: THE HIDDEN TORPEDO TUBES OF H.M.S. "HYDERABAD"

_Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]

The number of these vessels was not large, possibly 180, but their
operations extended far and wide. They roamed the North Sea, the
Atlantic, the English Channel, the Mediterranean, the Arctic Ocean
and even the Baltic, but until challenged were quite unknown to all
other vessels of the Allied navies. Theirs was a secret service,
performed amidst great hardships, with no popular applause to spur them
on.

As all "Q" boats--as they were officially called--differed from each
other in size and armament, any description given here can only be taken
as applying to one or more vessels with which the writer was personally
familiar. Some of these so-called mystery ships were old sailing
schooners, others fine steamships, while quite a number were converted
fishing smacks, drifters and trawlers, the method being to give the
prospective commander a free hand in the conversion of his ship from a
peaceable merchantman to a camouflaged man-of-war, and many were the
ingenious devices used.

One vessel fitted out for this desperate duty at a Scottish base was a
steamer of about 400 tons burden. She was armed with a 4.7 quick-firing
gun hidden in a deck-house with imitation glass windows, the sides of
which could be dropped flat on to the deck for the gun to be trained
outboard by simply pressing an electric button on the steamer's bridge.
Two life-boats, one on each side of the aft deck, were bottomless, and
formed covers for two additional 12-pounder guns. A false deck in the
bow shielded a pair of wicked-looking torpedo tubes, each containing an
18-inch Whitehead ready for launching; and the crew for each gun were
able to reach their respective weapons, without appearing on deck, by
means of specially constructed gangways and hatches. The very act of
dropping the sides of the aft gun-house hoisted the White Ensign, and
technically converted this unsuspicious-looking merchantman, which asked
only to be allowed to pursue its lawful vocation on the high seas, into
a heavily armed warship.

This "Q" boat had, when met and challenged by the writer's ship, already
accounted for no less than three German submarines which had opened the
attack from close range, thinking her defenceless.

Another smaller mystery ship was a converted fishing drifter with a
single 12-pounder gun on a specially strengthened platform fitted in the
fish-hold, which had been clean