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Show DRIFTER IS SAVED BY DARING OF FISHERMEN IN HAILOF SHELLS Go Back to Burning Ship After German Raiders Leave; Adventures of Airmen Often Turn to Comedy. "THE FIGHTING FLEETS." By EAIFH D. PAINE. (Copyright, 1018, by Kalph D. Paine.) (Sy rpeclal arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Co.) t INSTALMENT 2S. ) In a Hail of Sheila. THE German craft woro operating In pairs. Ono of tho two would switch on a searchlight for a few seconds necessary to find the range and then the whole flotilla slackened slack-ened speed to carry out tho deliberate destruction de-struction of the drifters. One of the few survivors said of the carnage: "It was awfu' juist a mad slaughter. Girt ole black deevlls they came ravin' amongst us. He shook his grizzled bead and the gold earrings twinkled In his ears. His utterance ut-terance was without heat or reproach. He was a fisherman from the North sea, wont to accept both calamity and good fortune without emotion. The Germans closed to within fifty yards of their victims, which had no chance to fight back small, low steamers with one pop-gran and a dozen men. Pouring Pour-ing salvos of shell into the gutted hulks the Hun passed on and turned again. It was Hko shooting into a pigeon-house with a shotgun pokod through tho door. 7n one instance a destroyer ran so close to a drifter that tho gians could not be depressed to rake her, bo the gunneis fired on the downward roll as the sea lifted the ship and the little Cloverbank was o. wreck In an instant, a horrid shambles sham-bles of escaping steam, showering sparks, men torn to piecys. Only One Man Survives Broadside. Only one man of the crew survived this first salvo. He was a deckhand of the Trawler Naval Reserve. Through the flames and fumes he stagrgered forward to reach the drifter's gun. Point-blank he fired it, blinded, stupefied, single-handed, the only living man fighting with the instinctive in-stinctive courage of a British bulldog. The sea around him was covered with blazing, sinking drifters which were meet ing it every bit as gallantly. The men left alive were launching their splintered boats and paddling clear, taking their wounded with them. The two engineers of the Violet May, finding- all their mates dead or mangled, put the dinghy into the water, lowered into it the mate, who was mortally wounded, and a helpless dock-hand. dock-hand. The others were burled in the burning wreckage. This dinghy drifted about, waited until the enemy had vanished, and then returned re-turned to the shattered Violet May, which still floated. Ammunition was exploding on her decks, she was burning fiercely forward, and steam was pouring from the midship hold. "A doot she's slnkln' !" stoutly exclaimed ex-claimed one of the engineers-Daring engineers-Daring of Scotch Shown by Action. The other said nothing, being sparing of his speech, but ho made the dinghy fast and climbed on board again. Between Be-tween them, this indomitable pair of Scots fought and overcame the fire. The dying mate had been left in the dinghy and he pitoously cried after them : "DInna -leave me In the little boat." "Na, na," was the reply, "we'll no leave ye." And so presently they hoisted their wounded back on board and carried them below. The mate was laid in his own bunk, and one of the engineers rummaged rum-maged in the locker and found some shirts which he tore into bandages. "An' them the mate's best shirts," sorrowfully sor-rowfully murmured the other Scot. "It's nae guid, lads," whispered the mate of the Violet May. "Dlnna fash aboot me. A'll gang nae malr on patrol." Drifter Is Saved and Reaches Port. Thus ho died, but the two engineers saved their little drifter which was towed to a haven at the base port, where she Jay a mass of charred wood and twisted metal to show what fishermen could do in war. Sixty good men and true in this I " ' " shattered fleet had given up their lives In order that the strait might be kept clear. The destroyers have never lacked a variety of interests Between these neighboring neigh-boring shores, and boredom is infrequent. A transport laden with 2000 tonp of trenching material lost her course arfd ran ashore on the Belgian coast between Nleirport and La Pan, so close to the battlellnes that she was under guns of the German heavy batteries, which opened fire as soon as daylight disclosed the ship's position. Now this cargo was needed by the army In Flanders, but the officers and crew took to the boats and sought safety In the open sea. The British Brit-ish commodore at Dunkirk promptly steamed out, taking two tugs with him and a destroyer to annoy the enemy. The enemy was more than annoying. Besides the shells which menaced the stranded transport, the German seaplanes flew out and showered bombs from the air. "By Jove! they bombed