The Audacious War | Page 4

know
anything concerning this boat or her finish.
This word "finish" would be disputed in any newspaper or
well-informed financial office in London where it is daily declared that
although the "Audacious" met with an accident, her guns have been
raised and will go aboard another ship of the same size, purchased, or
just being finished, and named the "Audacious." Indeed, I was
informed on "good authority" that the "Audacious" was afloat, had
been towed into Birkenhead and that the repairs to her bottom were
nearly finished. You can hear similar stories wherever the "accident" is
discussed. I have heard it so many times that I ought to believe it. Yet if
one hundred people separately and individually make assurances
concerning something of which they have no personal knowledge, it
does not go down with a true news man. I was able to run across a man
who saw the affair of the "Audacious." He laughed at the stories of
shallow water and raised guns. His position was such, both then and
thereafter, that I was sure that he knew and told me the truth.
Later I learned that the "Audacious" was too far off the Irish coast to
permit of talk of shallow water, and that neither guns nor 30,000-ton
warships are raised from fifty-fathom depths.
Yet I am willing to narrate what has not been permitted publication in
England, and I think not elsewhere: that the mines about Lough Swilly,
along the Scotch and Irish coasts, and in the Irish Sea, were laid with

the assistance of English fishing-boats flying the English flag. These
boats had been captured by the Germans and impressed into this work.
There are also stories of Irish boats and Norwegian trawlers in this
work, but I secured no confirmation of such reports.
It is still unsettled in British Admiralty circles as to whether the
"Audacious" came in contact with a mine or torpedo from a German
submarine. Two of her crew report that they saw the wake of a torpedo.
Reports that the periscope of a submarine showed above the water I
have reason to reject.
English reports were suppressed--the admiralty claimed this right, since
there was no loss of life--in the belief that if the ship was torpedoed by
a submarine, the Germans would give out the first report, and thereby
be of assistance in determining the cause. But to-day the Germans have
their doubt as to where the "Audacious" is, and as to whether or not she
was ever really sunk.
Expert opinion is divided in authoritative circles in England as to the
cause of the disaster; but more than 400 mines have been swept up
along the Irish and Scotch coasts by the English mine sweepers.
While upon this subject, I ought to narrate that the study of this topic
has convinced me that the Germans have a long task if they hope
within a reasonable number of months to reduce by submarine torpedo
practice the efficiency of the English navy to a basis that will warrant
German warships coming forth to battle.
Every battleship is protected by four destroyers. Submarines, when
detected, are the most easily destroyed craft. They have no protection
against even a well-directed rifle bullet. Their whole protection is that
of invisibility. Their plan of operation is to reach a position during the
night, whence in the early morning they can single out an unprotected
warship or cruiser not in motion, and launch against her side a
well-directed torpedo, before being discovered.
The place for England's battleships is where they are: in the harbors

with their protecting nets down until they are called for in battle. In
motion or action, submarines have little show against them.
The Japanese at Port Arthur found that protecting nets picked up many
torpedoes and submarines. Since that time, torpedoes have been made
with cutting heads to pierce steel nets encircling the warships, but their
effectiveness has not so far been practically demonstrated.
It is Kitchener's idea to keep the enemy guessing. Therefore he was
rather pleased than otherwise when the story of Russians coming
through England from Archangel was told all over the world. The War
Office winked at the story and certainly had no objection to the
Germans getting a good dose of it. I think that story might have been
helpful at the time when the Allies were at their weakest, but they do
not now need Russians, or stories of Russians, from Archangel.
The story must also go by the board that a submarine north of Ireland
meant either a new type of boat that could go so far from Germany, or
an unknown base nearer Scotland.
Submarines as now built could go from Germany around the British
Isles and then across the Atlantic--in fair weather.
The eastern boundary