to the bottom like the true hero that he was. The story must be told in a subsequent chapter.

When we consider the actions fought by these topsail schooners and brigantines in the Great War we appear almost to be dreaming, to be sent right back to the sixteenth century, and modernity seems to have been swept clean away. While the Grand Fleet was unable, these sailing ships were carrying on the warfare for which they had never been built. In the whole of the Royal Navy there were hardly any suitable officers nowadays who possessed practical experience in handling schooners. This was where the officer from the Mercantile Marine, the amateur yachtsman, the coasting skipper, and the fisherman became so invaluable. In these days of decaying seamanship, when steam and motors are dominant, it is well to set these facts down lest we forget. The last of the naval training brigs has long since gone, and few officers or men, even in the Merchant Service, serve an apprenticeship under sail.

Helgoland left Falmouth after dark, September 6, 1916, on her first cruise as a man-of-war, and she had but a few hours to wait before her first engagement took place. Commanded by Lieutenant A. D. Blair, R.N.R., she was on her way to Milford, and at 1.30 p.m. on the following day was only 10 miles south of the Lizard when she sighted a submarine on the surface 3 points on the starboard quarter. There was an alarm bell fitted up in Helgoland which was rung only for action stations, and, as it now sounded, each man crept stealthily to his appointed place. Under the command of Lieutenant W. E. L. Sanders, R.N.R., and following his example of perfect calmness, the guns’ crews carried out their work without flurry or excitement.

Within five minutes the enemy, from a distance of 2,000 yards, had begun shelling the brigantine. The first shot fell 10 yards short, but the second and third struck the foretopsail yard—how strange it seems to use the time-honoured phrases of naval warfare for a twentieth-century fight—one shell going right through the yard. It happened that on this fine summer’s day there was no wind; so here was the unlucky Helgoland becalmed and unable to manoeuvre so as to bring her guns to bear as required. It seemed as if the enemy intended to lie off and shell this perfect target with impunity, directing the fire from ahead and astern, which was just the way the brigantine’s guns would not bear. However, after the second shot from the submarine, the Helgoland’s guns would just bear, so Lieutenant Blair dropped his screens and opened fire whilst still there was a chance. The fourth round from the after gun seemed to hit the enemy, and she immediately lurched and dived. Lieutenant Blair then sent two of his hands aloft to look for periscopes, and in a few minutes one was sighted on the starboard quarter 200 yards away and closing. Two rounds from each of the starboard guns were therefore fired, one striking the water very close to the periscope, which again disappeared.

Nothing further happened until half an hour later, when a larger submarine with sail set, about the size of a drifter’s mizzen, was sighted right aft. As soon as this U-boat bore 3 points on the port quarter, she also was attacked, and dived under cover of her smoke screen. The afternoon passed, and at dusk (7 p.m.), when there was still no wind, the sound of a submarine’s motors was heard as if circling around the brigantine. An hour later Helgoland bent her new foretopsail, and just before 9.30 a submarine was seen right ahead, so in the calm the Q-ship could not get her guns to bear. Half an hour later, as there was still no wind, Helgoland spoke an armed trawler, who towed her back to Falmouth. Just as the two ships were communicating, the enemy fired a couple of torpedoes which, thanks to Helgoland’s shallow draught, passed under her amidships. So ended the brigantine’s first cruise. It was unfortunate that at long range she had been compelled to open fire and disclose her identity, but that was owing to the calm, and subsequently she was fitted with an auxiliary motor.

