Rounding up the Raider: A Naval Story of the Great War

The Captured Liner

"Fifteen days more and then Old England once again!" exclaimed Frank Denbigh.

"And bonnie Scotland for me!" added Charlie Stirling.

"You'll not be forgettin' 'tis Ould Oireland I'm bound for," remonstrated Pat O'Hara, purposely dropping into the brogue.

The three chums had just been reading the "miles made good" announcement that, printed in English and Japanese, was daily exhibited in various parts of S.S. Nichi Maru.

"Hostile submarines permitting," remarked Denbigh with a laugh, after he had taken good care that no lady passengers were within earshot.

"Rot!" ejaculated Stirling. "We've cleared them out of the Channel pretty well. It's part of the work of the British Navy under--"

"Stop it!" interrupted O'Hara good-humouredly. "I know what you were going to say: that old tag from the Articles of War. I propose that every time the word submarine is mentioned by anyone of us while on board this vessel the delinquent shall be suitably punished as soon as the sun's over the fore-yard."

"Hear, hear! I second that," agreed Stirling. "No more 'shop'. We'll get plenty of that in a few weeks' time. I fancy My Lords won't let us kick our heels in idleness for long, and honestly, the sooner we settle down to business the better."

The three chums were Sub-lieutenants, homeward bound from a portion of a certain group of islands off the coast of New Guinea, having till recently the high-sounding title of the Bismarck Archipelago. The youthful but none the less glorious Australian Navy had quickly changed the colour of that portion of the map, but the climate was a more formidable foe than the former German garrison. Thus the three young officers, who had been "lent" to the recently-formed navy, had the misfortune to be stricken with fever.

After a long convalescence, which by a pure coincidence lasted almost exactly the same time in each of the three cases, Denbigh, Stirling, and O'Hara were ordered to return to England and to resume their duties with the navy of the Motherland.

They had travelled by an intermediate boat to Singapore, whence, in order to save delay, they had proceeded by a Japanese liner, the Nichi Maru, bound from Nagasaki to London. It was a case of misdirected zeal, for, owing to the torpedoing of a large Japanese liner in the Mediterranean, the Nichi Maru had been ordered to take the longer passage round the Cape instead of the usual route via the Suez Canal.

"Hulloa! What's the excitement?" enquired Denbigh, pointing in the direction of the bridge. The chums had gained the promenade deck, whence most of the navigating bridge of the liner could be seen. There was evidently something to warrant his exclamation, for the dapper little Japanese officer of the watch was steadily keeping his binoculars upon some distant object.

"There's a smudge of smoke away to the nor'east'ard," announced Stirling. "The mild excitement of sighting a vessel will help to push the hands of the clock. Now if someone will kindly suggest a sweepstake on the nationality of yonder craft--"

The door of the wireless room opened. The sharp peculiar cackle of the instruments announced that an exchange of messages was in progress. A messenger made his way to the bridge. Almost immediately after, the captain hurried from his cabin. Evidently "something was in the wind", for the appearance of the imperturbable commander of the Nichi Maru at this time of day was rather unusual.

"We're altering helm," declared O'Hara after a brief interval. "Since we can speak with that vessel without the necessity of having to close, it points to something of the nature of a serious mishap."

The rest of the passengers were now making their way on deck. By an inexplicable intuition the presence of the still invisible vessel had made itself felt. None of the officers had communicated the news that the Nichi Maru was in touch with another craft, yet in five minutes the decks were crowded with a medley of Europeans and Asiatics.

"Do you know what is wrong, sir?" asked Denbigh, addressing one of the Japanese officers who happened to be making his way aft.

The Jap shook his head. Like most of the Nichi Maru's officers he spoke English. The question was plain to him, but with Oriental reticence he politely evaded it.

"I'll get my glasses," announced O'Hara.

"And mine, while you are about it," said Denbigh.

"And mine, too," added the Scot.

O'Hara quickly returned with the desired articles. Bringing their binoculars to bear upon the smudge on the horizon the three Subs made the discovery that there was a two-masted, three-funnelled vessel lying apparently hove-to. Smoke was issuing from her after-funnel in dense clouds, that rose slowly in the still sultry air.

"She's flying an ensign," remarked the Irishman.

"Yes, straight up and down like a wet dishclout," added Stirling. "For all the good it's doing it needn't be there."

"Perhaps her propeller shaft is broken," suggested one of the passengers, an English merchant who had given up a good position in Tokio to return home in order to "do his bit".

"Hardly," replied Denbigh. "She's bound to be a twin screw, and it isn't likely that both engines would break down."

"I don't know so much about that," said O'Hara, pointing aft, where a crowd of Japanese seamen were engaged in preparing a large flexible steel hawser. "It looks as if we were going to take her in tow. And it's a long, long way to Las Palmas, worse luck."

"She's a Dutchman," declared Stirling. "I can make out the red, white, and blue ensign. I wouldn't mind betting she's one of the Rotterdam and Batavia liners."

The three British officers relapsed into silence, devoting their whole attention upon the disabled liner which was now momentarily looming larger and larger as the Nichi Maru hastened to her aid.

Presently the engine-room telegraph bell clanged and the Japanese vessel's engines began to slow down. Two of the boats were swung out ready to be lowered, while the four ship's surgeons stood by, ready to be taken to the helpless Dutchman.

"Bad boiler-room accident," exclaimed one of the European passengers, who had learnt the news from a Japanese petty-officer.

"Boiler accident be hanged!" ejaculated Denbigh, excitedly. "We're done in, you fellows. That vessel's no Dutchman."

As if in confirmation of the Sub's announcement the tricolour of Holland was smartly lowered, its place being taken by that shame-faced and palpable imitation of the good old British White Ensign-the Black Cross of Germany. Simultaneously portions of the vessel's plating swung outboard, revealing a battery of six fifteen-centimetre Krupp guns.

