THE BATTLE OF THE BIGHT
In his speech of August 3d in the House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey
told his listeners that we had incurred no obligations to help France
either by land or sea. In view not less, however, of the increasing
difficulties of our diplomatic relations with Germany than of the
spontaneous friendship that had been growing between ourselves and our
French neighbours, the question of coöperation with the latter, in
certain eventualities, had inevitably arisen and been discussed. It
had also been pointed out that unless some conversations were to take
place between the naval and military experts of both countries--unless
some definite lines were laid down as to the methods by which each
country was to help the other--such coöperation, even if desired, would
almost certainly be fruitless. At the same time, in a letter written
on November 22, 1912, to the French ambassador, Sir Edward Grey had
made it clear that these discussions between their respective experts
did not commit either Government to a specified course of action "in a
contingency which has not yet arisen and may never arise."
When the contingency arose, however, the plans were there; and the
mobilization and transport to {25} France of our Expeditionary Force
will remain on record as one of the most efficient military operations
ever undertaken by any country. Second only to the rapidity and
completeness with which the navy took command of the sea, were the
speed and secrecy with which those first divisions were conveyed across
the Channel. That in mere numbers they seem in retrospect to have been
almost ridiculously inadequate is merely a measure of the colossal
proportions that the war on land afterward assumed. Small as that army
was, however, it was the largest force that we had ever sent oversea as
a single undertaking; and it must be borne in mind that, in all
probability, it was the most highly trained then in existence, and that
its presence in France had both moral and material effects of almost
incalculable importance.
Nobody who lived, or was staying, near any of our great southern
railway lines during those early days of August will ever forget the
emotions roused by that endless series of troop trains, passing with
such precision day and night; and of the feelings produced in France by
this visible pledge of our friendship there was instant and abundant
evidence. Between August 9th and August 23d five Divisions of Infantry
and two Cavalry Divisions were safely landed in France; and when it is
remembered what a single division consists of some idea may be obtained
of what that accomplishment meant.
Apart from the Headquarters' Staff with a _personnel_ of 82, requiring
54 horses, 2 wagons, and 5 motor-cars, it embraced three Infantry
Brigades, Headquarters' divisional artillery, three brigades of {26}
Field Artillery, one Howitzer Brigade, one heavy battery, a divisional
ammunition column, the Headquarters' division of engineers, two Field
companies, one Signal company, one Cavalry squadron, one Divisional
train, and three Field ambulances--comprising a total _personnel_ of
over 18,000 men, 5,500 horses, 870 wagons, 9 motor-cars, and 280
cycles, the number of guns, including machine guns, amounting to 100;
and with a base establishment for each division of 1,750 men and 10
horses.
Such was the task performed by the transport officers, every kind of
vessel being assembled for the purpose, from the cross-channel packet
boat accommodating not more than three hundred at a time to the giant
Atlantic liner carrying as many thousands. Chiefly from _Southampton_,
but also from Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven, Avonmouth, and many other
ports, that constant stream of men, horses, provisions, and equipment
poured ceaselessly for nearly a fortnight, screened by
destroyer-escorts, and with aeroplanes and seaplanes keeping watch over
them from the sky. Without a single casualty as the result of enemy
action, they were mustered and marched into line of the French left
flank; and that this great achievement should have been possible within
so short a period from the declaration of war is perhaps the completest
tribute that could be paid to the consummate skill of our naval
dispositions.
Scarcely realized by those splendid battalions, whistling "Tipperary"
on the way to Mons, and even now, perhaps, hardly appreciated by the
bulk of their countrymen at home, it was the navy and the navy {27}
alone that made that glorious epic possible. With their eyes on Europe
and the impending clash of the armies; hearing in imagination, under
the unsuspected force of the heavy German artillery, the crumpling up
of those iron-clad cupolas of the Brialmont forts at Liège--few would
have thought twice, perhaps, even if they had known what they were
doing, of those tiny submarines _E6_ and _E8_ creeping, the first of
their kind, into the Bight of Heligoland. Yet but for them and their
gallant crews and officers, Lieutenant-Commanders Talbot and Goodhart;
but for the presiding destroyers, _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_ and the
submarines of the Eighth Flotilla--the passage of the Expeditionary
Force might well have been impossible and the first battle of the Marne
fought with another issue.
