At this point--it was off Rodosto--enter a small steamer which does
not halt when requested, and so is fired at with "several rounds" from
a rifle. The crew, on being told to abandon her, tumble into their
boats with such haste that they capsize two out of three.
"Fortunately," says E11, "they are able to pick up everybody." You can
imagine to yourself the confusion alongside, the raffle of odds and
ends floating out of the boats, and the general parti-coloured
hurrah's-nest all over the bright broken water. What you cannot
imagine is this: "An American gentleman then appeared on the upper
deck who informed us that his name was Silas Q. Swing, of the _Chicago
Sun_, and that he was pleased to make our acquaintance. He then
informed us that the steamer was proceeding to Chanak and he wasn't
sure if there were any stores aboard." If anything could astonish the
Trade at this late date, one would almost fancy that the apparition of
Silas Q. Swing ("very happy to meet you, gentlemen") might have
started a rivet or two on E11's placid skin. But she never even
quivered. She kept a lieutenant of the name of D'Oyley Hughes, an
expert in demolition parties; and he went aboard the tramp and
reported any quantity of stores--a six-inch gun, for instance, lashed
across the top of the forehatch (Silas Q. Swing must have been an
unobservant journalist), a six-inch gun-mounting in the forehold,
pedestals for twelve-pounders thrown in as dunnage, the afterhold full
of six-inch projectiles, and a scattering of other commodities. They
put the demolition charge well in among the six-inch stuff, and she
took it all to the bottom in a few minutes, after being touched off.
"Simultaneously with the sinking of the vessel," the E11 goes on,
"smoke was observed to the eastward." It was a steamer who had seen
the explosion and was running for Rodosto. E11 chased her till she
tied up to Rodosto pier, and then torpedoed her where she lay--a
heavily laden store-ship piled high with packing-cases. The water was
shallow here, and though E11 bumped along the bottom, which does not
make for steadiness of aim, she was forced to show a good deal of her
only periscope, and had it dented, but not damaged by rifle-fire from
the beach. As she moved out of Rodosto Bay she saw a paddle-boat
loaded with barbed wire, which stopped on the hail, but "as we ranged
alongside her, attempted to ram us, but failed owing to our superior
speed." Then she ran for the beach "very skilfully," keeping her stern
to E11 till she drove ashore beneath some cliffs. The demolition-squad
were just getting to work when "a party of horsemen appeared on the
cliffs above and opened a hot fire on the conning tower." E11 got out,
but owing to the shoal water it was some time before she could get
under enough to fire a torpedo. The stern of a stranded paddle-boat is
no great target and the thing exploded on the beach. Then she
"recharged batteries and proceeded slowly on the surface towards
Constantinople." All this between the ordinary office hours of 10
A.M. and 4 P.M.
Her next day's work opens, as no pallid writer of fiction dare begin,
thus: "Having dived unobserved into Constantinople, observed, etc."
Her observations were rather hampered by cross-tides, mud, and
currents, as well as the vagaries of one of her own torpedoes which
turned upside down and ran about promiscuously. It hit something at
last, and so did another shot that she fired, but the waters by
Constantinople Arsenal are not healthy to linger in after one has
scared up the whole sea-front, so "turned to go out." Matters were a
little better below, and E11 in her perilous passage might have been a
lady of the harem tied up in a sack and thrown into the Bosporus. She
grounded heavily; she bounced up 30 feet, was headed down again by a
manoeuvre easier to shudder over than to describe, and when she came
to rest on the bottom found herself being swivelled right round the
compass. They watched the compass with much interest. "It was
concluded, therefore, that the vessel (E11 is one of the few who
speaks of herself as a 'vessel' as well as a 'boat') was resting on
the shoal under the Leander Tower, and was being turned round by the
current." So they corrected her, started the motors, and "bumped
gently down into 85 feet of water" with no more knowledge than the
lady in the sack where the next bump would land them.