Many years later, about 1955, I happened to see a recently published book entitled A Sailor Remembers, by none other than Rear-Admiral Dagobert St Jurienne, Chevalier Greoux-Chasseloup d’Issigny, French Navy (Rtd). Written in a most entertainingly florid style, it told of his adventures from the time when he had chosen the seafaring life up to his retirement in 1953. I must say however that I found it to be more interesting for what a sailor had managed to forget than for what he had remembered, particularly as regards his own murky activities during the Second World War when he had served as Deputy Minister of the Marine in the Vichy government, then attached himself to Admiral Darlan in North Africa, then deftly changed sides in 1943 and emerged among the ranks of the victors. My main interest though was in finding out what (if anything) he had to say about certain events one day in December 1916. I was not to be disappointed: After a ferocious battle lasting over an hour with the many Austrian aeroplanes, the immortal submarine Laplace slid at last beneath the waters of the Adriatic, overwhelmed by the superior might of the enemy. As the waves closed over them our brave matelots raised three cheers of “Vive la France!” and sang the “Marseillaise” while the perfidious enemies circled above them like odious vultures.
Yet even in the darkest moments of war some sparks of humanity may be found in the adversary, and as we swam among the wreckage an Austro-Hungarian hydroplane alighted on the waves beside us and supported me and my brave fellows in the water until succour arrived. These very chivalrous and gentle Austrians, by name the Chevalier von Parchatzky and the Vicomte de Nec-Ledil, would have supported us longer even at the cost of themselves becoming prisoners, but I bade them leave with a cry of “Save yourselves while there is still time, my braves!” So they started their motor and climbed into the air, waving to us as they did so in farewell. Alas, we later heard that these noble fellows were both lost soon afterwards, and that the sea had swallowed them up forever.
I was unable to resist sending a postcard to the Admiral’s publisher saying that while sadly the Vicomte de Nec-Ledil was no more, the noble Austrian Chevalier von Parchatzky was very much alive and would in fact be glad to meet him if he were ever in London. I read a few weeks later in The Times that he had died suddenly of a stroke. I hope that there was no connection.
For the time being though, Lieutenant d’Issigny’s surmise about our being engloutis par la mer came uncomfortably close to being fulfilled. A north-west wind got up during the night and soon raised a sea that would have been uncomfortable in any small boat, let alone one like ours with a great venetian-blind structure of wings and tailplane on top of it. By dawn we were wet through, frozen and exhausted by lack of sleep and continuous bailing. Nor had we the slightest idea where we were. The hazy sun came up to reveal a heaving grey disc of water with our flying-boat tossing and lurching in the middle of it as its flat bottom slithered down into each wave-trough. We were being drifted along at about six or seven knots by the wind, I thought. But at least drifting was better than staying still. In an almost land-locked sea like the Adriatic drifting with the wind would bring us eventually to one shore or another. I decided to aid this process. I took out my clasp-knife and clambered out on to the lower wings. I slit open the fabric on the under-surface of the wings above and pulled this down in flaps, which I fastened to the lower wings to make crude sails.
Steering with our paddles and the rudder, this would help us to make better speed before the wind and might get us to land before we were dead from exposure and fatigue.
Even so it was a miserable business to huddle there in the cockpit, soaked through with spray, each trying to snatch a half-hour’s sleep as the other bailed. Yet despite the chill and wet, we were soon tormented by thirst as the salt spray caked on our lips. We had no water apart from a couple of litres milked from the engine radiator, barely drinkable from rust and engine oil. As for food, there was none apart from a packet of ship’s biscuits which we had been too ashamed to offer to the survivors from the Laplace. Crunching these and trying to swallow them with our parched throats was like trying to masticate broken bottles. About midday I decided to try and get the wireless working, charging the battery by attaching a makeshift crank to the wind-driven dynamo. It was a bitter disappointment: an hour or more of strenuous cranking produced barely enough current for four repetitions of the message “L149—SOS.”
This purgatory lasted until early afternoon, when the breeze dropped and the sea lessened to leave us drifting aimlessly once more. Then we both saw it together: the smoke on the horizon to northward. I fired three flares as the upperworks came into sight. Through my binoculars it looked like an Austrian Tb/-class torpedo-boat, in fact a small two-funnelled coastal destroyer. But had they seen us? They seemed to be steaming at about seven knots and were within three thousand metres of us. A drifting flying-boat is hardly something that a look-out can miss, but still they steamed on past us and disappeared in a bank of haze, ignoring us as I desperately fired our last flares.
“Nechledil,” I said through cracked lips, “how could they have missed us? Surely they must have seen us at this range.” Nechledil said nothing, merely sat staring glumly as the vessel faded into the murk. I could see that the apathy of exhaustion was already creeping over him. I too gazed at the spot where the torpedo-boat had vanished, lost for words. So imagine my surprise about five minutes later when the boat reappeared, heading in the opposite direction and turning towards us. I waved and shouted as if they would hear us at that range. Why had they ignored us the first time? They were coming to pick us up, no question of that.
The dinghy bumped alongside us a few minutes later. To my surprise the two ratings in it refused to answer us when we spoke, only told us curtly to sit down and shut up. I was even more surprised when one of them proceeded to take a crowbar and smash holes in the floor and sides of the flying-boat—and told me to be quiet when I asked him what he thought he was doing. My suspicion that something was badly amiss was confirmed shortly afterwards as we came alongside the torpedo-boat Tb14. We were greeted by two ratings with levelled rifles and a petty officer with a pistol. I asked what the devil was going on—and was told to come aboard with my hands up. As I was bundled across the rail the incredible truth finally dawned upon me. The vessel was in the hands of mutineers.
17 FIAT JUSTITIA
As Nechledil and I were being searched before being hustled below decks I overheard an argument going on between the petty officer who had greeted us at the gangway and a senior rating. Both were Czechs, and the rating was plainly not all pleased with the Petty Officer.
“For God Almighty’s sake why did we have to pick them up? I told the helmsman to keep his course when I saw them. They’ll be out after us by now and we’ve still got three hours left until it gets dark.”
“Shut up Eichler. Who’s giving the orders here, me or you?”
“I thought there weren’t going to be any orders any more. You and your finer feelings, Vackar. We ought to have left the bastards to drown. They’re only officers.”
“They’re human and we’re socialists. They were men like us once: only Austria turned them into officers.”
“Oh be quiet and get them below with the others then. I’ve got a ship to run.” He turned to us. “What’s your names?”
“No business of yours, sailor,” I answered. “And stand to attention when you speak to an officer. Who’s in charge here?”
He laughed. “Don’t come that tone of voice here Herr Leutnant or you’ll both end up back in the sea. We’re all in charge here.” A sailor stuck a pistol into my stomach as he reached down the neck of my flying tunic to pull out my identity tag. He collected Nechledil’s by the same means and handed them to Eichler, who examined the names stamped on the back. “I don’t believe it—both Czechs as well. And one of them the celebrated Ritter von Prohaska of the U-Boat Service. Well meine Herren, remember any of our Czech do we? Or did they wash that out of you at cadet school as well? Filth—you’d forget your own names if the Austrians told you to do it. Your sort make me sick.”