us all over the place," said the commander of the destroyer, de-stroyer, with an injured air. "The master of the larger tug of the two got cold feet and dodged around a mile away where his boat was perfectly useless. The little tug was much more sporting, but It hadn't the power to do much at the end of a hawser. The commodore was losing his temper, and he was a most sweet-natured sweet-natured man as a rule. Finally I poked alongside with my destroyer and we lashed the three vessels together, my boat, the transport and the sporty tug. Somebody counted bombs while we were at this stunt and twenty-four of 'em spilled all about use "We all pulled and thrashed about like billy-be-damned, and the good ship slid off the sand, and away we went for Dunkirk, Dun-kirk, proud as peacocks. The big tug followed, fol-lowed, sulky and furious, and what do you think her skipper did? The cheeky beggar put in a claim for salvage. The commodore enlightened him, most emphatically." em-phatically." Blimvs Take Hand aptly sums up -the naval strategy of England En-gland in this war. When asked whether lie expects the German fleet to attempt another sortie, he will probably reply, with a smile: "We're here what, what?" (To be continued.) in Driving Huns. TWo can play at the bombing1 game, and in the Dover strait the English "blimps" take a hand at it, those small dirigibles which gleam high overhead like silvered sausages. They are useful on the submarine sub-marine patrol when the weather is fair and clear, and during the long- summer days they cruise for a dozen hours at a stretch, drifting above the shipping lanes. Their mishaps are often entertaining, with a spice of humor, for their crews do not take the "blimps" too seriously. It was Jn one of the lofty sheds which shelter shel-ter them from the channel gales that a boyish pilot with a twinkling eye was moved to yarn to me as follows: "Don't rag him about it at dinner, please, for he's a sensitive creature and blushes quite easily. His blimp made a bad landing, do you see, and he popped down right on top of a farmer's cottage. The envelope busted and spread out and this blinking balloon draped itself over the roof and hung- down In front of the upper windows. The cottage was properly prop-erly covered up. Crawls in Window; Starts Adventure. "This poor shrimp of a pilot crawls out of his car and digs his toes into the roof, and manages to poke his head out from under the billowing folds of the envelope. For lack of a ladder he ties an end of his anchor rope around the chimney and slides over the edge of the roof until he bumps a window ledge. Then he crawls Into tho window, of course. "The farmer's buxom daughter had been dressing and these strange sounds on the roof rather interfered well er her toilet was unfinished. She ran to the window just as this castaway from tho busted bJimp was inserting himself into the bedroom window. Tableau! "The buxom lass screamed and fled for the stairs. The horrid intruder bolted after, not with wicked intent, but merely to find an exit. Out into the garden she flew, still hotly pursued by the villain from the skies. He was about to double for the highway when the farmer and one of his laborers rushed to the rescue of imperiled Innocence. They brandished pitchforks or mattocks or something and were Infernally fast on their feet, to hear our young friend tell it. At any rate, ho ran some two miles with his throttle wide open before he began to draw away and could reasonably hope to live. Italian Airman Has Difficulties. "It was a shocking scandal, to besmirch be-smirch our pure young blimp station in this manner, wasn't it? This 'pilot had been a decent sort until then, but climbing climb-ing into young women's' bedrooms and all that he knows what we think of him! "Oh, that reminds me this was really amusing. A dashing Italian officer came to visit us, an aviator of sorts, but he had never been up in an airship. He omitted to mention this fact when he made his first flight in one of our blimps. The game is different from aeroplanes as he discovered. He went up aH right, but came down too hard. The bump spilled the rest of the crew out, and the blimp bounced him four thousand feet up in the air, with all this weight out of the car. "The engine had stopped when the bold Italian hit the earth. He knew enough to valve tho gas, but he couldn't let out enough to bring her down, and at four thousand feet she was still soaring nearer heaven. He had pluck and It made you dizzy to watch the performance. Climbing Climb-ing out of the car, he made his way among the stays and wires and hung on by his toes while he cranked the propeller. pro-peller. The engine refused to start. Then he had to scramble back and valve more gas. Had Plenty to Say When He Landed. "He kept It up for half an hour, I give you my word, dancing OB