"Nichi Maru, ahoy!" shouted a guttural voice in English, for the two vessels were now within megaphone-hailing distance. "Surrender instantly, or we send you to the bottom."

There was a pause, while the officer who had shouted the message was being prompted.

"Make no attempt to use your wireless," he continued. "That will not save you. It will make things very bad for you. Stand by to receive a prize crew."

Although completely surprised by the dramatic turn of events, both the crew and passengers of the Nichi Maru remained perfectly calm. The captain, a descendant of the knightly Samurai of Old Japan, was on the point of ordering full speed ahead, with the object of ramming the perfidious vessel and sending both ships to a common destruction; but the knowledge that the safety of nearly a thousand non-combatants, many of them women and children, would be in dire peril through such an act compelled him to submit to the inevitable.

Humanity, not fear, had conquered the courteous and lion-hearted yellow skipper.

Boats were lowered from the German auxiliary cruiser-for such she undoubtedly was. Into them clambered a number of motley-garbed men armed with rifles and automatic pistols. But for their modern weapons the boat's crew might have come from the deck of an Eighteenth-Century buccaneering craft.

"I say, you fellows," said O'Hara, "I'm off below."

"What for?" asked his companions in surprise. Not for one moment did they imagine that the Irishman was showing the white feather, but at the same time they were mystified by his announcement.

"To get into uniform," he replied. "Those skunks won't find me in mufti."

"Right oh!" declared Denbigh. "We'll slip into ours, too."

In a few minutes the chums had changed into their naval uniforms. By the time they regained the promenade deck the Germans were in possession of the ship.

A fat ober-leutnant, backed up by half a dozen armed seamen, held the bridge, the Japanese captain and deck officers being compelled to retire to the chart-room. A couple of arrogant unter-leutnants with much sabre-rattling, were herding the European male passengers on the port side of the promenade deck. The Japanese passengers they drove forward with every insulting expression they could make use of. It was the German officers' idea of revenge, for the fall of Kiau Chau, where the boasted Teutonic fortress had succumbed to Oriental valour, rankled in the breasts of the subjects of the All-Highest War Lord.

Two German officers, apparently of the Accountant branch, had possessed themselves of the passenger list of the captured vessel, and were proceeding to call the names it contained. Each person on hearing his name had to step forward. "Denbigh, Frank," exclaimed one of the officers. Denbigh, standing erect, faced his captors. "Ah! Englander officer, hein?" queried the Teuton insolently. "Goot! More to say soon. Step there over, quick."

The Sub obeyed. He realized that at times even passive resistance was indiscreet.

"Stirling, Charles," continued the German. "Ach, yet anoder Englander. Unter-leutnant? Goot, a goot capture of Englanders we haf."

"I'm a Scot-not an Englishman," protested Stirling.

"No matter. The one is as bad as odder, if nod worse. Over dere," and he pointed to the place where Denbigh was standing.

"We're marked down for something, old man," whispered Denbigh.

"Yes, but listen. They're tackling O'Hara now."

Sub-lieutenant O'Hara faced his inquisitor with a broad smile on his face. The Germans could not understand why a man should look pleasant in time of adversity.

"Irish? Ach, goot!" declared the Teuton. "Der Irish not like Englischmans. When we Germans take London, Ireland free country will be."

"You haven't got to London yet," remarked O'Hara with the perplexing smile still on his lips.

"Already our Zeppelins hab there been. It is matter of time. Ach? Brussels, Warsaw, Bukharest, Cettigne-five capitals-all conquered."

"How about Paris?" enquired O'Hara. "To say nothing of Calais. And who commands the sea? You Germans haven't a vessel afloat outside your own territorial waters."

"Vot is dis?" asked the Teuton, pointing to the armed liner. His voice rose to a crescendo of triumph.

O'Hara was temporarily non-plussed. Evidently something was at fault somewhere. How could a large vessel like that evade the strong cordon of British warships?

"You're at the end of your tether, old sport," he said after a brief hesitation. "That ship will be at the bottom before another twenty-four hours."

"You tink so?" almost howled the exasperated German. "You vill see. If she sink, den you sink mit her. Over dere."

O'Hara rejoined his chums. A couple of armed seamen mounted guard over them while the work of investigation and pillage continued.

"We're marked down as hostages," began the Irishman; but one of the seamen, bringing the butt end of his rifle down on the deck within a couple of inches of O'Hara's toes, rendered unnecessary the guttural "Verboten" that accompanied the action.

In silence the three Subs watched the proceedings. Under the orders of their captors the Japanese seamen were compelled to transfer bullion stores from the Nichi Maru into the boats. German seamen brought charges of explosives and placed them below. It was apparent that the destruction of the captured vessel was already decided.

At length all preparations were completed. One of the Nichi Maru's officers, acting under the authority of the ober-leutnant gave the order-first in Japanese and then in English-to abandon the ship.

"Fifteen minutes only are allowed. Boats to be provisioned and manned. No personal property is to be taken. Women and children first."

The Japanese captain was expostulating, firmly and in a dignified manner. He pointed out the inhumanity of sending women and children adrift in mid-Atlantic and under a tropical sun. His protests were in vain.

"We will send a small vessel to pick up the boats," retorted the German lieutenant. "We will not sink a small one purposely. A little discomfort will do these English good. You yellow apes are used to it."

The Japanese accepted the direct insult without signs of emotion. The disguise of his feelings was a national trait, but it would have gone hard with the arrogant Prussian had the captain of the Nichi Maru not been hampered with a crowd of non-combatants.

"Now, Englishmen," exclaimed the German. "Into that boat. Any trouble make and you dead men. Ach! You smile now: your trouble it only has just commenced."