THE SUB by "fAFFRAIL" CARRY ON! Naval Sketches and Stories i\3 net STAND BY! Naval Sketches and Stories fjj net OFF SHORE Naval Sketches and Stories z/j net THE WATCH BELOW (Ready Jan. 1918) Naval Sketches and Stories ijj net MINOR OPERATIONS Naval Stories i\3 net SEA, SPRAT, AND SPINDRIFT Sea Stories for Boys 2\6 ne^ A II the aiove published by Messrs. C. ARTHUR PEARSON, Ltd. PINCHER MARTIN, O.D. A Story of the Navy j(6 net Messrs. W. & R. CHAMBERS, Ltd. I JOIN MY FIRST SHIP. THE SUB BEING THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DAVID MUNRO, SUB-LIEUTENANT, ROYAL NAVY By "TAFFRAIL" AUTHOR Of "PINCHKB MiBTIK, O.D.," ETO. HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO MCMXTII Printed in Great Britain by Hazell. Watson Viney, id., London and Aylesbury. TO JUDY PREFACE THIS book was written in the brief spare time at my disposal, and subject to fre- while for weeks quent interruption ; often, at a time, I have been unable to lay pen to paper due to my naval duties. Indeed, without the generous help of my wife, who has read through the narrative both in manuscript and proof, I could hardly have completed the book in time for publication this autumn. Her assistance and sugges- tions have been invaluable. " " The Sub may be criticised in that it devotes too much space to pre-hostility little war but days and too to the present ; it has been my principal aim to give some idea of the life and training of the boy who enters the Royal Navy as a cadet through the Colleges at Osborne and Dart- mouth. Moreover, I hope in a future of volume to give further war experiences Sub-Lieutenant David Munro. I was not at Osborne myself, and my thanks are due to various brother officers, and to r the author of that excellent little book From 11 12 PREFACE Dartmouth to 'the'' Dardanelles, for certain information concerning the life of a cadet at the R.N. Colleges. It seems almost unnecessary to state that my characters are fictitious, and that incidents described, though generally true in themselves and unexaggerated, must no1 be taken too literally. " TAFFRAIL." NORTH SEA September 1917. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE PURELY PERSONAL . , . .15 CHAPTER II THROUGH THE MILL . .42 CHAPTER III I GO TO SEA 76 CHAPTER IV H.M.S. "PERICLES" ... 93 CHAPTER V THE DAY'S WORK . .114 CHAPTER VI i UPS AND DOWNS . 140 14 CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAGE PROMOTION . .174 CHAPTER VIII THE WAR CLOUD . .193 CHAPTER IX H.M.S. "LICTOR" . 21 CHAPTER X A CERTAIN LIVELINESS . CHAPTER XI HELIGOLAND . .251 CHAPTER XII ON BUMPS AND OTHER THINGS . .278 CHAPTER XIII THE DOGGER BANK . .301 CHAPTER XIV THE BITTER END . 322 CHAPTER I PURELY PERSONAL 1 THOUGH I have never regretted the happy fortune which caused my name to be entered on the list of prospective candidates for admission as cadets to the Royal Naval College at Osborne, it has always been some- what of a mystery to me how my father first came to consider the Royal Navy as a pro- fession for his second son. I daresay I was the proverbial fool of the family, but my parent himself was in the Army and my elder brother followed in his footsteps. So far as I am aware, moreover, none of my relations have ever served in the fleet of His Majesty or his predecessors. We have no seafaring ancestors and no nautical tradi- tions only one uncle who has an interest in the welfare of a certain shipping company whose vessels he has never seen. My own early recollections of the sea merely date back to the days of our annual summer visits to the seaside, where, attached to the extremity of a long line, the shore end 15 PERSONAL 36 f PtJBSiLY; of which was firmly held by some responsible person on the beach, I was wont to disport myself in water up to my waist. I eventually learnt to swim, and was then permitted to go afloat fishing in a small boat with a long- shore mariner clad in a beard, a blue jersey, and immense sea-boots. The fishing, which figured conspicuously in the list of attractions of the place, existed largely in the imagination of the local boat- men, who thereby reaped a rich harvest from those unsuspecting summer visitors who knew no better. From my point of view it was never really successful, though I remember, at the age of nine, earning an honest sixpence from my brother by swallow- ing whole one of the furry-looking worms which we used as bait. It was the last of brother's