Her next fight was in much the same position, about 20 miles S.W. of the Lizard. At 6.20 a.m. on October 24, 1916, Helgoland, now commanded by Lieutenant G. G. Westmore, R.N.R., was on an E.S.E. course, the wind being S.W., force 4, and there was a moderate sea. About a mile off on the starboard bow was a large tramp steamer steering a westerly course, and presently was seen a submarine following astern of the tramp. Lieutenant Westmore at once sent his crew to quarters, keeping all of them out of sight, with the exception of the ratings who represented the watch that ordinarily would be seen on the deck of such a coaster. In order to pass close to the German, the brigantine hauled to the wind, and at 6.42 the submarine opened fire on the steamer. As the enemy was now abeam, and only 1,000 yards to windward of the Helgoland, Lieutenant Westmore determined that this was the opportune moment. To wait longer would only have meant an increase in the range; so down went the screens and fire was opened with the starboard guns. The second and third shots seemed to strike the enemy amidships, and she then dived, after firing only one round, which passed well astern. Everything had worked well except that the screen had jammed at the critical moment, but Lieutenant Sanders, who was seeing that guns and crew were ready, soon cleared it. While he was looking after his men, and Lieutenant Westmore was generally looking after the ship, Skipper William Smith, R.N.R., was at the wheel steering with marked coolness, and Skipper R. W. Hannaford, R.N.R., was in charge of the sails, handling them and trimming the yards as required.

The first submarine was painted a dark colour, with a brown sail set aft, so that at first she resembled one of our drifters. And now a second U-boat, painted a light colour with no sail, was seen two miles away heading for the tramp steamer. The latter happened to be the Admiralty transport Bagdale, whose crew had by now abandoned her, the ship’s boats being close to the submarine. Helgoland went about on the other tack and stood towards the enemy, so as to save the Bagdale, and at 4,000 yards fired at the submarine. The latter was not hit, dived, came to the surface and made off to the south-west, not being seen after this. The brigantine stood by the abandoned Bagdale, tacking ship at frequent intervals, so as to prevent the submarine resuming her onslaught. Soon after nine two trawlers were observed, and summoned by gunfire and rockets. They were sent to pick up the crew and to tow the transport into Falmouth. Thus, if no submarine had been sunk, this sailing ship had saved the steamer by frightening away the enemy, and there were more engagements still to follow.

By this—October, 1916—the Q-ship service had increased to such an extent that there were actually forty-seven decoy craft operating. These comprised almost every kind of vessel, from motor drifters to medium-sized steamers. Their success or failure depended partly on captain and crew, but partly on luck. Some Q-ships, as we have seen, never sighted a U-boat; others were in action as soon as they got out of port. The advantage of these Q-sailing-ships was that they could keep the sea independent of the shore for periods much longer than the trawlers or tramps. Owing to their roomy decks, these coasters were well suited for the erection of dummy deckhouses to conceal the armament, and another advantage was that, not utilizing engines or a propeller—except when used occasionally—there was no noise to prevent constant listening on the hydrophones. There was always the chance that during the dark hours, when the enemy on his hydrophones could not hear the sailing ship approaching, the schooner or brigantine might suddenly surprise and sink a submarine lying on the surface charging its batteries. The result was that in the first week of November another sailing craft was requisitioned. This was the three-masted barquentine Gaelic, which was then lying at Swansea loaded with 300 tons of coal. Gaelic, who was known officially afterwards also under the names of Gobo, Brig 11, and Q 22, was 126 feet 8 inches long and 21 feet in the beam. She had been built of iron in 1898, was registered at Beaumaris, and remained in service throughout the rest of the war. In August, 1918, she was operating in the Bay of Biscay, and then returned to Gibraltar. At the end of November she left ‘the Rock,’ reached Falmouth by the middle of December, and then was towed to Milford to be paid off, reconditioned, and returned to commercial work. But before then, as we shall presently see, she was to carry out some first-class work.

There is no person more conservative than the seafaring man; the whole history of the sailing ship shows this clearly enough, and it is curious how one generation is much the same as another. It was Lord Melville who, in the early years of the nineteenth century, stated that it was the duty of the Admiralty to discourage, to the utmost of their ability, the employment of steam vessels, as they considered the introduction of steam was calculated to strike a fatal blow to the naval supremacy of Great Britain. A hundred years later, although the Q-sailing-ship had justified herself, yet there was a sort of conservative prejudice against her development. ‘The small sailing vessel,’ complained a distinguished admiral, ‘will develop into a sailing line-of-battle ship with an electric-light party reefing topsails and a seaplane hidden in the foretopmen’s washdeck locker, and everybody seasick.’

Yes: there was much in common between this flag-officer and the noble lord, in spite of the intervening century.