CHAPTER XVII--Safe in Port
Throughout the long-drawn night the survivors of the _Calder's_ crewbattled manfully against increasing difficulties in their efforts tosave the destroyer from foundering. The faulty bulkhead, shored andbarricaded with tightly-packed hammocks and other canvas gear, requiredconstant watching. The pumps were working continuously, relays of menundertaking the arduous task in the high-spirited manner that pervadesthe navy, especially when confronted with danger and peril.
Not once during the hours of darkness did Sefton quit the remnants ofthe bridge. Without the aid of navigating instruments, save theinadequate compass, the destroyer's course could not be maintained withthe customary precision. Variation and deviation--factors carefullyguarded against in ordinary circumstances--were affecting the boat'sliquid compass, but to what extent Sefton knew not. With a vague ideathat he would "fetch" the Firth of Forth, the sub held on, the grindingrevolutions of the remaining propeller dinning into his ears theknowledge that the old _Calder_ was momentarily, but slowly, approachingthe shores of Britain.
A cup of unfragrant tea, sweetened with condensed milk, and a biscuitwhich was strongly scented with a peculiarly acrid smell, weregratefully accepted by the wellnigh exhausted sub. The man who broughtthe refreshments to the bridge had not thought it necessary to explainthat he had scraped the sodden tea from the floor of the shell-wreckedofficers'-pantry, or that he had been compelled to wash the salt waterfrom the biscuits and toast them in the stokehold.
Once more the waves had subsided, and an almost flat calm prevailed.Overhead a few stars shone dimly through the haze. Not a light wasvisible; all around, sea and sky blended in a dark, ill-defined murk.
At four bells the helmsman was relieved. He was the seventh consecutiveman whom Sefton had seen taking his trick at the wheel, but still thesub stuck gamely at his post. He would have given almost anything tothrow himself at full length upon the dewy deck and sleep like a log,even for a couple of hours, but such a privilege was denied him. Hiswounds, too, although slight, were beginning to feel painfully stiff.The sea-water, penetrating his ragged uniform, irritated the abrasionsalmost beyond endurance. He yearned in vain for a hot bath and a changeof clothing.
"How goes it now?" enquired a tired voice, hardly recognizable as thatof Dr. Stirling. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere in the North Sea, old bird," replied Sefton, with a forcedlaugh. "Do you happen to have a prescription for an eyelid prop, Pills?My optics seem on the point of becoming bunged up."
"Tell it not in Gath," quoted the surgeon. "I've just made adiscovery--worth at the present moment more than untold gold. Egyptian,man, real Egyptian, and the only ones to be found on board."
He proffered his silver case. Sefton seized one of the cigarettes withavidity. For hours he had longed in vain for a smoke. His own supplyhad vanished. Several hundred, having fallen through a jagged rent inthe ward-room floor, were lying, a sodden pulp, in the water that surgedin the ship's bilges.
"Thanks awfully!" he exclaimed gratefully.
"Bit of luck," continued Stirling. "Found the case in the wreckage ofthe beer barrel. I don't think the stuff's affected them. Case seemspretty tight. Thought I'd come on deck and have half a dozen whiffswith you."
Crouching under the lee of the canvas screen that had been rigged up toreplace the demolished storm-dodgers, Sefton carefully struck a match.Almost before the cigarette was alight, a jarring shock made the_Calder_ tremble from her shattered bows to her jagged taffrail.Immediately afterwards the remaining engine began to race with frightfulrapidity.
Dropping the cigarette like a hot cinder, Sefton sprang to his feet,fully convinced that the long-expected catastrophe had occurred, andthat the bulkhead had given way. Stirling, his first thoughts for hispatients, scurried down the bridge-ladder and ran aft to where thedouble line of wounded men lay, each covered by a hammock to protect himfrom the night dews and drifting spray.
A minute passed. There was no impetuous inrush of water. The bulkheadwas still holding. The engine-room ratings had shut off steam, and thehorrible, nerve-racking clank of the racing machinery ceased.
"Propeller fouled some wreckage, sir," reported a petty officer."Blades stripped clean off the boss I'll allow."
The man was right in his surmise. The last of the four propellers hadstruck some partly submerged object, with the result that the destroyerwas no longer capable of moving through the water under her own power.All she could do was to drift helplessly with wind and tide.
With a deafening hiss, a heavy cloud of steam released from the nowuseless boilers escaped skywards. The overworked engine-room andstokehold staffs were at last at liberty to "stand easy".
Suddenly a beam of dazzling white light flashed through the darkness.Impinging upon the cloud of steam, its reflected glare illumined thescene on deck as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. Then, with aquick, decisive movement, the giant ray was depressed, until it playedfairly upon the battered hull, throwing every object into strong relief,and literally blinding the men with its dazzling glare.
"What ship is that?" shouted a deep voice through a megaphone, the soundtravelling distinctly across the intervening water.
A couple of cables' lengths from the stationary _Calder_ was a largedestroyer, with her search-light directed upon the object of herenquiry.
Sefton's reply was inaudible. The direction of the wind and the lack ofa megaphone prevented his words from being understood. Again thechallenge was repeated.
Standing erect in the full glare of the searchlight, and apart from hiscompanions, a petty officer semaphored the desired information.
