By this time the firing had ceased, while, the search-lights of the
German war-ships having been screened, intense darkness brooded over the
scene. The sea was rising rapidly, as if Nature was about to assert her
power over the opposing fleets.
Exposed to the full force of the wind and waves, Sefton stood upon the
remaining portion of the bridge, with his lieutenant-commander reclining
within easy distance. Crosthwaite had given his subordinate strict
orders to inform him of the moment when the Huns were again sighted.
His wounds mattered little. Provided his head were cool and his brain
alert the _Calder's_ skipper meant to miss no part of the next phase of
the scrap.
The destroyer was now steaming in almost the opposite direction to that
by which she had penetrated the enemy line. She was five or six miles
to leeward of the German ships and possibly three times that distance
from the British main fleet.
Far away to the west'ard came the dull rumble of a furious cannonade.
"Our light cruisers are having a scrap with the Hun destroyers,"
muttered Sefton. "By Jove, this is a night!"
The sub was correct in his surmise. Although the British heavy ships
were not attacked during the night, thanks to the screen provided by the
Second Light-cruiser Squadron and several of the destroyer flotillas,
the enemy torpedo-craft were several times in touch with the "fringes of
the fleet".
Darkness played many strange pranks with the combatants, mistakes that
more than once told against the Huns occurring with remarkable
persistency.
On one occasion a battleship of the "Kaiser" class was observed by the
_Fearless_. The Hun was entirely isolated, and was steaming at full
speed. The British destroyer was unable to engage her gigantic
antagonist--the two vessels passing in opposite directions at an
aggregate rate of 50 miles an hour. To launch a torpedo would almost
certainly result in a miss, while it was extremely hazardous for the
_Fearless_ to turn and follow, without colliding with other British
destroyers following much farther astern. Nor did the German battleship
make any attempt to engage; possibly the _Fearless_ was not visible from
the war-ship's deck.
Holding on her course, the _Fearless_ warned her consorts by wireless,
and a heavy explosion long after told its own tale.
An even more remarkable incident occurred during the night. Several
British light cruisers were steaming in line ahead when a severely
mauled German ocean-going torpedo-boat was observed approaching.
Mistaken for one of our destroyers, the two leading cruisers let her
slip past within the distance of a cable's length. The third, taking no
risks, suddenly unmasked her search-lights and played them full upon the
stranger. Caught in the blinding glare, her crew could be seen hard at
work endeavouring to turn a pair of torpedo-tubes abeam--a task of
considerable difficulty owing to the "racer" being damaged.
The British light cruiser saved them the job in a most effectual manner.
Depressing her for'ard 9.2-inch gun, she sent a huge shell at
point-blank range crashing into the light-built hull.
[Illustration: "SHE SENT A HUGE SHELL AT POINT-BLANK RANGE CRASHING INTO
THE LIGHT-BUILT HULL"]
A blinding flash, a huge puff of smoke, and all was over. The
search-light played upon an expanse of agitated water where, five
seconds before, a German torpedo-craft had been churning on her way.
Meanwhile the _Calder_ held resolutely on her course, ignorant of her
position relative to the enemy fleet, and liable at any moment to "knock
up against" one of the German light cruisers.
Crosthwaite had now resumed command. His unconquerable determination
had soared above physical injuries. He was not out for personal kudos.
Actuated solely by a desire to uphold the prestige of the Grand Fleet,
and his own flotilla in particular, he was determined to hurl the
_Calder_ between the hostile lines. It mattered little that the
destroyer was unsupported--for long since she had lost touch with her
consorts. Even if none of her officers and crew returned to tell the
tale, he was confident that the craft under his command would play her
part in a manner worthy of the time-honoured traditions of the British
navy.
Presently a high dark mass was observed almost ahead and slightly on the
destroyer's port bow. It was a hostile battleship. She was lying
athwart the _Calder's_ course, with a considerable list to starboard,
and proceeding at a rate of about four knots. Her foremast had been shot
away, and with it the for'ard funnel, which in ships of this class is
close to the mast. One of her two steel derricks had collapsed, the
curved end trailing over the side. Long gashes in her armoured plates
testified to the accuracy and power of the British gunnery.
