CHAPTER XVIII
AN OCEAN DUEL
"ACTION Stations!"
Billy Barcroft leapt from his bunk, labouring under the delusionthat he had turned in only a few minutes before.
The deadlights screwed to the brass rims of the scuttles and theelectric lights in the wardroom gave him the impression that it wasstill night, and it was not until he scrambled on deck that he wasaware that grey dawn was breaking.
The wind had piped down considerably. The seas, still running high,no longer showed their teeth in the form of vicious, foam-crestedbreakers. Yet the decks of the "Audax" were at regular intervalsankle-deep in water, as the destroyer cut through the billows.
A cloud of steam, caused by showers of spray striking the hot,salt-encrusted funnel casings, drifted aft, temporarily obscuringthe flight-sub's range of vision. As it cleared he could discern thegreatcoated figures of Aubyn and his brother-officers on the bridge,and the indistinct forms of the men as they passed ammunition fromthe shell-hoists to the guns.
"Got her this time, sir," remarked a burly petty officer, therotundity of whose figure was still further accentuated by theprodigious quantity of clothing he wore.
He pointed to a dark grey, indistinct object almost dead ahead, heroutlines rendered almost invisible by the trailing clouds of smokethat poured from her funnels. Barcroft estimated her distance at twothousand yards. It was impossible to see whether she flew herensign.
The vessel was a German ocean-going torpedo-boat, one of the ninewhich had stolen out of Zeebrugge. By sheer good luck she had gonenorthward over practically the extreme length of the North Seawithout being sighted by the British patrols. An hour, or even halfan hour earlier she might have slipped unobserved past the "Audax"without being seen by the latter. As it was, one of the Britishdestroyer's look-out men "spotted" the strange craft in thedeceptive half-light of the late autumnal dawn.
The "Audax" threw out her private signal by means of a flash lampfrom the bridge. The stranger replied by an unintelligible jumble oflong and short flashes.
"Either that is a Hun or her signalman is three sheets in the wind,"declared Lieutenant-commander Aubyn. "Tell her to make her number,or we'll open fire. And wireless the 'Antipas'; give her ourposition, and say we are in touch with a suspicious craft."
Aubyn, though brave as a lion, was of a discreet and cautiousnature. Dearly would he have liked to engage in an ocean duel withthe hostile craft, for such, he now felt convinced she would proveto be. Both vessels were equally matched in the matter of armament,tonnage and number of complement: it was necessary only to againprove the moral and physical superiority of Jack Tar over Hans andFritz, unless something in the nature of sheer ill-luck allowed thecoveted prize to slip through his fingers. It was against thepossibility that Aubyn had to guard. The fight had to end in onlyone way--annihilation to the foe. Hence the call to the destroyer"Antipas" to eliminate that element of chance.
"Let her have it!" shouted the skipper of the "Audax," just asBarcroft gained the bridge.
The four-inch gun on the fo'c'sle barked. It was still dark enoughfor the flash to cast a lurid glow upon the set faces of the Britishofficers, who stood by with their glasses ready to bear upon theflying torpedo-boat the moment the acrid fumes from the burntcordite drifted clear of the bridge.
The first shell struck the water close to the German vessel's portside, throwing up a column of water fifty feet in the air as itricochetted and finally disappeared beneath the waves a mile or soahead of the target.
Fritz replied promptly. He must have fired; directly the flash ofthe "Audax's" bow gun was observed. The projectile screeched abovethe heads of the men on the bridge, seemingly so close that Barcroftinvoluntarily ducked. It was quite a different sensation from beingpotted at by "Archibalds." Up aloft the roar of the seaplane'sengines and the rush of the wind practically overwhelmed the crashof the bursting shrapnel. This weird moaning, as the four-inch shellflew by, was somewhat disconcerting as far as Billy was concerned,while to heighten the effect a rending crash accompanied the passingof the projectile.
"Our wireless top-hamper, dash it all!" exclaimed Aubyn, turning hishead for a brief instant. "Starboard a little, quartermaster."
The slight alteration of helm enabled the midship quick-firer on thestarboard side to bear upon the enemy. The latter, evidently withthe idea of dazzling the British destroyer, had switched on asearchlight mounted on a raised platform aft. Probably the Hunsmight have derived advantage from the rays, that still held theirown against the increasing dawn, had not a well-directed shell fromthe "Audax" fo'c'sle gun blown searchlight, platform, and half adozen men to smithereens.