Within three hours of the first outbreak of the war, _E6_ and _E8_
stole out on their perilous errands; and it was upon the information
brought back by them from those mined and fortified waters that the
later dispositions were made. From August 7th onward, until the
Expeditionary Force had been safely landed, the submarines kept their
watch. In the lee of islands, at the mouths of channels, in hourly
danger of detection and death, day and night, without relief, those
cautious periscopes maintained their vigil. Farther to the south,
guarding the approaches to the Channel, between the North Goodwins and
the Ruytingen, were the two destroyers _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_, with
the main covering submarine flotilla; while to the northeast of these,
the _Amethyst_ and _Fearless_, each with a flotilla of destroyers, took
{28} turns about on patrol duty during the passage of the army.
Nor must it be forgotten, so swift was the subsequent progress both in
the range and effectiveness of submarine activity, that this was, at
that time, a branch of the service scarcely tried and of unknown
possibilities. The submarines used were of a type soon so outclassed
as to become almost obsolete, the easiest of prey to net and torpedo,
and working at a distance from their bases then unprecedented.
Nevertheless, after the Expeditionary Force had been safely transported
to France, they were, in the words of Commodore, afterward
Vice-Admiral, Roger Keyes, "incessantly employed on the enemy's coast
in the Heligoland Bight and elsewhere, and have obtained much valuable
information regarding the composition and movement of his patrols.
They have occupied his waters and reconnoitred his anchorages, and,
while so engaged, have been subjected to skilful and well-executed
anti-submarine tactics; hunted for hours at a time by torpedo craft,
and attacked by gunfire and torpedoes."
That was written on October 17, 1914, when the action, now about to be
described, had already made the Bight of Heligoland a familiar term to
most people, but without conveying, perhaps, to more than a very few
all that it meant from a strategical standpoint. Between three and
four hundred miles from the nearest of our naval bases, and from some
of the chief of them more than six hundred miles distant, it was in
this small area that there was concentrated practically the whole of
Germany's naval forces, the {29} Kiel Canal connecting it with the
Baltic, rendering these available in either sea.
Nor would it be easy to imagine, from the point of view of defense,
either a bay of littoral with greater natural advantages. Bounded on
the east by the low-lying shores of Schleswig-Holstein, with their
fringe of protecting islands, and on the south by the deeply indented
coast-line between the Dutch frontier and the mouth of the Kiel Canal,
each of the four great estuaries, from west to east, of the Ems, the
Jade, the Weser, and the Elbe, had been subdivided by sandbanks into a
meshwork of channels than which nothing could have been easier to make
impregnable. These were further guarded by the continuation of the
scimitar curve of the Frisian Islands, beginning opposite Helder in
Holland with the Dutch island of Texel, becoming German in the island
of Borkum just beyond the Memmert Sands, opposite the mouth of the Ems,
and continued, as a natural screen, in the successive islands of Juist,
Nordeney, Baltrum, Langeoog, Spiekeroog, and Wangeroog as far as the
entrance of Jade Bay, covering the approach to Wilhelmshaven.
Situated on the western lip of this channel, and connected by locks
with the Ems and Jade Canal, this was one of the largest of Germany's
naval bases and a town of about 35,000 inhabitants. In the next
estuary, that of the Weser, and on the eastern coast of it, lay
Bremerhaven, another naval base and important dockyard; and, on the
same stretch of coast, at the point of the tongue of land between the
Weser and the Elbe, lay Cuxhaven, yet a third and {30} immensely
powerful naval port. This, with the attendant batteries of Döse, was
flanked at sea by the Roter and Knecht sandbanks and the little island
of Sharhorn, and was only about forty miles distant from Heligoland,
lying in the centre of the Bight and commanding the hole.
Probably, from an offensive standpoint, of less value, under modern
conditions, than was generally supposed, the possession of Heligoland,
as a fortified outpost, was, if only psychologically, one of Germany's
greatest assets. Of rocky formation and rising, at its highest point,
to about 200 feet, it was not only a useful observation post but a
fortress of the utmost strength. With wide views extending to the
mouth of the Elbe and the coast of the neighbouring estuaries, it also
protected a roadstead capable of sheltering and concealing a fleet of
considerable strength; and, in addition, it possessed a wireless
station of the greatest strategical importance.
