The Demolition Party
A double crash announced that the leading battleship of the British
squadron had opened fire with her foremost 12-inch guns. In two
minutes the action had become general, the whole of the British and
French pre-Dreadnoughts engaging with their principal armament, for as
yet the range was too great for the 6-inch guns and smaller weapons to
be trained upon the distant defences.
Ahead, the mine-sweepers, "straddled" by the hail of projectiles from
Sedd-ul-Bahr and Kum Kale, as well as from mobile batteries cunningly
concealed in difficult ground, proceeded with slow and grim
determination. All across them the sea was churned by the ricochetting
shells, while ever and anon a terrific waterspout accompanied by a dull
roar showed that they were making good work in clearing away the
hostile mines.
The Turks, in spite of the huge 12-inch projectiles that hailed
incessantly upon the forts, stood to their guns with fanatical bravery.
Tons of brickwork and masonry would be hurled high in the air, after
taking with them the mangled remains of the Ottoman gunners and
up-ending the Turkish weapon as easily as if it were a mere drain-pipe.
Yet a few minutes later the defenders would bring up a field-piece and
blaze away across the ruins at the nearest of the British mine-sweepers.
"Port 6-inch battery to fire," came the order.
Almost simultaneously the six secondary armament guns added their quota
of death and destruction to the slower crash of the heavier weapons in
the barbettes.
The _Hammerer_ and her consorts were rapidly closing the shore, taking
advantage of the already seriously damaged forts.
It was by no means a one-sided engagement. Shells from the Turkish
defences were ricochetting all around the British warships or expending
themselves harmlessly against the armoured plating. Other projectiles
tore through the unprotected sides and upper works. Well it was that
orders had been given out not to man the 12-pounder quick-firers on the
upper deck. Had these weapons been used the casualties here must have
been very heavy, for the light battery resembled a scrap-iron store.
Suddenly the men serving the gun in the casemate stopped their rapid
yet deliberate work. A hostile shell had penetrated the 6-inch side
armour almost under the casemate and had burst close to the lower part
of the foremast. The shock well-nigh capsized the Sub, and almost
caused the man at the ammunition hoist to drop the hundred-pound shell
that he was in the act of transferring to the breech of the weapon.
Suffocating fumes eddied through the ammunition hoist into the confined
space. In the dim light men were gasping for breath, expecting every
moment to find the magazine beneath their feet blown up.
"Hoist out of action, sir," reported one of the men, as he threw the
contents of a bucket of water down the choked tube. Although
everything of a supposedly inflammable nature had been got rid of, the
heat generated by the explosion had been sufficient to start a fire,
and the seat of the conflagration was between the armoured floor of the
casemate and the magazine below the water-line.
"That's done it," ejaculated Dick dejectedly. It was not on account of
the danger, for the men remained calmly within the casemate, trusting
to the fire-party to extinguish the flames that were perilously close
to the magazine. He was deploring the fact that the jamming of the
ammunition hoist had deprived his gun of its supply of shells. The
weapon was as much out of action as if the entire gun's crew had been
annihilated. It seemed so humiliating to be inactive.
"Number one 6-inch, why are you not firing?" inquired an officer in the
conning-tower through one of the voice tubes. There was a tinge of
anxiety in his voice. He had noticed the sudden cessation of fire from
that particular weapon, and it looked ominous.
"Ammunition hoist damaged, sir," replied the Sub.
"Any casualties?"
"No, sir."
"Then stand by."
Dick heard the whistle replaced in the tube as the officer completed
his enquiries. Then hard-a-port the _Hammerer_ described a semicircle,
in order to bring her as yet unengaged starboard battery into action.
By this time the Turkish reply was but a feeble one. Pounded by the
direct fire from the pre-Dreadnoughts; shattered by the long-range
high-angle fire of the _Queen Elizabeth_ and the _Invincible_, the
forts were little better than mounds of rubbish.
Already the British warships had penetrated more than two miles up the
formidable Straits, the mine-sweepers performing their difficult task
with the utmost coolness and bravery. Night was coming on. All that
could be done was to make sure of the complete reduction of the
southernmost forts, and continue the sweeping operations as a prelude
to a farther advance on the morrow.
Two British seaplanes, hovering at a height of nearly a thousand feet
above the hostile positions, reported by wireless that the Turks were
abandoning their shattered forts. The opportunity had arrived to
consummate the day's work. A signal was made from the flagship to land
armed parties. Joyfully the order was received, for the British seaman
is not content with doing a lot of damage from afar; he must needs see
for himself the result of his efforts.
