Throughout the long-drawn night the survivors of the _Calder's_ crew
battled manfully against increasing difficulties in their efforts to
save the destroyer from foundering. The faulty bulkhead, shored and
barricaded with tightly-packed hammocks and other canvas gear, required
constant watching. The pumps were working continuously, relays of men
undertaking the arduous task in the high-spirited manner that pervades
the navy, especially when confronted with danger and peril.
Not once during the hours of darkness did Sefton quit the remnants of
the bridge. Without the aid of navigating instruments, save the
inadequate compass, the destroyer's course could not be maintained with
the customary precision. Variation and deviation--factors carefully
guarded against in ordinary circumstances--were affecting the boat's
liquid compass, but to what extent Sefton knew not. With a vague idea
that he would "fetch" the Firth of Forth, the sub held on, the grinding
revolutions of the remaining propeller dinning into his ears the
knowledge that the old _Calder_ was momentarily, but slowly, approaching
the shores of Britain.
A cup of unfragrant tea, sweetened with condensed milk, and a biscuit
which was strongly scented with a peculiarly acrid smell, were
gratefully accepted by the wellnigh exhausted sub. The man who brought
the refreshments to the bridge had not thought it necessary to explain
that he had scraped the sodden tea from the floor of the shell-wrecked
officers'-pantry, or that he had been compelled to wash the salt water
from 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 was
visible; all around, sea and sky blended in a dark, ill-defined murk.
At four bells the helmsman was relieved. He was the seventh consecutive
man whom Sefton had seen taking his trick at the wheel, but still the
sub stuck gamely at his post. He would have given almost anything to
throw 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. His
wounds, too, although slight, were beginning to feel painfully stiff.
The sea-water, penetrating his ragged uniform, irritated the abrasions
almost beyond endurance. He yearned in vain for a hot bath and a change
of clothing.
"How goes it now?" enquired a tired voice, hardly recognizable as that
of Dr. Stirling. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere in the North Sea, old bird," replied Sefton, with a forced
laugh. "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 a
discovery--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 with
avidity. For hours he had longed in vain for a smoke. His own supply
had vanished. Several hundred, having fallen through a jagged rent in
the ward-room floor, were lying, a sodden pulp, in the water that surged
in the ship's bilges.
"Thanks awfully!" he exclaimed gratefully.
"Bit of luck," continued Stirling. "Found the case in the wreckage of
the beer barrel. I don't think the stuff's affected them. Case seems
pretty tight. Thought I'd come on deck and have half a dozen whiffs
with you."
Crouching under the lee of the canvas screen that had been rigged up to
replace 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 frightful
rapidity.
Dropping the cigarette like a hot cinder, Sefton sprang to his feet,
fully convinced that the long-expected catastrophe had occurred, and
that the bulkhead had given way. Stirling, his first thoughts for his
patients, scurried down the bridge-ladder and ran aft to where the
double line of wounded men lay, each covered by a hammock to protect him
from the night dews and drifting spray.
A minute passed. There was no impetuous inrush of water. The bulkhead
was still holding. The engine-room ratings had shut off steam, and the
horrible, 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 had
struck some partly submerged object, with the result that the destroyer
was 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 now
useless boilers escaped skywards. The overworked engine-room and
stokehold 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 the
scene on deck as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. Then, with a
quick, decisive movement, the giant ray was depressed, until it played
fairly 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 sound
travelling distinctly across the intervening water.
A couple of cables' lengths from the stationary _Calder_ was a large
destroyer, with her search-light directed upon the object of her
enquiry.
Sefton's reply was inaudible. The direction of the wind and the lack of
a megaphone prevented his words from being understood. Again the
challenge was repeated.
Standing erect in the full glare of the searchlight, and apart from his
companions, a petty officer semaphored the desired information.
"Stand by to receive a hawser," commanded the lieutenant-commander of
the unknown destroyer. "We'll take you in tow."
