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[Page 14]
to grow peevish and try to get a bit of his own back, as I told in my last article when he succeeded in bagging the "Phoenix."
A few days after the "Phoenix" had been sunk the "Rifleman" very nearly shared the same fate, and it was only the roughness of the sea which lifted her stern just at the psychological moment and allowed the torpedo to pass under her.
From September 1917 until June 1918 Brindisi had been left fairly immune from air attacks, but our own airmen never let a week go by without paying a visit to Durazzo, Cattaro or Pola and with such good results that the Austrians decided it was high time that Brindisi, the headquarters of the Allied Air force in the southern Adriatic should be paid a visit.
I had often thought that should the harbour be raided from the air it would be impossible to miss hitting some ship or other so densely were the ships lying together in the confined waters, constituting the inner harbour of Brindisi; and yet the impossible happened. It was just 4.0 o'clock on the morning of June 9th that the air barrage started. First an odd round or two from the Coast batteries and then the prolonged wail of the syren on Defesa (Italian Naval Headquarters and signal station) awoke the town to the fact the that enemy air craft were approaching. After that hundreds of guns H.A and A.A. took up the tale and pandemonium was let loose. I got out of bed and went on deck. Here I saw the Quartermaster walking up and down and seemingly quite unconcerned at the racket going on around him. "Is there an air raid on?" I asked of him. "Yes Sir," he replied, "I 'eard the blighters comin' some time before they opened fire." "Then why didn't you inform me?" I asked. "Didn't like to disturb you Sir, you 'aving been up all yesterday and most o' the night (we had just arrived back from patrol the previous evening) and any'ow we can't do nothin'," was his somewhat tactful if candid reply. As a matter of fact there was nothing we could do except keep out of the way of falling shrapnel and splinters, and trust that their bombs would miss us.
In the trot where we lay at the time were four Australians T.B.D's and ten English, all within about ten feet of each other. Across the harbour separated by some hundred yards of water the best part of a hundred T.B.D's T.B's and submarines were moored.
The night now was one of indescribable beauty. It was as if the heavens had gone made and all the stars were flitting about like so