Still maintaining a steady fire with their secondary batteries, the
ships proceeded to hoist out their boats. Into these dropped seamen
and marines, armed with rifles and bayonets, Maxims were passed into
the boats, and charges of gun-cotton carefully stowed away for future
use in completing the destruction of the Turkish guns.
"At this rate we'll be through in less than a week," remarked
Midshipman Sefton to Dick, as they sat in the stern-sheets of a launch
packed with armed seamen. The launch was in tow of a steam pinnace,
while astern of her were two more boats, equally crowded.
"Seems like it," answered Crosthwaite, as he looked towards the rapidly
nearing shore--a wild, precipitous line of rocks, surmounted by a pile
of masonry that a few hours before was one of the strongest points of
defence of the Dardanelles. "The Commander told me that the
mine-sweepers ought to clear away all the mines as far as the Narrows
within the next twenty-four hours. It's in the Narrows we're going to
have a tough job."
Without a shot being fired--for the _moral_ of the Turks seemed
crushed--the boats grounded on the shore, and rapidly but in perfect
order the demolition party landed, formed up, and began the difficult
climb to the already sorely battered fort.
"What are you doing here, Sefton?" asked the Sub, observing that the
midshipman was following him. "Your place is in your boat, you know."
"I asked the Commander's permission," replied Sefton. "It's not every
day that I get a chance of examining a demolished position."
If the truth be told, Sefton was somewhat disappointed. He expected a
"bit of a scrap" and a chance to use the heavy Service revolver that he
wore in a large, buff-leather holster. At present it was of no use; it
was an encumbrance.
"Steady, men," cautioned Crosthwaite, as those of the section under his
orders were pressing forward somewhat recklessly. "There may be an
ambush."
The warning was justifiable, for the strange silence which brooded over
the hillside was somewhat ominous. The _Hammerer's_ men had landed in
three parties, two being each under the command of a lieutenant, while
Crosthwaite had the third. Between these bodies of men there a keen
rivalry as to who should first reach the demolished fort; and as each
was advancing by a separate route and was almost entirely hidden from
the others, the Sub's party had no means of judging the pace of their
friendly competitors.
"'Ware barbed wire."
The men brought up suddenly. They were approaching the nearmost limit
of the shell-torn ground. Deep cavities had been made in the rocky
soil by the explosions of the heavy projectiles, yet the outer line of
barbed wire was almost intact. The posts supporting the obstruction
had been blown to atoms, but the wires were twisted and fused into a
long, single, and almost inflexible coil impervious to the attacks of
the seamen provided with wire-cutters.
A ripping sound, followed by a yell, announced the failure of a burly
bluejacket to wriggle under the obstruction. Pinned down by the barbed
wire, he was unable to move until his comrades, with a roar of laughter
at his hapless plight, succeeded in extricating him.
"We'll prise it up, sir," exclaimed a petty officer. "The men can then
wriggle underneath."
"Won't do," objected the Sub firmly. "It will have to be removed."
Two men advanced with slabs of gun-cotton, but again Dick demurred.
"No explosives to be used in the demolition of obstructions," he
ordered. "They must be kept for the enemy's guns. We don't want to
alarm the rest of the landing-party. Bend a rope there, and half a
dozen of you clap on for all you're worth."
A rope was speedily forthcoming. The stalwart bluejackets, digging
their heels into the sloping ground, tugged heroically. The stout wire
sagged, quivered, and resisted their efforts.
The Sub realized that the obstruction must be removed. Although it was
possible to crawl underneath, as the petty officer had suggested, it
would never do to leave a trap like that between the fort and the shore.
In the event of an ambuscade and a retirement to the boats, delay in
negotiating the entanglements might spell disaster.
Another half a dozen men assisted their comrades. Still the wire, now
at a terrific tension, showed no signs of being wrenched from its hold.
"All together--heave!"
With a burly "Heave-ho" the dozen bluejackets made a fresh effort.
Balked, they gave a tremendous jerk. Something had to go, but it was
not the wire. The rope parted with a crack, and twelve seamen were
struggling in a confused heap on the steep hillside, while little
Sefton, caught by the human avalanche, found himself head over heels in
a particularly aggressive thorn-bush.
"Work round to the right there, and see what the infernal wire is made
fast to!" ordered the Sub impatiently. "Look alive there, or the
others will be at the top before us."
Four or five men hastened to carry out his commands. The work was of a
difficult nature, for on either side of the rugged path by which the
party had ascended thus far the ground was precipitous and thickly
dotted with bushes.
