To Kiel in the 'Hercules'

pushed all along the German North Sea coast) were to have rendezvoused at Brunsbüttel by dark of the 10th, in order to be ready to start through the Kiel Canal at daybreak the foll

the fog, and the Verdun, coming on from her visit to Borkum and Heligoland, had been delayed from a similar cause. The Vidette and Venetia, which were helping the "shipping" and

commodations in the "V's" appear to be as elastic as the good nature of their officers is boundless), to spend the night aboard, and the impossibility of rejoining our own ships in the

er there are two locks-lying side by side-for both "outgoing" and "incoming" ships. The right-side one of the "incoming" pair was reserved for the Hercules, while the other was kept clear for the Regensburg-flying Admiral Goette's flag-

ning to show her great bulk above the side as she lifted with the in-pouring water. The attention of the score or so of Germans standing on the wall between the locks was centred, not o

ENTERING KIEL CANAL

e loafers-scenting a smash-grinned broadly in anticipation of the humiliation of the Englanders. Straight at the loftily looming lock gate she drove, and I remember distinctly seeing men who were crossing the canal on the bridge made by the folded flaps break into a run to avoid the imminent crash. And she never did slow down; she stopped. While there was still a score of yards to go the captain threw the engine-room telegraph over to "Stop!" and "Half-Speed Astern!" and, straining like a dog in leash as the reversed propellers killed her headway, stop she did. The superla

captain as he rang down, "Finished with the Engines," and turne

ut I didn't dare to take any chances of coming a cropper in strange waters. Now, if it had been the 'Pe

e Viceroy, astonishing as that performance had been, still had something up her sleeve. A week later, in the fog-shrouded entrance to

cules arrived in German waters. And now the sharp stem was bent several feet to port, while all back along her "flare" the buckled plating heaved in undulant corrugations like the hide on the neck of an old bull rhino. As it was the kind of repair that would take a month or more in dock to effect, there was nothing for the Germans to do but go on using her as she was. Luckily, she did not appear to be making much water. She followed us through the canal without difficulty, and-as the days when she would be called

or their rapid operation under pressure, as when the High Sea Fleet was being rushed through from the Baltic to the North Sea. Having been enlarged primarily to "double the strength of the German Fleet," expense had not mattered in the way it would have ha

vantage. The locks were only the front window display, however, for the badly eroded banks of the canal itself testified to the same lack of maintenance as the railways were suffering from. As our pilot reported that the revolutionist

f the largest of the German capital ships, she was of greater draught than any of these, and even the burning of several hundred tons of coal in the voyage from Rosyth still left her drawing slightly more than the thirty odd feet that the German naval command ha

t most of the passage. The Verdun kept about a quarter of a mile astern of the Viceroy, with the Regensburg-but so far back as to be out of sight-bringing up the rear

unequal to carrying off the overflow in the inundations following the winter rains. Cultivation was at a standstill here, probably until the water-logged soil dried out in the spring. Like the East Frisian peninsula, the region was essentially a grazing rather than an agricultural one, and the farmers were paying

N ON KIEL CANAL,

ople, many of whom were working, seemed less "bogged down"-mentally and physically-than their countrymen in the water-logged areas near the sea. Most of them were capable of recognizing us as Allied warships (something which few of the others appeared to have done), and when this had sunk home they usually hurried down to the bank of the canal for a closer view. Most o

sight as the Hercules came abreast of them, only to hurry back and resume their grisly work when she had disappeared around a bend just ahead. When they again took to their heels on sighting the Viceroy, I asked the pilot what they were afraid of. The law required, he replied, that the authorities should be notified of the death of an

on that huge, juicy "beefsteak" I had devoured with such gusto when it was the pièce de résis

scale had been necessary, especially in connection with the widening and deepening operations. The fact that most of the "dumps" appeared to consist of earth of a very loose and sandy nature, some of them so much so that they had been planted thi

sion. As this work was only carried a few feet above the surface of the water, it required but slight speed on the part of a large ship to produce a wave high enough to splash over on to the unprotected earth and bring it down in slides. Th

ces of the haste of its construction and the serious deterioration it has suffered from heavy use and poor maintenance. It will require m

f barbed wire surrounding those on the right side suggested that they were used as a prison camp even before our glasses had revealed the motley clad group on the bank waving to the Hercules. As the Viceroy came abreast the excited and constantly augmenting crowd, we saw that the uniforms were mostly French and Russian, though there were three or four men in the grey of Italy and at least one with the unmi

ter from whence the query came, I focussed on a phiz which, despite its mask of lather, I should have recognized as Cockney just as surely in Korea or Katmandu as on the banks of the Kiel Canal. Waving his brus