From an early period, indeed, the peculiar advantages of the island had
been obvious to many observers. In the seventeenth century, it had
been used as a convenient station by the traders in contraband between
France and Hamburg, and, for the same purposes, toward the end of the
eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, by British
smugglers. During the Danish blockade of the German ports in the
Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848, its advantages had become so manifest
to the then British Governor that he made a special report about it to
the Colonial Office. "Possessing pilots of all the surrounding coasts
and rivers and with its {31} roadstead sufficient for a steam fleet,"
it would in an emergency, he had pointed out, "amply repay the small
cost of its retention in time of peace." Other considerations had
supervened, however, and, in 1890, after having been in British
possession for more than eighty years, Heligoland had been ceded to
Germany, to become, in due course, the keystone of her naval defenses.
Such then was the Bight of Heligoland, commanded at its centre by the
rocky island itself; flanked on each side by the sentinel islands of
the Frisian and Schleswig coasts; and with its tributary river-mouths
each an intricate meshwork of shallow and treacherous sandbanks.
Subject to fogs, and responding to its prevalent winds with short steep
seas of peculiar violence, it had been mined and protected since the
outbreak of war with every means that ingenuity could suggest. As for
the island itself, from which all women and civilians, with the
exception of five nurses, had been removed, new guns had been mounted
there, houses pulled down, and trees felled to assist the gunners; and
it is only when this is remembered that some idea becomes possible of
all that was involved in those first patrols, and in the affair of
outposts, as one officer has described it, afterward to be known as the
Battle of the Bight.
This was brought about as the result of the detailed information
afforded by our scouting submarines, who had obtained an accurate
knowledge of the procedure of the enemy's day and night patrols, and
had reported that they could always collect a large force of destroyers
round them whenever they showed {32} themselves in the Bight. From
this it became evident that a force, approaching at dawn from the
direction of Horn Reef, would have every prospect of being able to cut
off the enemy's returning night patrols; and an operation was
accordingly decided upon, of which the following were the broad
outlines. On the morning of August 28, 1914, the day appointed for the
action, some submarines, with a couple of destroyers in attendance,
were to penetrate into the Bight and expose themselves to the enemy,
and were then to lure them, if possible, into contact with other forces
that would be waiting. In close proximity, therefore, to the
submarines it was arranged for two light cruisers, the _Arethusa_ and
_Fearless_, to rendezvous with two flotillas of destroyers, while,
behind these, were to lie ambushed out at sea the Light Cruiser and
Battle-Cruiser Squadrons. The general design, with full details as to
the meeting-places, was communicated to each of the responsible
commanders and, in absolute secrecy, from their various bases, the
forces to be engaged put to sea.
Of these the first were the submarines under Commodore Roger Keyes, who
accompanied them on board the destroyer _Lurcher_, with the _Firedrake_
in attendance--those stout little vessels that had already made
themselves familiar, during the passage of the armies, with the
proposed scene of action. Setting out at midnight on August 26th, they
escorted the eight submarines chosen for this hazardous duty, _D2_,
_D8_, _E4_, _E5_, _E6_, _E7_, _E8_, and _E9_; and, while these were
kept in the background throughout the next day, the _Lurcher_ and
_Firedrake_ acted as their {33} scouts. To the perils in store for
them, in the way of detection, the fine weather and calm sea naturally
added; but, at nightfall of August 27th, each submarine crept to its
appointed station in close proximity to the German coast.
Meanwhile, at five in the morning of the same day, the _Arethusa_,
under Commodore Tyrwhitt, had set out in her turn, with two flotillas
of destroyers, meeting the _Fearless_ at sea during the afternoon; and,
farther north, at the same early hour, Vice-Admiral Beatty, in the
_Lion_, had departed with the First Battle-Cruiser and First Light
Cruiser Squadrons to be at hand in case of necessity. By the evening
of August 27th, therefore, all were in their places; the submarines
were feeling their way into the heart of the Bight; and the excitement
of all engaged, during those hushed hours of darkness, can be readily
imagined and perhaps envied. The night passed uneventfully, however,
and, upon the flotillas and squadrons at sea, the day broke clear and
sunny, but with a good deal of mist--in some places almost amounting to
fog--veiling the entrance of the Bight and the neighbourhood of
Heligoland.
The time was now come for the first open movement to be made; and,
while the _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_ began to search the waters, through
which the battle-cruisers were to come, for possible hostile
submarines, three of our own, _E6_, _E7_, and _E8_, designedly exposing
themselves, proceeded toward Heligoland. Finding the sea clear,
Commodore Keyes with the _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_ then followed up the
three submarines; and there we may leave {34} them for the moment,
turning our attention to the forces assembled in their rear under
Commodore Tyrwhitt.