Already the torpedoes had been "launched home" into the _Calder's_ twin
tubes. In any case the battleship must not be allowed to crawl into
port, even if she should be incapable of repairs for months.
Crosthwaite was about to con the destroyer in order to bring the
torpedo-tubes to bear, when the already stricken battleship gave a
violent lurch, from which she made no attempt at recovery.
Farther and farther she heeled, the rush of water into her hull and the
hiss of escaping air being distinctly audible above the howling of the
wind. Her crew--or, rather, the survivors--could be heard as they leapt
from the steeply inclined decks. There was no need for a torpedo to
administer the _coup de grace_.
Five minutes later only the battleship's keel-plates and the tips of the
four propellers remained above the surface, by which time the _Calder_
had left her well astern and was approaching the double lines of hostile
light cruisers, whose indistinct shapes were just beginning to be
visible against the patch of starlight that penetrated a gap in the inky
mist.
A sudden blinding glare enveloped the _Calder_, causing her
lieutenant-commander, quartermaster, and helmsman to blink helplessly.
Fairly caught by the rays of half a dozen search-lights, they were
temporarily blinded as effectually as if their eyes had been bandaged
with opaque scarves.
Fortunately Sefton's back was turned from the direction in which the
destroyer was proceeding. The unmasking of the concentrated rays warned
him. Shielding his eyes, he turned and made a dash for the steam
steering-gear, the wheel of which the helmsman was still grasping
automatically.
"Hard-a-port!" shouted the sub.
The man made no attempt to carry out the order, but, slowly bending
forward, collapsed upon the bridge. A fragment of shell had pierced his
brain.
Pushing the body aside, Sefton put the helm hard over, and the
destroyer, screened by an intervening vessel that fortunately did not
make use of her search-lights, entered a darkened patch between the
brilliantly lighted areas on either side.
With her remaining guns spitting defiance at the hostile light cruisers,
and launching her torpedoes immediately a target presented itself, the
destroyer continued her devoted dash. Projectiles, large and small,
hurtled overhead, while, rapidly hit again and again, she was soon
reduced to a mere wreck.
The German cruisers had a fair and easy mark. Had their gun-layers been
equal to the British, the _Calder_ would have been blown clean out of
the water; but the terrible night had told upon their nerves. A
wholesome dread of the British destroyers with their deadly torpedoes
was present in their minds. Not knowing whether the solitary destroyer
was supported by others of the flotilla, they were under the impression
that the _Calder_ was leading a line of swift vessels, and the surmise
was not comforting to the Huns.
In the midst of the tornado of shell one of the _Calder's_ torpedoes
"got home", ripping open the bottom of a light cruiser and causing an
internal explosion that tore her to pieces. So close was the destroyer
that the terrific rush of displaced air was distinctly felt, while a
dense cloud of smoke from the sinking cruiser, driving to leeward across
the foam-flecked and shell-sprayed waves, completely enveloped the
little craft that had dealt the successful blow.
"Take her out of action if you can," exclaimed a voice which Sefton
recognized as that of his commanding officer. "I'm done in, I'm
afraid."
The cloud of smoke saved the _Calder_ from destruction, for, turning
while still in the midst of the impenetrable pall of vapour, the
destroyer slipped away from the rays of search-lights, and, doubling,
literally staggered in an opposite direction to the one she had been
keeping a minute before.
In vain the German search-lights swept the sea in the supposed position
of the daring destroyer, until, convinced that she had shared the fate
of their lost light cruiser, they screened lights and re-formed line.
Once more, in the pitch-black darkness of the night, Sefton began to
realize the responsibility of his position. Crosthwaite was now lying
motionless--either he had fainted from loss of blood or else he was
already dead. In spite of his anxiety on his skipper's behalf, Sefton
was unable to lift a finger to help him. The sub was the only one left
standing on the bridge, and whether the bridge was part of a sinking
vessel he knew not. A strange silence brooded over the _Calder_, broken
occasionally by the moans and groans of wounded men who littered her
deck.