s the first time that 'Tommy' has seen his country's flag in anywhere from one to four years; and yet, even when he m

ulgent grin indicated a sympathetic un

eat railway viaduct which crosses the canal almost midway between Brunsbüttel and Kiel. Wherever practicable, I might explain, all railways have been carried across the canal at a height sufficient to allow even the lofty topmasts of the German warships to pass under by a comfortable margin. Not one of the several viaducts r

time) a long train of passenger cars, drawn by two puffing engines, just beginning the heavy climb. Suddenly I caught the flash of what I took to be a red flag being wildly waved from one of the car windows, a

the American officer decisively. "Nothing but Yanks or

mass effect of a number of fluttering bandannas. Again and again they cheered the Hercules and the White Ensign, with a fresh salvo for the Viceroy, which they sighted just before the curve of the loop the train was ascending cut off their view of the canal. That was all we ever heard or saw of t

n groups consisting mostly of Germans (several of which included women) that had gathered along the banks of the canal to watch us pass, and two or three times I observed unmistakable Russian prisoners (or perhaps ex-prisoners) walking arm-in-arm and apparently in animated conversation with German girls. They seem quite to have taken root in the country. Indeed, the pilot of the Viceroy for the first half of the passage through the canal-he was a Schleswig man, strong

YARD FROM

rming region toward the North Sea end their bearing had been more suggestive of indifference than anything else; but in the crowds that came down to line the railed "promenades" along the banks an ingratiating attitude was at once apparent. Some of these people, of course, were of Danish extraction

e Hercules and Verdun the same peremptory orders. Yes, he was quite sincere, that old bargee, and for that reason I have always thought more kindly of him than of all the rest of his grimacing brethren and sistern we saw along the canal that day. A spectacled student (though it is quite possible he was trying to put the same sentiment in p

eavours to "start something"-when the least sign of friendliness from the ship would have undoubtedly been met with loud acclaim. But not a British hand did I see lifted in response to the hundreds

gan the passage at Brunsbüttel, the short winter day was not long enough to make it possible to reach the other end in daylight. By five o'clock darkness had begun to settle over the waters, and the grey mists, piling ever thicker in the narrow notch between the hills, deepened throug

evel and the almost tideless Baltic is only a matter of inches, locking-out was even a more expeditious operation than locking in from the Elbe at the other end. There was just time to note that the "Kaiser Wilhelm" mosaic, there as at Brunsbüttel, had been scrubbed up

*

tle fiord disclosed a different prospect in whichever direction one turned his eyes. The famous Kaiserliche Yacht Club was close at hand over the port quarter of the Hercules, with a villa-bordered strand opening away to the right. The airy filagree of lofty cranes revealed the location of what had been Europe's greatest naval dockyard, while masses of red roofs disclosed the heart of Kiel itself. Heavily wooded hills, still green, rippled alon

e was not a modern capital ship left in Kiel; in fact, the only warship of any class which could fairly lay claim to that designation was the Regensburg, which had managed to push her broken nose through the canal and was now lying inshore of us, apparently alongside some sort

that very day, the Germans had advanced "petrol shortage" as the reason why cars could not be provided to reach this or that station-being a number of motor launches. As all of these seemed to be in the hands of white-banded sailors or dockyard "mateys," the inference might have been drawn that the petrol used was not under

e ships, and even in coming up under the stern of the Hercules, and offering to exchange cap ribbons. The two-word reply of one of the bluejackets to these overtures

TH THE KAISERLICH YACHT CLU

continued to preside, with the tall, blonde Von Müller, of the first Emden, and the shifty, pasty-faced Hinzmann, of the General Staff at Berlin, as his chief advisers. Commander Lohmann still presided over the German sub-commis

d been discovered in the course of warship inspection at Wilhelmshaven. Asked when these might be expected ready to proceed to Harwich, Admiral Goette replied that his Government did not consider themselves under obligation to deliver the boats at all. The justification advanced for this remarkable stand constituted one of the most delightful instances of characteristic Hun reasoning that developed in the course of the visit. This was th

ncede Admiral Browning's demand (that the three submarines should be surrendered at once) without referring the matter back to Berlin. Definite settlement, indeed, was not arrived at u

not feel called upon to grant the claim of the Allies for the return of vessels seized as prizes; the inability to arrange for special trains and the lack of petrol would make it impossible to reach certain air stations by land, while, so

of the stay at Kiel as one steamer after another came in from this or that Baltic port and dropped anchor. The following day search of the numerous old warships was started, and the day after that word came that the way had