Figuratively hanging on by their eyebrows the seamen worked along,
following the course of the aggressive wire, till they were lost to
sight beyond a fantastically shaped boulder.
Suddenly one of the men reappeared.
"Here's a blessed 12-pounder, sir," he announced. "What are we to do
with it?"
Followed by Midshipman Sefton, who in the excitement caused by this
latest discovery had lost all interest in the painful operation of
extracting thorns from various remote portions of his anatomy,
Crosthwaite hastened to the spot with as much haste as the nature of
the ground would permit. The rest of the men, with the exception of
those detailed to carry the explosives, also scrambled over the
intervening ground.
A ghastly sight met their gaze. Beyond the boulder, and screened from
seaward by a partly-burnt cluster of brushwood, was a field-piece. One
wheel of the carriage had been smashed. The other was held only by a
few spokes, while the muzzle of the weapon was buried deep in the
ground. Coiled round the chase and jammed between the trunnion and the
carriage was the end of the barbed wire. The gun was splattered with
the yellow deposit from the explosion of a British lyddite shell, while
all around lay the mangled bodies of the Turkish artillerymen. Five
yards to the rear of the damaged weapon were the scanty remains of a
limber. The same shell that had wrought the destruction of the gun and
the men who served it, had completely exploded the ammunition.
"Smash the breech mechanism!" ordered Dick.
Two of the armourer's crew sprang to the gun for the purpose of
breaking the interrupted screw-thread that locks the breech-block in
the gun. Their efforts were in vain, for the explosion of the shell
had rendered the breech-block incapable of being moved.
A fresh rope was speedily forthcoming. Its bight was placed under the
heel of the 12-pounder, and by the united efforts of the seamen the
heavy weapon was up-ended and toppled over the slope. Crashing through
the brushwood, it rolled and bounded for quite a hundred feet, then
with a resounding splash disappeared underneath the waters of the
Dardanelles. The remains of the carriage were then hurled over, but,
held up by the barbed wire that had caused so much fruitless effort,
the mass of shattered steel effected a twofold purpose in its fall. It
swept the cliff path clear of brushwood and brought the barbed wire
into a position that it no longer formed an obstruction.
"This way up, men!" exclaimed Dick, pointing to a fairly broad and easy
path in the rear of the gun emplacement. The Turks had conducted their
defence with considerable cunning, for midway between the fort and the
shore they had, by great exertion and ingenuity, placed several
field-guns in well-sheltered spots, hoping that while the fire of the
Allies was directed upon the visible batteries, their light pieces
could with comparative impunity deliver a galling fire upon the
mine-sweepers and the covering torpedo-boat destroyers. Unfortunately
for the enemy the far-reaching effect of the heavy shells had resulted
in the silencing of the concealed weapons, the men serving them being
for the most part slain at their posts. A few had attempted to escape,
but before they got beyond the danger zone they too were wiped out by
the death-dealing lyddite.
The path Dick had indicated was the one by which the field-pieces had
been lowered from the higher ground. It was obstructed in several
places by craters torn by the explosion of the British shells, but
these afforded no difficulty to the bluejackets.
Wellnigh breathless with their exertions, they reached the fort only to
find, to their chagrin, that they had been forestalled by their
friendly rivals, for the British flag floated proudly on the captured
position.
So devastating had been the fire from the ships that the fort was
little better than a shattered heap of brickwork and masonry.
Armour-plated shields had been rent like paper, guns of immense size
been dismounted and hurled aside like straws. Bodies of the devoted
Ottoman garrison lay in heaps. Everything was smothered with a
yellowish hue from the deadly lyddite and melanite. Yet several of the
huge 80-ton guns were seemingly serviceable. These had to be rendered
totally useless by means of slabs of gun-cotton placed well within the
muzzle and fired electrically.
Sub-lieutenant Crosthwaite was studiously engaged in making a rough
plan of the fort when Sefton, his soot-grimed face red with excitement,
approached him.
"I believe I've found a magazine or something, sir," he exclaimed.
"It's a funny sort of shop--like a tunnel. There are half a dozen
Turks there----"
"Eh?" ejaculated Dick incredulously.
"Dead as door-nails," Sefton hastened to explain. "They look as if
they had been suffocated. But the air's pure enough down there now."
Placing his notebook in his pocket, the Sub walked with Sefton across
the littered open space in the centre of the fort till they came to a
salient angle that faced the northern or landward side. Here the
rubble rose to a height of about twenty feet. In places the wall,
composed of armour-plate and concrete, had been riven from top to
bottom, huge slabs of masonry being held up only by mutual support. On
the top of the debris were half a dozen bluejackets, taking advantage
of the daylight that still remained in flag-wagging a message to one of
the destroyers.