These consisted, as we have seen, of the Light Cruiser _Arethusa_,
flying Commodore Tyrwhitt's broad pennant, the Light Cruiser
_Fearless_, under Captain W. F. Blunt, and most of the destroyers of
the First and Third Flotillas, and, at daybreak, they, too, began to
push their way into the misty Bight. Nor had they long to wait for the
enemy. Though the visibility was poor, seldom at first extending to
more than three miles, and though the fighting in consequence afterward
became confused, the general strategical plan soon proved itself to
have been sound. Issuing apparently from berths between the Frisian
Islands and the coast-line, a patrol of German destroyers, setting out
toward Heligoland, suddenly discovered our forces on the east, or
Bight, side of them. Previous to this, at about ten minutes to seven,
a solitary German destroyer had already been sighted and chased, but
now, for forty minutes, from twenty minutes past seven, a general
action ensued--the _Arethusa_ and Third Flotilla engaging the German
destroyers, and steering northwest to cut them off from Heligoland.
So far the presence of the _Arethusa_, whose armament has already been
described, had given us the advantage in this particular attack; but,
just before eight o'clock, two German cruisers loomed out of the mist,
one with four funnels and one with two. Whether these had come from
Heligoland or had followed up the destroyer-patrol was not apparent,
but {35} they immediately joined action, and, for a quarter of an hour,
the little _Arethusa_ found herself being bombarded by both of them as
well as by various destroyers.
Firing with every gun, the _Arethusa_, then only forty-eight hours out
of the builders' hands, was already in as tight a corner as she could
have asked for and beginning to suffer pretty heavily.
Twice she was hit below the water-line, but saved by the skill and
promptitude of her engineers; shrapnel shells were bursting over her
deck, and men were already dropping as the result of them; Lieutenant
Westmacott was killed at Commodore Tyrwhitt's side; the foremost port
gun was shot out of action, the gunlayer being blown out of his seat;
gun after gun was wrecked and the torpedo tubes disabled, till only one
6-inch gun remained effective; and a bursting shell, exploding some
ammunition, started a furious fire on the _Arethusa's_ deck.
Fortunately, at a quarter past eight, Captain Blunt in the
_Fearless_--of which a destroyer officer afterward wrote that "to see
the old _Fearless_ charging round the field of fight, seeking fresh
foes, was most inspiriting"--and appeared on the scene, and attracted
to herself the guns of the four-funnelled German cruiser. Thus
relieved a little, for ten minutes longer, the _Arethusa_ fought the
other on a converging course, till a splendidly directed shot wrecked
the German's forebridge, and she broke off toward Heligoland, which was
just in sight.
Heavily as the _Arethusa_ had suffered, the little destroyer _Laurel_,
who, with one of her consorts, had {36} first sighted the oncoming
cruisers, had been punished, as was only to be expected, with even
greater severity. For some little time engaging single-handed a German
light cruiser and two destroyers, on every calculation of the chances
of war, she should have been sunk a dozen times over. Struck first in
the boiler-room, the after funnel was blown in, and the main steam-pipe
damaged, four men being killed, but the remainder sticking to their
posts with the utmost coolness and heroism. Next she was struck
forward, three more men being killed and a gun being put out of action;
and a few moments later her captain, Commander F. Rose, was wounded in
the leg, but continued to direct the action. Soon afterward he was
again hit, dropping on the bridge with the other leg wounded, but
remained where he was, after a period of unconsciousness, until six
o'clock in the evening.
Meanwhile the _Laurel_ herself, while responding as best she could to
the superior gunfire of the cruiser, was vigorously attacking the two
destroyers, one of whom she succeeded in sinking and, when Commander
Rose was no longer able to take charge, his "Number One," Lieutenant C.
R. Peploe, continued the action, bringing his destroyer out, in the
words of Commodore Tyrwhitt, "in an able and gallant manner under most
trying conditions." Few on board, indeed, would have given much for
her chances of ever coming out at all; and, when a final shell struck
her near the centre gun, causing a violent explosion and setting her on
fire, the likelihood of the _Laurel_ making port must have seemed
remote to the last degree. Thanks in a great measure, however, {37} to
the gallantry and promptitude of Alfred Britten, Stoker Petty Officer,
who put out the fire, in spite of the close neighbourhood of several
lyddite shells, no further damage resulted; while the mass of fumes, in
which the disabled _Laurel_ now lay heavily wreathed, served in some
degree as a screen against further attack from the cruiser.