The vessel was T.B.D. _Basher_, one of the inner patrol of destroyers
operating between St. Abb's Head and Spurn Point. Pelting along at 20
knots in the darkness, her first intimation of the proximity of the
crippled _Calder_ was the hiss of steam from her boilers. Prepared to
open fire at an instant's notice, she trained her quick-firers abeam and
switched on her search-lights, only to discover that she had fortunately
fallen in with a "lame duck" from the Jutland battle--a craft whose
absence was beginning to give rise to considerable apprehension on the
part 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 the
head.
"Yes, sir," agreed Sefton. "There will be less pressure upon the
bulkhead for'ard. It has been giving us some anxiety."
"Is Crosthwaite on board?" enquired the lieutenant-commander of the
rescuing 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 busy
ever since sending out fantastic claims to a decisive victory over the
British fleet. On paper they certainly beat us hollow, but the funny
part about it is that Jellicoe made a demonstration in force off the
Bight of Heligoland yesterday, and the beggars funked the invitation.
By the by, the sea's fairly calm. We'll run alongside and tranship your
wounded. It will save a lot of bother if you have to abandon ship."
Adroitly manoeuvred in the darkness, for the search-lights were now
screened lest a prowling U boat might take advantage of the motionless
British destroyers, the _Basher_ was made fast to her disabled consort.
Carefully the wounded men were transferred, Dr. Stirling, at the sub's
request, going with them, since the _Basher_ was one of a class of
destroyers without the services of a medical man.
There was one exception. Crosthwaite resolutely declined to leave his
ship.
"She's brought us through thus far," he declared, "and I'll stick to her
until we fetch home. Where are we now?"
Sefton was unable to reply until he had enquired of the _Basher's_
navigating officer the position of the ship. The answer was somewhat
astonishing; the _Calder_, when picked up, was forty-five miles from the
mouth of the Tyne.
"A precious fine piece of navigation," remarked the sub ruefully. "I
was trying to make the Firth of Forth, and instead I find myself barging
into the Northumberland coast."
"Might have done a jolly sight worse, old man," said Crosthwaite
cheerfully. "You're a brick, Sefton!"
The sub flushed like a schoolgirl, and, bolting from the shell-wrecked
ward-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 the
after capstan, round which the towing-hawser had been made fast.
"Cast off fore and after springs," continued the officer, telegraphing
for "Half ahead, port engine".
Very cautiously the towing-craft forged ahead, turning sixteen points in
almost her own length. In the darkness the manoeuvre was fraught with
anxiety, for, had the slack of the hawser fouled the _Basher's_
propellers, the destroyer would have been as helpless as the craft she
was 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 presently
she was nearing the Tyne at a rate of 7-1/2 knots.
With her helm lashed amidships, and without means of steering, the
partly waterlogged craft yawed horribly, sheering alternately four
points to port and starboard of the towing-vessel. Yet it was the only
practical means of getting the destroyer into port. Had she been towed
bows first, the already-weakened for'ard bulkhead would assuredly have
collapsed 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. A
scope of the cable trailing from the hawse-pipe might have served, had
not anchors, struck by several projectiles, been immovably jammed in the
hawse-pipes.
The same problem also confronted the skipper of the _Basher_, but he
quickly settled it by wirelessing for a tug.
Dawn was just breaking when the _Calder_ arrived off Tynemouth. A
powerful paddle-tug was lashed alongside, and the voyage up the river
began.
In the busy shipyards on either side of the Tyne, the night shifts were
still hard at work turning out new vessels for the British navy at the
rate of one and a half a week, in addition to effecting urgent repairs
to ships damaged in action or by floating mines.
"Lads," shouted a burly iron-caulker in stentorian tones, "here be a
German prize bein' towed up t' river."
"Garn!" retorted his mate. "German prize, my aunt! You don't see no
German 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. Her
wounded lieutenant-commander, lying helpless in his bunk, heard the
inspiring sound. He knew what it meant. A load had been lifted off his
mind. His command was safe in port.