Yet Sefton's instructions were clear up to a certain point. He had to
take the destroyer out of action. To all intents this part of his duty
had been carried out. The _Calder_, in a damaged, perhaps foundering,
condition, was alone on the wild North Sea.
The dark form of a bluejacket clambered up the twisted bridge-ladder,
and, crossing to where Sefton stood, touched his shoulder.
"Where's the sub-lootenant, mate?" he asked.
"I'm here, Brown," replied the young officer.
"Beg pardon, sir," replied the A.B. "Couldn't recognize you in the
darkness. Thought I'd see if you was all right."
"Thanks," replied Sefton, touched by the man's devotion. "How goes it
on deck?"
"A clean sweep, sir," replied Brown. "A regular wipe-out. Copped us
proper, the swine. Both tubes knocked out, after 4-inch blown clean
over the side."
"Do you know if we're making much water?" asked the sub anxiously, for
the sluggish way in which the destroyer laboured through the water gave
rise to considerable apprehension in that respect.
"Can't say, sir."
"Then pass the word for the senior petty officer to report to me."
The A.B. hurried off, muttering curiously expressed words of
thanksgiving at his young officer's escape. Gratitude had been a
hitherto undeveloped trait in Brown's nature, until that memorable
occasion when Sefton risked his life, if not exactly to save, to be with
him when he found himself in the "ditch".
Groping for the voice-tube from the bridge to the engine-room, for the
telegraph had disappeared, Sefton attempted to call up the
engineer-lieutenant, but in vain. This means of communication with the
engine-room was completely interrupted.
It seemed an interminable time before the desired petty officer reported
himself to the bridge. He was a short, lightly-built man, holding the
rank of gunner's mate, and was a capable and fairly well-educated
specimen of the lower deck. Yet, had it been daylight, and he had been
dumped down just as he was in the streets of a naval town, he would have
been promptly run in by the police as a vagrant. His features were
literally hidden in soot mingled with blood, for a shell had hurled him
face downwards upon a jagged steel grating, which had harrowed his face
in a disfiguring though not dangerous fashion. His scanty uniform was
in ribbons, and smelt strongly of smouldering embers, while a black
scarf tied tightly round his left leg below the knee failed to stop a
steady trickle from a shrapnel wound.
Briefly and to the point the petty officer made his report. The
_Calder_ had been hulled in more than twenty places, but only three
holes were betwixt wind and water. These had already admitted a
considerable quantity of water, but temporary repairs were already in
hand. The steam-pumps had been damaged, but were capable of being set
right, while the use of the hand-pumps enabled the sorry remnant of the
destroyer's crew to keep the leaks well under control.
Nevertheless the _Calder_ no longer rose buoyantly to the waves. A
sullen, listless movement told its own tale. Not without a grim,
determined struggle would her crew be able successfully to combat the
joint effects of war and rough weather.
On deck most of the fittings had been swept clear. Of the funnel only
seven feet of jagged stump remained. The rest had vanished. Both masts
had been shot away close to the deck. Of the conning-tower only the
base was left; the rest had been blown away almost with the last shell
fired at point-blank range. The _Calder's_ raised fo'c'sle no longer
existed. From two feet close to the water-line at the stem, and rising
obliquely to the foot of the bridge, there was nothing left but an
inclined plane of bent and perforated steel plates.
"Our own mother wouldn't know us, sir," concluded the petty officer.
"Let us hope she'll have the chance," rejoined Sefton, wondering whether
it was humanly possible once more to bring the crippled vessel alongside
her parent ship, or whether the _Calder_ would again berth alongside the
jetty at far-off Rosyth.
The arrival of half a dozen men enabled Sefton to have the commanding
officer removed below. Anxiously the sub awaited Stirling's verdict.
The report was long in coming, but the doctor's hands were full to
overflowing. During that terrible night many a man owed his life, under
Providence, to the administrations of the young medico. Indifferent to
his own peril, although the crippled destroyer was straining badly in
the heavy seas, Pills toiled like a galley-slave in the semi-darkness,
for the electric light had failed, and the temporary operating-room,
crowded with ghastly cases, was illuminated only by the glimmer of three
oil-lamps.