nothing, whirling whirl-ing the propeller and popping back Into the car. Then the engim: got going and he steered for the good old earth. What he , said about blimps when we towed hi m into the shed was In Italian, very choice and Inflammable. We were afraid a spark from it might fire the gas, so wo steered him Into the messroom and quenched him with whiskies -and -sodas." To this same messroom for dinner came two flying men of the Royal Naval Air servlco who belonged to fight ing squadrons of aeroplanes which attacked the Huns over their own lines on tho Belgian Bel-gian coast. They affected a scorn for blimps and talked a strange Jargon which defied translation. Snatched of their professional dialogue Bounded something some-thing like this: "I'm Htill on tho Same game, old thing sops, two-st'ji tors, and camels. We've got an old tluside, too, for joyriding; but tt'fc a washout." "Have you butted up against Jonos-Needham?" Jonos-Needham?" "Yp.h, hu crashed a few days ngo on hlB first solo flip taking1 off tried to zoom, engine konked side-slip nosedive. nose-dive. Not hurt, though. I Where's Seymour?" Sey-mour?" "Oh, he tried spads, but got his wind up. What about your new machine?" "It's a dud bus. Too much stagger and prop stops on a spin. See you tomorrow. tomor-row. I'm flopping at dawn." ' In April it ceased to be a secret, carefully care-fully guarded among naval men and journalists jour-nalists who knew, that battleships from the American fleet were operating in Biitinsh waters under the direction of Admiral Sir David Beatty, commander-in-chief. Just what ships these were and to what duties they had been assigned was Information which "the enemy was not presumed to know with certainty. At any rate, it was better to put the inquisitive in-quisitive German to the trouble of finding find-ing it out for himself. British naval officers of-ficers were impatiently hoping for permission per-mission to make the news public. It was a gloomy winter in London; not so much discouragement as the realization that the collapse of the Russian military power had made a finish of the war seem far remote. re-mote. France and England would hold fast until the last regiments died in their tracks, but they gazed across tho sea and waited fpr America to puts its back Into the conflict. Ever on Watch for Hun Battleship. "It would thrill England," said one of her admirals, "to know that your big ships are in the war zone. That Is the sort of thing that appeals to the popular Imagination. You have no Idea how it would buck them up. Why, when I first heard It, I rushed around among my friends in the service and passed them the word. Not but what the grand fleet can trounce the German navy without any help, but it's the idea of the thing. Splendid! It's all hands together, destroyers, de-stroyers, battleships and the rest of the show." When I was living aboard one of theso big fighting ships of the United States navy, as the guest of Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, they were held ready to go to sea at the briefest possible steaming notice, no-tice, and they frequently went. Like the powerful divisions of the British grand fleet, their one purpose was to engage the enemy, and nothing was more amusing to the officers and men than that battleships battle-ships were afraid to move out and risk submarine attack. Thoy were boldly cruising cruis-ing at sea and far from their base when-over when-over there was the slenderest hope that the German heavy ships might have moved out from behind the shelter of mine fields and coast defenses. Watchful Waiting Policy of Fleets. There is a notion, rn ther Widespread, that the grand fleet hi s merely watched and waited Inactive ever since the battle of Jutland, contenting itself with a checkmate, check-mate, its duty done so long as the imperial im-perial Germa n navy is blocked from the high seas. Tills is not tho temper of the man who rules this mighty assemblage of naval force from the deck of his flagship. flag-ship. It is quite out ol character to imagine Admiral Beatty as sitting Idly and twiddling his thumbs while he waits for something to happen. When tho great opportunity offered itself, ho held the German fleet with hla battle cruisers until tho English battle divisions could come up and pound tho foe to nieces. Darkness prevented, or Admiral Jeillcoe was a shade too caullous, whichever side of tho argument you prefer, and the great on I soa fight ever fought was Inconclusive. Incon-clusive. Given another opportunity and Bea 1 1 v is likely to hammer out a decision without with-out counting the coat. Ho never has counted it, and this quality, rather dashing dash-ing than reckless, stands out in one's first impression of hi in. Jaunty, Intrepid, In-trepid, lite brass-hound rap aljLays lightly light-ly over one oyo, he has a phfuso which |