It was now nearly nine o'clock; fighting had died down; and, when
Commodore Tyrwhitt called his flotillas together, it was found that the
First Flotilla had also been in action and sunk _V187_, the German
commodore's destroyer. Unfortunately two boats' crews from the
destroyers _Goshawk_ and _Defender_, lowered to pick up survivors from
the sunk destroyer, had had to be left behind owing to an attack by a
German cruiser during this work of mercy--a self-revealing act on the
part of the second navy in the world. Apart from this, though many of
our vessels, especially the _Laurel_ and _Arethusa_, had been heavily
battered, all the flotillas were intact; while, unknown to Commodore
Tyrwhitt and his command, even the abandoned boats' crews were being
rescued. For, peeping through her periscope, Submarine _E4_ had
witnessed the whole occurrence--the sinking of _V187_, the subsequent
work of rescue, and the approach of the hostile cruiser. Under her
resourceful captain, Commander E. W. Leir, she had at once proceeded to
attack the enemy; and, though she had not managed to torpedo her, she
had driven her from the scene of action, returning, at the greatest
risk, to the two boats. Coming to the surface, she had taken on board
the whole of the abandoned British crews, as {38} well as a German
officer and two men. Being unable to embark the rest--eighteen wounded
Germans--she had left them with a German officer and six unwounded men,
provided them with water, biscuits, and a compass, and allowed them to
navigate their way back to Heligoland.
While this unique action was in progress, and while the _Arethusa_ was
busy repairing her guns and replenishing her ammunition, let us return
again to the _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_, whom we had last seen heading
for Heligoland in the wake of the decoy submarines. These also had
been successful in getting into touch with the enemy forces, and, at
ten o'clock, the _Arethusa_, with most of her guns now in working order
again, received a message from them that they were being chased by
light cruisers, and at once proceeded to their assistance.
Having joined up with them, and being now close to Heligoland,
Commodore Tyrwhitt thought it wiser to retreat a little to the
westward, but, a few minutes later, sighted a four-funnelled German
cruiser, which opened a very heavy fire upon the British force about
eleven o'clock. The position being somewhat critical, Commodore
Tyrwhitt ordered the _Fearless_ to attack and the First Flotilla to
launch torpedoes; but, though they did so with immense spirit, the
cruiser evaded the onslaught and vanished in the mist. Ten minutes
later she appeared again from another direction, to be attacked both by
the _Arethusa_ and the _Fearless_, the former especially escaping
destruction from her only by the slenderest of margins. Salvo after
salvo of shells plunged into the water, some of {39} them barely thirty
feet short of the _Arethusa_, while two torpedoes were also launched at
her, but fortunately also fell short, leaving her unharmed.
Meanwhile both Commodore Tyrwhitt and Commodore Keyes had been
communicating by wireless with Admiral Beatty, who, just after eleven,
having evaded three submarines, ordered the Light Cruiser Squadron to
the support of the light forces. While this was hurrying to their
assistance, however, the _Arethusa's_ 6-inch guns had proved too
accurate for the German cruiser, who had broken off action,
disappearing into the mist again in the direction of the Island. How
badly she was damaged could only be guessed, but, four minutes later,
yet another cruiser was sighted, the three-funnelled _Mainz_, which was
immediately attacked both by the _Arethusa_ and the _Fearless_. The
blood of everybody was up now as never before, and, for twenty-five
minutes, the assault was so fiercely pressed that, at the end of that
time, the _Mainz_, in spite of her powerful resistance, was seen to be
on fire and sinking by the head. Her engines had stopped, and it was
just at this moment that the Light Cruiser Squadron appeared on the
scene, reducing her, in a very few minutes, to a condition that, as
Commodore Tyrwhitt put it, must have been indescribable.
How bad it was let a single quotation from a cruiser officer's diary
suffice to indicate. Watching the deck of the _Mainz_ through his
powerful glasses, he was at first completely puzzled by two things--the
absence of corpses and the enormous profusion of deck-sponges soaked in
blood. It was not for some time {40} that he began to realize that the
one accounted for the other. "Enough said," he wrote, "a six-inch
projectile does not kill a man nor even dismember him; it simply
scatters him."
It was now a quarter past twelve, and, by this time, Admiral Beatty was
himself on the spot. From the reports received by him from the various
squadron and flotilla commanders, and the obvious presence now of many
enemy ships, he had come to the conclusion that, in an action where
speed was essential--the main German bases being so close at hand--the
lighter forces might not be able to deal with the situation
sufficiently rapidly. Bearing in mind the possibilities of a concerted
submarine attack, and the conceivable sortie in force of a German
battle squadron, he decided that his speed would probably baffle the
first, and that the latter, if he were prompt enough, could not arrive
in time; while, for anything less in the way of enemy attack, he had
ample forces at his disposal.
