"FIREBRAND"
It was a little incident which occurred one night when the Grand Fleet
was returning to Base from one of its periodical sweeps through the
North Sea that set Able-seaman Melton talking of the things he had seen
and felt and heard the time he was standing anti-submarine watch in the
_Firebrand_, when her flotilla of destroyers mixed itself up with a
squadron of German cruisers in the course of the "dog-fight" which
concluded the battle of Jutland.
I had found him, muffled to the eyes and dancing a jangling jig on a
sleet-slippery steel plate to keep warm, when I picked my precarious way
along the coco-matted deck and climbed up to the after searchlight
platform of the Flotilla Leader I chanced to be in at the time. A fairly
decent day was turning into a dirty night, and the steadily thickening
mistiness which accompanied a sodden rain in process of transformation
into soft snow had reduced the visibility to a point where the
Commander-in-Chief deemed it safer for the Fleet to put back to open sea
and take no further chances among the treacherous currents and rocky
islands that beset the approaches to the Northern Base.
The Flagship, which had received the order by wireless, flashed
"Destroyers prepare to take station for screening when Fleet alters to
easterly course at nine o'clock," and shortly before that hour the
Flotilla Leader made the signal to execute. Almost immediately I felt
the hull of the _Flyer_ take on an accelerated throb as her speed was
increased, and a moment later the wake began to boil higher as the helm
was put hard-a-starboard to bring her round. We were steaming a cable's
length on the starboard bow of the _Olympus_, the leading ship of the
squadron at the time, and the carrying out of the manoeuvre involved
the _Flyer's_ leading her division across the head of the battleship
line and down the other side on an opposite course, so that the
destroyers would be in a position to resume night-screening formation
when the fleet had finished turning.
Just how the captain of the _Flyer_ happened to cut his course so fine I
never learned, but the patchiness of the drifting mist must have had a
good deal to do with making him misjudge his distance. At any rate, just
as we had turned through nine or ten points, I suddenly saw the
ominously bulking bows of the _Olympus_ come juggernauting out of the
night, with the amorphous loom of the bridge and foretop towering
monstrously above. The _Flyer_ seemed fairly to jump out of the water
at the kick her propellers gave her as the turbines responded to the
bridge's call for "More steam," and a spinning puff of smoke darkened
the glow above the funnels for a moment as fresh oil was sprayed upon
the fires beneath the boilers.
It was a good deal like a cat scurrying in front of a speeding
motor-car, and the consequences would have been more or less similar had
not one of the _Olympus's_ swarming lookouts, peering into the darkness
from his screened nest, gathered hint of the disaster that menaced in
time to warn the forebridge. The great super-dreadnought responded to
her helm very smartly considering her tonnage, and she turned just far
enough to starboard to avoid grinding us under. I could almost look up
through the port hawse-pipe as the flare of her bow loomed above my
head, and the man standing by the depth-charges on the all-but-grazed
stern of the _Flyer_ might well have been pardoned even if the story his
mates afterwards told of his action on this occasion were true--that he
had tried to fend off one of the largest battleships afloat with a
boat-hook.
A silhouette against the barely perceptible glow at the back of the
forebridge of a "brass-hatted" officer shaking his fist as though in the
act of ramping and roaring like a true British sailor moved by righteous
anger; a forty or fifty degree heel to starboard as the curling bow-wave
of the _Olympus_ thwacked resoundingly along her port side, and the
_Flyer_ drove on into the sleet-shot darkness to blow off accumulated
steam in rolling clouds, allow her fluttering pulse to become normal,
and resume the even tenor of her way.
Melton, A.B., whistling over and over the opening bars of the chorus of
"Do You Want Us to Lose the War?" started his metallically clanking jig
again, but presently, like a man with something on his mind, sidled over
and shoved his Balaklava-bordered face against the outside of the
closely-reefed hood of my "lammy" coat, and muttered thickly something
about being afraid he had got himself into trouble. When I had pulled
loose a snap and improved communications by unmuffling a lee ear, I
learned that it had just occurred to the good chap that he failed to
report to the bridge the battleship he had sighted "fifty yards to the
port beam," and he was wondering whether there would be a "strafe"
coming from the skipper about it.
"Fact is, sir," he said, speaking brokenly as the galloping gusts every
now and then forced a word back into his mouth, "that that rip-rarin'
stem, with the white foam flyin' off both sides of it, bearing down
right for where I was standin'--all that was so like what I saw the
night of Jutland in the _Firebrand_ that--that the turn it give me took
my mind right back and--and I wasn't thinkin' o' anything else till the
_'Lympus_ was gone by."
