The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-24
The Ella Had Hot Time in
the DardaneIleS.
Surrounded by Enemies Daring
Submarine Did Her Duty.
UNLIKE GERMAN PLUNGERS
British ''Subs'' Can Be Thor
Ough and Human, Too.
Under-Sea Etiquette Prescribes
Few Formalities.
BY RUDYARD KIPLING.
Copyright

London, June 24.-This war is like
an iceberg. We. the public, only see
an eighth of it above water; the rest
is out of sight and, as with the berg,
one guesses at it's extent by the great
blocks that break off and shoot up
to the surface from some underlying
outrunning spur a quarter of a mile
away.
So. with this war, sudden tales come
to light which reveal unsupported ac-
tivities in unexpected quarters. One
takes it for granted that such things
are always going on somewhere, but
the actual emergencies of the record
is always astonishing.
Once upon a time there was a GER
tain E-type of boats that worked in
the Sea of Marmora with thorough
ness and humanity, for the two, in
English hands, are compatible. The
road to their hunting grounds was
strewn with peril. the waters they in
habited were full of eyes that gave
them no rest and what they lost or
expended in the wear and tear of the
chase could not be made good till they
had run the gauntlet to their base
again. The full take of their impro-
ViStationS and maka-doeS will prob
ably never come to light, though frag-
ments can be picked up at intervals
in the proper places as the men con-
cerned come and go.
Bones of Story.
The admiralty gives only the bones
but those are not SO dry-of the
| boats official story.
When the Ella, Commander E.
Courtney Boyle, went to her work in
the Sea of Marmora, she, like her
sister, proceeded on gas engine up
the aDrdanelles. And a gas engine
by night between steep cliffs has been
described by the lower deck as "a
full brass band in a railway cutting"
So a fort picked her up with a search
lightb ut missed her with its artil-
lery. She dived under a mine field
that guarded the straits and when
| she rose at dawn ir The narrowest
part of the channel which is about
one mile and a half across, all the
forts fired at her.
The water, too, was thick with
steamboat patrols, out of which the
Ella selected a Turkish gunboat and
gave her a torpedo. She had just time
to see a great column of water shoot
as high as the gunboat's mast when
she had to dip again as 'the men in
a small steamboat were leaning over
trying to catch hold of the top of my
periscope." This sentence, which
might have come out of a French ex-
ercise book, is all Lieutenant Com
mander Courtney Boyle sees fit to tell
and the officer will never understand
why one taxpayer at least demands his
arrest after the war till he shall have
given the full tale.
How Was IT,
Did he sight the shadow UNDER
line of a small steamboat showing
green through his headlight or did
she suddenly swim into vision from
behind and obscure, without warming
his periscope with a single brown
clutching hand? Was she alone or one
OF mob OF splashing shouting small
craft? He may well have ben too busy
to noteg 70 there were patrols all
around his, a mine field of curious de.
sign and underlined area somewhere in
front and steam TRAVERSE vigorously
sweeping for him astern and ahead
| and when the Ella burrowed anc
: bumped and scraped through 81,
hours of blind death she found the See
: of Marmora crawling with craft anc
e was kept down almost continuousl,
t and grew hot and stuffy as a conse
2 quence. Nor could she charge hel
batteries in peace, so at the end of an
= other hectic-which is bad for tn,
j temper-she decided to quit these in
tested waters near the coast ant
charge them somewhere off the traf
Z fic routes.
: This accomplished after a long no
= ! good
n she went back to her beat, where sh
picked up three deStroyerS convoyin,
. a couple of troop ships, but it wa
{ CLASSY calm and the destroyers cam
for me- She got off a long ram
q range torpedo at a transport an
! ducked before she could Judge the re
] suits. She apologies for this, on tn
grounds that one of her periscope
was damaged.-not, as one would ex
l. pect, by gentlemen leaning out of lit
boats.
shot-the caliber is not specified-o
the day before and so,'' says the Ell
" Il could not risk my remaining on
i being bent
IL Heard a Thud
l. However, she heard a thud and he
&c depth guages, those great clock hand
II on white face circles, "f1icked," whic
n is another sign of dreadful certaint
down under.
h When she rose again she saw de
m stroyer conveying one burning trans
Y port to the nearest beach. That aft
l. ernoon she met a sister boat; no
gone to Valhalla, who told her that st
n was almost out of torpedces and the
it arranged a rendezvous for the ne1
it day, but before we could commun
er cate further we had to dive anc 1 di
= not see her again
y in the trade under all skies, boat ri:
ing by boat at a p-,znt agreed upo
for the interchange of news, mater
ais and talk shouted aloud, with tt
l. speakers eyes always on the horizo
lg and all hands standing by to dive
re the middle of a sentence.
= The Ella kept to her job on IL
m edge of the procession of traffic. tt
IN patrol boats annoyed her to such g
er extent that was / had not seen al
er transports lately: 1 decided to sink
at patrol ship. as they are always firir
Z | on me- So she torpedOed anythir