Working up his engines, therefore, to full speed, he overtook the light
cruisers just as they were finishing the _Mainz_, and, a quarter of an
hour afterward, sighted the _Arethusa_ fighting a rearguard action with
a cruiser of the _Kolberg_ class--recognized as the _Köln_. Following
the general plan, he at once steered to cut the latter off from
Heligoland, and, seven minutes later, opened fire, chasing her at full
speed out to sea. While pursuing the _Köln_, another German cruiser,
apparently the _Ariadne_, was seen right ahead, steering at high speed
and at right angles to the _Lion_, who was herself now travelling at 28
knots. In spite of {41} this, and that, before losing her in the mist,
the _Lion_ had only time for a couple of salvoes, she was set on fire,
reduced to a sinking condition, and was soon afterward lost, as the
Germans themselves admitted. This was just before one; mines had been
reported eastward; it was essential that the squadrons should not be
too far dispersed; and therefore Admiral Beatty, desisting from
pursuit, ordered a withdrawal, and returned to the _Köln_. She was
sighted at 1:25, with her ensign still flying; the _Lion_ opened fire
upon her from two turrets; a couple of salvoes sufficed to sink her;
and, within ten minutes, she had disappeared. By this time, the
_Arethusa_, the _Fearless_, and the advanced destroyer flotillas had
been in action almost continuously for more than six hours; the
_Arethusa's_ speed, owing to her injuries, was slowly diminishing knot
by knot; upon the bridge of the little _Laurel_, Commander Frank Rose,
with both his legs crippled, still kept his post; three German cruisers
and two destroyers, including the commodore in command, were known to
have been sunk; and, behind the mists in the Bight, nothing was more
likely than that overwhelming reinforcements were hurrying to the spot.
Under these circumstances, Admiral Beatty decided to withdraw his
forces, covering their retirement with his powerful battle-cruisers;
and it was while doing so that Captain Reginald Hall of the _Queen
Mary_ executed one of the smartest manoeuvres of the day. Watching
from his bridge, and travelling at the time something approaching
thirty knots an hour, he saw an enemy torpedo, ten knots faster, that,
in a matter of moments, {42} would strike him amidships. The
destruction of the _Queen Mary_, had the submarine achieved it, would
have more than outbalanced all the German losses, but, by very sharply
turning full helm, the impact was just avoided in time--the
battle-cruiser and torpedo, till the latter sunk, actually travelling
side by side.
This was the last sign of hostile reaction to one of the most brilliant
little raids in our naval history; and, for the closing picture, we
must turn to Admiral Christian, who, with yet another squadron, had
been waiting out at sea. To him and Rear-Admiral Campbell had been
allotted the task of intercepting any vessels that might have escaped
in this direction; and, at about half-past four, some of Admiral
Campbell's cruisers met Commodore Keyes in the returning _Lurcher_.
Limping along in company with him were the destroyers _Laurel_ and
Liberty, and on board her were 220 of the crew of the _Mainz_,
Commodore Keyes having laid himself alongside the burning cruiser with
the greatest chivalry and skill.
The _Laurel_ was by this time quite unable to proceed farther under her
own steam, and she was accordingly taken in tow by the cruiser
_Amethyst_, the _Bacchante_ and _Cressy_ relieving the _Lurcher_ of her
prisoners, and sailing with them to the Nore. Meanwhile, the
_Arethusa_, after her fiery ordeals, was in hardly better case than the
_Laurel_, and, at seven o'clock, after struggling along homeward at
about six knots an hour, found herself unable to proceed farther, and
signalled for assistance. Two and a half hours later it was then pitch
dark--and with no lights, of course, permissible, the _Hogue_ took her
in tow, the {43} necessary arrangements being carried out with the aid
of a couple of hand lanterns.
So the day ended without the loss to ourselves of a single vessel of
any description; and when, many hours afterward, the news having
preceded her, the _Arethusa_ returned to harbour, scarred and
lopsided--with her eleven dead and seventeen wounded officers and
men--it was little wonder that every ship's syren of all that were
assembled there blew her a welcome, and that every seaman who could
scramble on deck cheered and cheered her again till he was hoarse.
{44}