"Stand by to receive a hawser," commanded the lieutenant-commander ofthe unknown destroyer. "We'll take you in tow."
The vessel was T.B.D. _Basher_, one of the inner patrol of destroyersoperating between St. Abb's Head and Spurn Point. Pelting along at 20knots in the darkness, her first intimation of the proximity of thecrippled _Calder_ was the hiss of steam from her boilers. Prepared toopen fire at an instant's notice, she trained her quick-firers abeam andswitched on her search-lights, only to discover that she had fortunatelyfallen in with a "lame duck" from the Jutland battle--a craft whoseabsence was beginning to give rise to considerable apprehension on thepart of the British Admiralty.
"You'll tow better stern-foremost, I fancy," shouted the _Basher's_skipper, as he noted the extent to which the _Calder_ was down by thehead.
"Yes, sir," agreed Sefton. "There will be less pressure upon thebulkhead for'ard. It has been giving us some anxiety."
"Is Crosthwaite on board?" enquired the lieutenant-commander of therescuing craft.
"Badly wounded," was the sub's reply. "We had it fairly hot for a time.Can you give us any details of the result of the action, sir?"
"Yes; we gave them a terrific licking," said the skipper of the_Basher_. "The rotten part was that the Huns got away during the night.Still, they won't come out again in a hurry. They've been very busyever since sending out fantastic claims to a decisive victory over theBritish fleet. On paper they certainly beat us hollow, but the funnypart about it is that Jellicoe made a demonstration in force off theBight of Heligoland yesterday, and the beggars funked the invitation.By the by, the sea's fairly calm. We'll run alongside and tranship yourwounded. It will save a lot of bother if you have to abandon ship."
Adroitly manoeuvred in the darkness, for the search-lights were nowscreened lest a prowling U boat might take advantage of the motionlessBritish destroyers, the _Basher_ was made fast to her disabled consort.Carefully the wounded men were transferred, Dr. Stirling, at the sub'srequest, going with them, since the _Basher_ was one of a class ofdestroyers without the services of a medical man.
There was one exception. Crosthwaite resolutely declined to leave hisship.
"She's brought us through thus far," he declared, "and I'll stick to heruntil we fetch home. Where are we now?"
Sefton was unable to reply until he had enquire
d of the _Basher's_navigating officer the position of the ship. The answer was somewhatastonishing; the _Calder_, when picked up, was forty-five miles from themouth of the Tyne.
"A precious fine piece of navigation," remarked the sub ruefully. "Iwas trying to make the Firth of Forth, and instead I find myself barginginto the Northumberland coast."
"Might have done a jolly sight worse, old man," said Crosthwaitecheerfully. "You're a brick, Sefton!"
The sub flushed like a schoolgirl, and, bolting from the shell-wreckedward-room, made for the bridge.
"All clear aft?" shouted the _Basher's_ lieutenant-commander.
"Aye, aye, sir," was the reply from a petty officer stationed at theafter capstan, round which the towing-hawser had been made fast.
"Cast off fore and after springs," continued the officer, telegraphingfor "Half ahead, port engine".
Very cautiously the towing-craft forged ahead, turning sixteen points inalmost her own length. In the darkness the manoeuvre was fraught withanxiety, for, had the slack of the hawser fouled the _Basher's_propellers, the destroyer would have been as helpless as the craft shewas endeavouring to save.
At length the wire hawser began to groan as, under the increased strain,it rasped through the fair-lead. Ever so slowly, yet surely, the_Calder_ gathered stern way in the wake of her consort, and presentlyshe was nearing the Tyne at a rate of 7-1/2 knots.
With her helm lashed amidships, and without means of steering, thepartly waterlogged craft yawed horribly, sheering alternately fourpoints to port and starboard of the towing-vessel. Yet it was the onlypractical means of getting the destroyer into port. Had she been towedbows first, the already-weakened for'ard bulkhead would assuredly havecollapsed under the additional pressure of water.
"We may fetch Tynemouth," thought Sefton, as he watched the _Calder's_erratic movements, "but she'll never be able to ascend the river.She'll be barging into the banks and playing the deuce with everything."
He could think of nothing to check the damaged destroyer's behaviour. Ascope of the cable trailing from the hawse-pipe might have served, hadnot anchors, struck by several projectiles, been immovably jammed in thehawse-pipes.
The same problem also confronted the skipper of the _Basher_, but hequickly settled it by wirelessing for a tug.
Dawn was just breaking when the _Calder_ arrived off Tynemouth. Apowerful paddle-tug was lashed alongside, and the voyage up the riverbegan.
In the busy shipyards on either side of the Tyne, the night shifts werestill hard at work turning out new vessels for the British navy at therate of one and a half a week, in addition to effecting urgent repairsto ships damaged in action or by floating mines.
"Lads," shouted a burly iron-caulker in stentorian tones, "here be aGerman prize bein' towed up t' river."
"Garn!" retorted his mate. "German prize, my aunt! You don't see noGerman flag a-flyin; under that British ensign. She's one of our plucky'uns. Give her three times three, mates!"
The cheering, caught up with redoubled energy, greeted the battered_Calder_ throughout the whole length of her progress up the river. Herwounded lieutenant-commander, lying helpless in his bunk, heard theinspiring sound. He knew what it meant. A load had been lifted off hismind. His command was safe in port.