For the next ten minutes the adversaries were at it hammer andtongs. More than one shell got home on board the British craft,playing havoc with the after-funnel and deckfittings, while threebadly wounded but still irrepressibly cheerful seamen were takendown below.
The German craft was being severely punished. The speed had fallenoff considerably, while she was on fire fore and aft, although thefor'ard conflagration was quickly got under by her crew. By thistime she bore broad on the British destroyer's bow, the range havingdecreased to 1,500 yards.
Suddenly the Hun put her helm hard down. Either she saw that flightwas no longer possible, or else her stern quick-firers had beenknocked out, and she wished to bring her as yet unused guns to bearupon her foe.
As she turned Aubyn saw through his binoculars a gleaming objectshoot over the German craft's side, quickly followed by another.Both disappeared in a smother of foam beneath the waves. "Harda-port!" he shouted, knowing full well that at that moment a coupleof powerful Schwarzkopft torpedoes, propelled by superheatedcompressed air, were heading towards the "Audax" at a rate of fortyto fifty miles an hour.
Round swung the destroyer, listing under excessive helm until thedeck on the starboard side dipped beneath the water. As she did sothe two torpedoes could be distinctly seen, as, adjusted to theirminimum depth to prevent them passing under the lightly draughtedobjective, they appeared betwixt the crests of the waves.
One passed fifty yards away; the other almost scraped thedestroyer's quarter. Had the "Audax" not promptly answered to herhelm both torpedoes would have "got home." Yet, not in the leastperturbed, the British seamen continued their grim task of batteringthe Hun out of recognition. They worked almost in silence. Each manknew his particular job and did it. Time for shouting when thebusiness was finished to their satisfaction.
Yet there was a regular pandemonium of noise. The hiss of escapingsteam; the vicious thuds of the waves as the "Audax," at twentyeight point something knots, tore through the water under the actionof engines of 14,000 horse-power; the rapid barking of thequick-firers; the sharp clang of the breech-blocks and the clatterof the ejected shell-cases upon the slippery decks--all combined tobear testimony to the stress and strain of a destroyer action. The"Audax" was the latest embodiment of naval science in that class ofboat, yet without the intrepid energies of the men behind the guns,aided by the strenuous efforts of their mess-mates in theengine-room stokehold, that science would be of little avail ingaining the victory. Man-power still counts as much as it ever did,provided an efficient fighting machine is at their disposal. BritishHearts of Oak are much the same as in Nelson's day--and yet theaverage pay of the Lower Deck ratings is about three shillings a daywith no eight-hour shifts, risking life and limb for a wage at whicha navvy would sneer.
And why? It is the call of the sea--a call that appeals to Britonsmore than to any other nation under the sun. In the piping times ofpeace the Navy offers unrivalled facilities for poor men to traveland see the world, it responds to their love of adventure. Inwartime it calls for hard and often unappreciated work with thechance of a glorious scrap thrown in; and right loyally the Navyanswers to the call to maintain the freedom of the seas and to guardour shores against the King's enemies.
By the time that the opposing vessels had steadied on theirrespective helms the "Audax" was steaming obliquely on h
er foe'sbroadside, sufficiently to enable three of her four guns to bear.
The Hun's fire was now slackening, and in spite of the shortness ofthe range, decidedly erratic. Her hull was perforated in severalplaces, her funnels were riddled to such an extent that it seemedremarkable that they had not already collapsed. Her masts hadvanished, also a portion of her bridge, while her deck was litteredwith smoking debris.
"Cease fire!" ordered Lieutenant-commander Aubyn as the German nolonger replied to her severe punishment. What was more, her BlackCross ensign, which she had hoisted after the commencement of theengagement, was no longer visible.
Aubyn's chivalrous instincts were ill-repaid, for a couple of shellsscreeched through the air from the vessel which he thought hadsurrendered. One went wide; the other penetrated the ward-room ofthe "Audax," fortunately without exploding. Simultaneously a Germanbluejacket held aloft the tattered Black Cross emblem of unholykultur.
In an instant the British tars reopened fire; while to make mattersworse for the Huns, the "Antipas," racing up under forced draught,let fly a salvo from the three guns that could be brought to bearahead. That settled the business. The hostile craft, literallybattered out of recognition, began to founder.
"Cease fire!" Aubyn ordered for the second time within two minutes.Then, "Out boats."