I assured him that, since the _Olympus_ had doubtless been sighted from
the bridge several winks before she had been visible from his
less-favourable vantage, they would probably have been too busy to
respond to his call at the voice-pipe even had he tried to report what
he saw.
"If I were you," I said, "I would forget all about that, and try to
explain how a cruiser that the _Firebrand_ was about to ram bow-to-bow"
(I had, of course, already heard something of that dare-devilish
exploit) "could have looked to you like the _Olympus_ ramping down on a
right-angling course and threatening to slice off the _Flyer's_ stern
with all her depth-charges. I quite understood that one ramming is a
good deal like another, as far as a big ship hitting a destroyer fair
and square is concerned, but----"
"'Twasn't that _first_ cru'ser 'tall, sir," Melton interrupted, nuzzling
into my "lammy" hood again to make himself heard. "Twas 'nother 'un,
sir--a wallopin' big un. The seas was stiff wi' cru'sers fer a minit,
sir, an' no sooner was we clear o' the first un than the second come
tearin' down on us, tryin' to cut us in two amidships. An' that last un
was a battl' cru'ser nigh as big as the _'Lympus_, all shot up in the
funnels and runnin' wild an' bloody-minded like a mad bull. We were
pretty nigh to bein' stopped dead, an' if she hadn't been slower'n cold
grease wi' her helm she'd ha' eat us right up."
There had been nothing of malice aforethought in my action in cornering
Melton on the searchlight platform that night, for, as it chanced, I
had failed to learn up to that moment that he had been in the famous
_Firebrand_ at Jutland. Nor, with the wind and sea getting up as fast as
the glass and the thermometer were going down, was the time or the place
quite what a man would have chosen for anything in the way of cosy
fireside reminiscence. But, both these facts notwithstanding, I felt
that, since I was leaving the _Flyer_ to go to another base directly she
arrived in harbour on the morrow, it would be criminal to neglect the
opportunity of hearing what was perhaps the most sportingly spectacular
of all the Jutland destroyer actions related by one who was actually in
it. I did not dare to distract Melton's attention from his lookout by
drawing him into talking while he was still on watch, but, when he was
relieved at ten o'clock, I waylaid him at the foot of the ladder with a
pot of steaming hot ship's cocoa (foraged from the galley by a
sympathetic ward-room steward) and both pockets of my "lammy" coat
filled with the remnants of a box of assorted Yankee "candy" looted from
the American submarine in which I had been on patrol the week before.
Melton rose to the lure instantly--or perhaps I should say "fell to the
bribe"--for the British bluejacket, if only he were given a chance to
develop, is quite as sweet of tooth as his brother Yank. Because I could
hardly take him to the captain's cabin, which I was occupying for the
moment, for a yarn, and because he, likewise, could not take me down to
the mess deck to disturb the off-watch sleepers with our chatter, there
was nothing to do but carry on as best we could in the friendly lee of
one of the funnels.
It was a night of infernal inkiness by now, and only clinging patches of
soft snow and their blanker blankness revealed the dimly guessable lines
of whaler and cowls and torpedo tubes and the loom of the loftier
bridge. The battleship line was masked completely by the double curtain
of the darkness and the snow, and only a tremulous greyness, barely
discernible in the intervals of the flurries of flakes where the
starboard bow-wave curled back from the _Olympus_, gave an intermittent
bearing to help in keeping station. Underfoot was the blackness of the
pit, not the faintest gleam reflecting from the waves washing over the
weather side to swirl half-knee high about our sea boots. Even overhead
all that was visible were fluttering patches of snow flakes dancing
through the haloes of pale rose radiance that crowned the tops of the
funnels. The wail of the wind in the wireless aerials, the crash of the
surging beam seas, the throb of the propellers, and the pussy-cat purr
of the spinning turbines--these were the fit accompaniment to which
Melton A.B. recited to me the epic of the _Firebrand_ at Jutland.
The cocoa I quaffed mug for mug with Melton, down to the last of the
sweet, sustaining "settlings" in the bottom of the pot; but the candy I
kept in reserve to draw on from time to time as it was needed to
lubricate his tongue and stoke the smouldering fires of his memory. I
started him off with a red-and-white "barber's pole" stick, which took
not a little fumbling with mittened hands to extract from its greased
tissue paper wrapper, and the seductive fragrance of crunched peppermint
mingled with the acrid fumes of burning petroleum as he leaned close and
began to tell how the ----th Flotilla, to which the _Firebrand_
belonged, screening the ----th B.S. of the Battle Fleet, came upon the
scene toward the end of the long summer afternoon. He had witnessed
Beatty's consummate manoeuvre of "crossing the T" of the enemy line
with the four that remained of his battered First Battle Cruiser
Squadron, and he had seen the main Battle Fleet baulked of its action
the lowering mists and the closing in of darkness; but it was not until
full night had clapped down its lid that the fun for the _Firebrand_
really began.
