That voyage he made in the Polynesian was her usual London to South
American ports. And nothing happened until they were homeward bound and
making Ushant. It was a glorious day, as clear as it ever is in northern
waters, and the Third Mate was astonished to see through his glasses
what he took to be land. Ushant already! As he looked, he saw a flash
and his wonder deepened. He told himself, well, he’d be blowed! A
tremendous bang a hundred yards abeam of the Polynesian nearly shook him
overboard. It has come at last, then!
The Old Man came from his room, running sideways, his face set in a kind
of spasm, and stood by the rail, clutching it as if petrified. The Third
Mate, a friend of Tommy’s, pointed and handed the binocular just in time
for the Old Man to see another flash. The morning telegraph clanged and
jangled. The Third Mate ran to the telephone and was listening, when the
second shell, close to the bows, exploded on the water and made him drop
the receiver. Then he heard the Old Man order the helm over—over—over,
whirling his arm to emphasize the vital need of putting it hard over. A
few moments of tense silence, and then, with a roar that nearly split
all their ear-drums, the Polynesian’s six-inch anti-raider gun loosed
off at nine thousand yards.
So you must envisage this obscure naval engagement on that brilliant
summer day in the green Atlantic. Not a ripple to spoil the aim, not a
cloud in the sky, as the two gunners, their sleeves rolled to the
shoulders, their bodies heaving, thrust a fresh shell and cartridge into
the breech, shoved in the cap, and swung the block into place with the
soft ‘cluck’ of steel smeared with vaseline. As the ship veers, the gun
is trained steady on the gray dot. Nine thousand and fifty, no
deflection—‘Stand away!’ There is another roar, and the gunner, who has
stood away, now stands with his feet apart, his elbows out, staring with
intense concentration through his glasses.
Down below, the engine-room staff, which included Tommy doing a
field-day on the spare generator, were clustered on the starting
platform. The expansion links had been opened out full,—any locomotive
driver will show you what I mean,—and the Polynesian’s engines, four
thousand seven hundred horse-power indicated, driven by steam at two
hundred pounds to the square inch from her four Scotch boilers, were
turning eighty-nine revolutions per minute and making very good going
for her, but nothing to write home about, when a modern submersible
cruiser doing sixteen knots on the surface was pelting after her. The
tremendous explosions of the six-inch gun discouraged conversation.
The Chief Engineer, a tall man with a full chestnut moustache and a
stern contemptuous expression born of his hatred of sea-life, was
striding up and down the plates. The Second appeared, like Ariel,
around, above, below, intent on sundry fidgets of his own, and
whistling—nobody knew why. The Fourth was in the stokehold and back in
the engine-room every ten minutes. The Fifth, as though he had been
naughty and was being punished by that stern man with the four
gold-and-purple wings on his sleeve, was standing with his face to the
wall, big rubber navy-phone receivers on his ears and his eyes fixed in
a rapt saintly way on two ground-glass discs above him, one of which was
aglow and bore the legend _More Revolutions_. The other, _Less
Revolutions_, was dull and out of use. So he stood, waiting for verbal
orders.
All the revolutions possible were being supplied, for the safety-valves
were lifting with an occasional throaty flutter. Unexpectedly the Second
would appear from the tunnel, where he had been feeling the stern gland,
and would hover lovingly over the thrust-block, whistling, amid the
clangor of four thousand seven hundred horse-power, ‘Love me, and the
world is mine.’
Suddenly all was swallowed up, engulfed, in one heart-shattering
explosion on deck. It was so tremendous that the Fifth’s head
involuntarily darted out from the receivers and he looked sharply at the
Chief, who was standing stock-still with his long legs apart, his hands
in his coat pockets, staring over his shoulder with stern intentness
into vacancy. The telephone bell brayed out a call and the Fifth fitted
his head once again to the receiver. ‘Yes, sir!’ he sang out; and then,
to the others, ‘We’re gainin’ on her! We’re gainin’ on her!’ Tommy goes
on methodically with his dynamo. He is close at hand when wanted, ready,
resourceful, devoid of panic. The excitement is on deck, where the shell
has struck the house amidships, blowing the galley ranges and bakehouse
ovens overboard, killed three men outright, and left two more mere
moving horrors on the slaughter-house floor. Another, a scullion, with
his hand cut off at the wrist, is running round and round, falling over
the wreckage, and pursued by a couple of stewards with bandages and
friar’s balsam.
And on that gray dot, now nine thousand five hundred yards astern, there
is excitement too, no doubt, for it seems authentic that the
Polynesian’s third shot hit the forward gun-mounting, and the list
caused by this, heavy things slewing over, the damage to the deck, the
rupture of certain vital oil-pipes, and the wounds of the crew, would
account for the Polynesian, with her fourteen-point-seven knots, gaining
on U 999, supposed to have sixteen knots on the surface.
On the bridge of the Polynesian, too, there is excitement of sorts. The
Chief Mate, who has been rushing about, helping the ammunition carriers,
then assisting the stewards with their rough surgery, then up on the
bridge again, has come up and is prancing up and down, every now and
then looking hard at the Old Man, who stares through the telescope at
the gray dot.
Something awful had happened. When that shell hit the ship, the Old Man
had called out hoarsely, ‘That’s enough—oh, enough—boats!’ and the Chief
Mate, to the horror of the young Third Mate, who told Tommy about it,
grabbed the Old Man round the waist, whirled him into the chart-room,
and slammed the door upon them both. The Third Mate says he saw, through
the window, the Chief Mate’s fist half-an-inch from the Old Man’s nose,
the Old Man looking at it in gloomy silence, and the Chief Mate’s eyes
nearly jumping out of his head as he argued and threatened and implored.
‘... Gainin’ on her,’ was all the Third Mate could hear, and ‘... For
God’s sake, sir!’ and such-like strong phrases. So the Third Mate says.
And then they came out again, and the Mate telephoned to the
engine-room.