It was an easy matter to order the boats away, but a most difficulttask to carry the instructions into effect. The gig had beencompletely pulverised, while the other boats were in a more or lessunseaworthy condition.
"Look alive, lads!" exclaimed a petty officer of the carpenters'crew. "T'other blokes'll be there first if we don't look out."
Hastily the holes in the bottom strakes of that particular boat wereplugged, and, quickly manned, the leaky craft pushed off, the menurged by her coxswain to "pull like blazes an' get them chaps out o'the bloomin' ditch."
By this time the German torpedo-boat had vanished beneath the waves,leaving a rapidly-dispersing cloud of smoke and steam to mark thespot where she had disappeared and the heads of about twentyswimmers--the survivors of her complement.
In twos and threes the war-scarred and nerve-shattered Huns werehauled into safety, for other help from both destroyers was now uponthe scene, and deeply laden the boats returned to their respectiveparents.
Suddenly Barcroft, who was watching the arrival of the sorry-lookingcrowd of German prisoners, gave vent to an uncontrolled shout ofjoyous surprise, for huddled in the stern sheets of the whaler wereFlight-lieutenant-John Fuller and his comrade in peril, BobbyKirkwood.
"There's precious little of report," said Fuller in reply to theskipper of the "Audax", when the two rescued officers were snuglyberthed in the ward-room--warm in spite of the additionalventilation in the shape of a couple of neatly-drilled holes markingthe place of entry and the point of departure of the ill-advisedGerman "dud" shell. "We had to make a forced descent, got collaredby a strafed U-boat just as we had effected repairs. The U-boatrattled herself to bits, so to speak, and had to be abandoned. I'vehad quite enough submarining, thank you. Give me a seaplane any dayof the week, Sunday included. Then that torpedo-boat--V198's herdesignation--picked us up. They stowed us in the forehold and forgotto let us out when she went under. Suppose they had quite enough ontheir hands and clean forgot about us," he added generously, givingthe kapitan-leutnant of the V198 the benefit of the doubt.
"Anyhow, there we were," continued the flight-lieutenant. "We knewthe rotten packet was going, and although we yelled the racket onboard prevented them hearing us, I suppose. Still, our luck was in,for a shell burst in her fo'c'sle, ripping up the deck and burstingthe cable-tier bulkhead. It was pretty thick with the smoke, but wegroped for'ard----"
"You hauled me for'ard, you mean," interrupted the A.P.
"Shut up!" said Fuller reprovingly. "Well, by standing on the edgeof the manger we managed to haul ourselves on to the mess-deck.There we stuck till the firing ceased, and the boat's stern was wellunder water. Then--it was quite time for us to go, and we divedoverboard. The rest you know."
"And what might you be doing on board, old bird?" asked Kirkwoodaddressing the overjoyed Billy.
"Passenger for the 'Hippodrome,'" replied the flight-sub.
"And it strikes me very forcibly," added Aubyn, "that at this rateI'll find all the 'Hippodrome's' birds on board this hooker. Thetrouble now is: how can I deliver the goods? We'll have to askpermission to quit station and return for repairs and overhaul.Another three weeks in dockyard hands, I suppose, and the fun onlyjust beginning. Just my luck."
The skipper went on deck. There was much to be done. Although the"butcher's bill" was light, and the destroyer had sustained noserious damage to her hull--thanks to the defective Germanshells--the loss of the tophamper was considerable. In her presentstate she was unable to carry out her duties as an efficient patrolboat. With her wireless out of action she was impotent to performthe vital function of communicating with her invisible consorts. Forcenturies the British Navy had done very well without the aid ofwireless telegraphy, but, like many other things, Marconi'sdiscovery had come to stay. Its use enabled fewer vessels toeffectually do the work that hitherto required more to perform,owing to the necessity of keeping within visible signallingdistance; and a destroyer without wireless was a "dead end," inmodern naval warfare.
But Lieutenant-commander Aubyn was not a man who would willinglymiss the opportunity of doing his friends a good turn, provided theexigencies of the Service permitted.
Before parting company he signalled the "Antipas," which was stillstanding by the injured destroyer, with the result that a boat putoff from the latter and came alongside.
"Look alive, you fellows!" shouted Aubyn down the ward-roomcompanion. "If you want to get on board the 'Hippodrome' within thenext few hours now's your chance. Tressidar, of the 'Antipas,' willgive you a passage. That's all right: stick to that gear till youfind the old 'Hippo.' I've had to borrow a kit myself beforeto-day."