and, my pocket-money, thinking" that I would never do it, he called me a 3: dirty little beast ! I quite agree. I cer- tainly was a glutton in those days, but I still consider that the assimilation of that worm was worth more than a miserable sixpence ! On my eleventh birthday I went to sea for the first time under sail in a clinker- built, cutter-rigged vessel known as the Skylark. She spent most of her time hauled up on the beach, but when a loud-voiced, red-faced, perspiring gentleman in gold braid and a had induced or bullied yachting cap " sufficient people to Walk up, walk up, PURELY PERSONAL 17 ladies and gents! Come and 'ave a blow on the briny in the Skylark ! Fine sailin' " breeze ! All round the bay for sixpence ! they launched the noble vessel into her rightful element, erected a precarious gang- plank from her bows to the water's edge, and started to rake in the money as ad- venturous passengers climbed gingerly on board. I, having received a birthday present of five shillings from a kind aunt, was tem- porarily opulent, and even consented to pay tor my elder brother's ticket if he came with me. He, seventeen years old and rather blase, had been out in the Skylark before and saw nothing at all romantic in the enterprise. He was a bit of a sea-dog in his way, and, with him smoking a forbidden cigarette and me feeling like Christopher Columbus setting out to discover the New Continent, we embarked. Presently we were reinforced by a battered, blue-chinned ruffian with a cornet ; a woman with a large string-bag and a small baby ; a seedy-looking man in a bowler hat with three scrubby children two sucking oranges and one a stick of glutinous peppermint in rock ; a merry, middle-aged gentleman a black cutaway coat, white waistcoat, ditto trousers, panama hat, and tennis shoes, and who, from his very nautical language, I imagined at the time to be a retired Admiral ; and an unsuspecting curate and his wife. 18 PURELY PERSONAL The gold braided personage then stepped on us remarked board, eyed contemptuously," to his mate that we looked a lot," " cheap and orders to Let 'er go, gruffly gave " Bill ! 'Oist the fore-s'l 1 The gang-plank was drawn ashore, and amidst the " stirring" blasts of A life on the ocean wave from the cornet, we set forth on our voyage of discovery. But before we had been ten minutes afloat I discovered that a home on the rolling deep., in the good ship Skylark, at any rate, did not suit me. It may have been that I had spent too much of that five shillings on unneces- sary nourishment during the morning. It may have been the heat of the sun or the steady but disconcerting pitching of the Skylark. I don't really know what caused it, but I started yawning, while my face,, so my brother tells me, rapidly assumed a ghastly, greenish tinge, so that presently I leant over the side and offered my first tribute to Father Neptune. The curate and his wife, overcome at the sight, followed suit. So did the nautical gentleman in the white waistcoat, and the woman with the baby and the string-bag. So did the seedy-look- ing man and the three scrubby children. We were all involved in it, and all through me. The skipper glared at us with the deepest disgust, while my unsympathetic brother did his best to pretend that I did not belong PURELY PERSONAL 19 to him. But I was long past caring what he thought about it. I was as limp and as pallid as any pocket-handkerchief. It did not signify to me whether it was Christmas or Easter. I had to be carried ashore with my fellow-sufferers, and thus ended my first real nautical experience which I am never likely to forget. It must have been soon after this dis- tressing episode that my father, through mutual friends, met Captain Charles Play- fair, D.S.O., R.N. I think they played golf together, but I well remember the Captain once coming to lunch with us during my holidays. It occurs to me now, moreover, that my mother was distinctly anxious that I should create a good impression, for she took me up to my room, stood over me while I scrubbed my hands, changed my collar, and brushed my hair, made quite certain that there was no line of demarca- tion round my neck, and told me again that I must be sure not to open my mouth unless I was first spoken to, and that on no account was I to rattle the fork against my teeth during the assimilation of food. To tell the truth, I felt rather awed at all these preparations.