An Awfully Big Adventure BY "BARTIMEUS" CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne First published 1919 To A. R. S. NOTE _The sketch entitled "Unto the Hills" appeared originally in_ Blackwood's Magazine, _and is included in this book with the Editor's kind permission._ PREFACE It was my original intention to gather this miscellaneous assortment of war sketches and stories together under the heading of "A Scran Bag." The aptness of this title will be apparent when it is explained that odds and ends of personal possessions left lying about the mess decks of a man-of-war are impounded by the Ship's Police and kept for safe custody in a sack. This receptacle of random gleanings is called the Scran Bag. My publishers agreed that the title was admirable--to the initiated. They opined, however, that the bulk of the public would be left, so to speak, cold. They reminded me that it was no use explaining it in a Preface, since no one reads Prefaces. They intimated that life was a sordid business, and we all have to make our livings--in short, no book with such a title would sell. I therefore turned to the classics, and in "Peter Pan" found a title which, I think, is comprehensive of any record, however fragmentary and incomplete, whether bald fact or fact sugared with fiction, of the Navy's share in this War. "To die," said Peter Pan, "would be an awfully big adventure." It may be so; but, unhappily, the lips of the adventurer are sealed, and we are left theorising, none the wiser. To wake up in the morning is a better thing than dying, for all the poets may say; and if the day holds, as this book does, somewhat of love, war in a righteous cause, and victory at its close, may not it, too, be called An Awfully Big Adventure? CONTENTS I An Awfully Big Adventure. 1. THE WOOING OF MOULDY JAKES 2. THE NARRATIVE OF COMMANDER WILLIAM DALRYMPLE HORNBY, ROYAL NAVY II Behind the Veil: The Story of the Q Boats. (1918) 1. FIRST BLOOD 2. ORDEAL BY FIRE 3. WON BY WAITING 4. THE SPLENDID FAILURE III "Not in the Presence of the Enemy." (1918) 1. THE GLEANER 2. THE MILLIONTH CHANCE 3. CHINKS 4. A FORTY-FOOT SETTING IV The Action between H.M.S. _Prize_ and German Submarine U93 V The Forfeit (1916) VI Supper Beer (1914) VII The Way They Have (1915) VIII The Epitaph IX The English Way (1917) X The Parting of the Ways (1919) XI Unto the Hills (1913) AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE PART ONE THE WOOING OF MOULDY JAKES 1 The late afternoon sunlight was slanting across the heather when the "Mantis" came puffing round a bend of the river. Contrary to the established custom and traditions of British men-of-war, her crew maintained a breathless and high-spirited dialogue with the Captain, who seasoned it with shrill invective directed at a routed enemy, invisible and presumed to be in full flight amid the bracken.