"That you, Pills?" enquired Sefton anxiously, as an officer,
distinguishable only by his uniform cap stuck at a comical angle on the
top of his head, clambered upon the bridge.
"No--Boxspanner," replied that worthy. "At least what's left of him.
Where's the skipper?"
"Knocked out."
"Done in?"
Sefton shook his head.
"Don't know," he replied. "Pills has him in hand. In any case he's got
it pretty badly. Well, how goes it?"
"Can't get more'n five knots out of the engines," replied the
engineer-lieutenant. "Port engine-room reduced to scrap. There was
three feet of water in the stokeholds, but it's subsiding, thank
goodness! Deuce of a mess when the lights went out. Stumbled over a
man and banged my head. It feels like a blister on the tyre of a
car--liable to burst at any moment, don't you know. The fellow strafed
me for treading on him. Asked him what the deuce he was lying there
for, since he had wind enough to kick up a row. What do you think he
was up to?"
"Can't say," replied Sefton.
"Plugging a shot-hole with his bare back. Had his shoulder wedged
against the gash. He'd been like that for twenty minutes--and he'd lost
three fingers of the right hand."
"You'll have to make a special report," remarked the sub.
"A special report of every man of my department you mean!" exclaimed
Boxspanner enthusiastically. "By Jove! If you could have seen them----"
The arrival of the doctor cut short the engineer-lieutenant's eulogies.
"Just up for a breather," gasped Stirling. "Thought I'd let you know how
things are going in my line. A bit stiff our butcher's bill. The
skipper's pretty rough. Took a wicked-looking chunk of high-explosive
shell out of his forehead. I've had the deuce of a job to stop the flow
of arterial blood from a gash in his leg. He'll pull through. He's as
hard as nails."
"That's good," said Sefton and Boxspanner in one breath.
"Talking of nails," continued Stirling, "I've just had a rum
case--Thompson, the leading signalman. Took fifty pieces of metal from
his hide. The poor wretch couldn't sit down, although the wounds were
light. Those strafed Huns had crammed one of their shrapnel-shells with
gramophone needles. Fact! I'm not joking! I suppose they haven't the
heart for any more music, so they made us a present of the needles. How
much longer to daybreak?"
"About a quarter to three, Greenwich time," replied Sefton. "I haven't
a watch."
He did not think it necessary to explain that his wristlet watch had
been ripped from its strap by a flying fragment of shell. He was
becoming painfully aware of the circumstance, for every movement of his
wrist gave him a sharp pain.
Boxspanner crossed over to the temporary binnacle--one removed from the
wreckage of one of the boats--for the destroyer's standard compass had
gone the way of the majority of the deck-fittings, while the
gyro-compass, placed in the safest part of the vessel, had been
dismounted by the bursting of a shell.
"It's only a quarter past eleven," he announced dolorously, as he
consulted his watch by the feeble light of the binnacle.
"Rot!" ejaculated the doctor. "It was midnight when we went into
action."
The engineer-lieutenant made a second examination. The glass of the
watch had been completely broken; not even a fragment remained. The
hands had gone, while across the dial were two cracks in such positions
that they had misled Boxspanner into the belief that they were the
hands. Yet, on holding the timepiece to his ear and listening
intently--for like the rest of the _Calder's_ complement he was
temporarily deafened from the result of the violent gun-fire--he found
that the watch was still going.
"It's getting light already," observed Stirling, pointing to a
pale-reddish hue in the north-eastern sky. "Well, I must away. More
patching and mending demand my modest attention."
Slowly the dawn broke, a crimson glow betwixt the dark, scudding masses
of clouds betokening a continuance of the hard blow, and plenty of it.
With the rising sea the task of the _Calder's_ crew increased tenfold.
Anxiously the horizon was swept in the hope of a friendly vessel being
sighted, but the sky-line was unbroken. The tide of battle, if the
action were still being maintained, had rolled away beyond sight and
hearing of the little band of heroes who so worthily maintained the
prestige of the White Ensign.