"Here's the show," announced Sefton, pointing to a narrow passage
between two immense artificial boulders.
At one time the opening had been much wider, and had been provided with
stone steps, but the irresistible shock had contracted the passage, and
had buried most of the steps under a heap of rubble.
"We want a lantern for the job," observed Dick. "How did you manage to
see? You ought not to have gone on an exploring expedition without
someone accompanying you."
"I've brought my electric torch," said the midshipman, studiously
ignoring the latter portion of the Sub's remarks.
Unnoticed by the signalling party, the two young officers descended.
For twenty yards they had to exercise considerable effort in order to
negotiate the bulging sides, but beyond this the passage opened to a
width of nearly six feet.
"Mind where you tread," cautioned Sefton, flashing his lamp on the
ground. "They are not dangerous, but it isn't pleasant."
Either lying on the stone floor or propped up in a sitting position
against the wall were the bodies of several Turkish infantrymen. Most
of them were tunicless, while half a dozen 100-pounder shells lying on
the ground showed that these men were engaged in bringing ammunition
from the magazine when death in the form of lyddite fumes overtook
them. There were no visible marks of wounds, so it was fairly safe to
conclude that no shell had burst within the tunnel. Further, it showed
that somewhere underneath the ruined fort was a still intact store of
projectiles which would have to be rendered useless to the Turks before
the demolition party returned to their ship.
"Didn't those fellows give you a turn?" enquired Dick.
"A bit at first," admitted the midshipman. "Then when I realized that
if they had meant mischief they would have plugged me long before I saw
them, I began to think something was wrong with them--and there was."
For nearly a hundred feet the passage zigzagged. With the exception of
the dip near the main entrance the floor was almost level. At
intervals were niches covered with steel slabs. The place had been
electrically lighted, but owing to the destruction of the power-house
the lamps were extinguished. Sefton's surmise was correct. It was a
magazine, for the peculiar pattern of the electric bulbs in their
double glass coverings told Dick the reason for the precaution.
"This is as far as I have been," announced Sefton, pointing to a heavy
canvas screen.
"Then we had better both go carefully," added Dick, drawing his
revolver, an example that the midshipman eagerly hastened to follow.
"Don't go letting rip, mind, without you want to blow the whole crowd
of us to pieces. Use your revolver as a moral persuader if there
should be any of the enemy skulking here."
Telling the midshipman to keep close to the wall, and to hold the torch
at arm's-length with the rays directed into the unexplored part of the
tunnel, Dick pulled aside the curtain, half-expecting to find himself
confronted by a dozen more or less intimidated ammunition-bearers.
The place was deserted.
"We'll carry on," said the Sub. "By Jove, what a big show! Absolutely
shell-proof, I should imagine."
"I can only just hear the row outside," added the midshipman, as the
muffled reports of the guncotton explosions showed that the demolition
party were doing their work thoroughly.
The magazine was a vault hewn out of the solid rock. It had evidently
been in existence for some years, certainly before the modernizing of
the fortifications. The ammunition stowed here consisted of shells for
the smaller quick-firers, as the absence of tram-lines for conveying
the projectiles that were too heavy to man-handle proved.
"Krupp ammunition," reported Sefton, flashing his torch upon the base
of one of the brass cylinders. "My word, when our fellows bust that
lot up, won't the Turks feel a bit sick!"
"We'll get the men to bring the firing-charges as soon as possible,"
said Dick. "If we had known of this before, it would have saved no end
of work. There would have been no need to have destroyed every gun
singly."
"Can't say I envy the fellow who has to fire the stuff," added Sefton.
"Hello, what's that?"
The noise of the detonating charges had ceased. Instead came the
unmistakable crackle of rifle-firing.
"Look alive!" ordered the Sub. "Our fellows are being attacked."
Brushing aside the canvas screen the two officers made their way along
the tunnel as swiftly as the dancing beams of the midshipman's torch
permitted.
Before they reached the rise leading to the open air there was a
terrific concussion. A waft of hot, pungent fumes bore down upon Dick
and his companion. They were compelled to stop, almost choking in the
stifling atmosphere. The rays from the torch failed to penetrate the
dense brownish cloud of smoke and dust.
"Carry on," spluttered Dick; then noticing that the midshipman seemed
on the point of asphyxiation, he seized the torch and, dragging his
companion, made for the open air.
Suddenly he came to an abrupt halt. The gap between the crumbling
walls no longer existed. They were trapped.