"It was just 'twixt daylight an' dark," he said, reaching me a steadying
hand in the darkness as the _Flyer_ teetered giddily down the back of a
receding sea, "that the flotilla dropped back to take stashun 'stern the
battl'ships we was screenin'. The _Killarney_ was leadin' an' after her
came the _Firebran'_, _Seagull_, _Wreath_, an' _Consort_, makin' up the
First Divishun. _Wreath_ an' _Consort_ sighted some Hun U-boats and
'stroyers while this move was on, an' plunk'd off a few shots at 'em.
Don't think wi' any fatal consequence. Then there come the rattle of
light gun fire from the south'ard, like from cru'sers or battleships
repellin' T.B.D.'s. Then it was all serene for mor'n an 'our, an' then
all hell opens up."
I suspected, from the sounds he made, that Melton had bitten into a
block of milk chocolate without removing its wrapping of foil and paper,
but presently his enunciation grew less explosive and more intelligible.
"It was Hun cru'sers drivin' down on us from the starboard quarter that
started the monkey-show," he said, "an' that bein' the nor'west it was
hardly where we'd reason to expect 'em from. It looks like we had 'em
clean cut off, wi' the 'hole Battl' Fleet steamin' 'tween 'em an' their
way back home, an' that they was tryin' to sneak through in the
darkness. The _Wreath_, at the end o' the line nearest 'em, spotted 'em
first, and she, 'cause she didn't want to give herself 'way wi'
flashin', reported what she'd seen by low-power W.T. to the rest o' the
flotilla. Course I--standin' watch aft--didn't know nothin' 'bout that
signal, so that the first I hears o' the Huns was when they all opened
up on the poor ol' _Killarney_, 'cause she was the leader. I s'pose, and
she started firin' back at their flashes.
"The leadin' Hun flashed his searchlight on the _Killarney_ as he opened
up, but shut off sharp when _Killarney_ came back at him. I could see
some o' the projes flittin' right down the light beam until it blinked
off, an' it was a flock of two or three of these that I kept my eye on
all the way till they bashed into the _Killarney's_ bridge and busted.
She was zigzaggin' a coupl' o' points on _Firebrand's_ starboard bow
just then, so my standin' aft didn't prevent my gettin' a good look at
what was happenin'. I could see the bodies o' four or five men flyin' up
wi' the wreckage o' the explosion, an' then, all in a minnit, she was
rollin' in flames from the funnels right for'ard. By the light o' it I
could see the crews o' the 'midships and after guns workin' 'em like
devils, an' twice anyhow, an' I think three times, I saw a bright, shiny
slug slip over the side, an' knew they were loosin' mouldies to try to
get their own back from the Hun.
"The sea was boilin' up red as blood where the light from the burnin'
_Killarney_ fell on the spouts the Huns' projes was throwin' up all
round her. She was the fairest mark ever a gun trained on, and p'raps
that was what tempted the Hun to keep pumpin' projes at her instead o'
givin' more attenshun to the rest of the divishun trailin' astern. That
was what gave _Firebran'_ her first chance o' alterin' the Hun navy list
that night.
"The second cru'ser in the Hun line was bearin' right abeam to starboard
by now, an' I could see by her gun-flashes she was of good size, wi'
four long funnels fillin' up all the deck 'tween her two masts. She was
firing fast in salvoes wi' all the guns that would bear on the burnin'
_Killarney_. I could just make out by the light from the _Killarney_,
which was growin' stronger every minnit, that the crew of our after
torpedo tube was gettin' busy, an' while I was watchin' 'em, over flops
the mouldie and starts to run. I knew it was aimed for one or t'other o'
the two leadin' Huns, but wasn't dead sure which till I saw the after
funnels an' mainmast o' the second toppl' over an' a big flash o' fire
take their place. Then it looked like there was exploshuns right off
fore an' aft, and then fires broke out all over her from stem to stern.
Next thing I knows, she takes a big list to starboard, an' over she
goes, wi' more exploshuns throwin' up spouts o' steam, as she rolls
under. The second mouldie--it got away right after the first--was never
needed to finish the job. The _Firebran'_ had evened up the score for
the _Killarney_, wi' a good margin over.
"The captain turned away to reload mouldies after that, an' just as we
swung out o' line I saw a salvo straddle the _Killarney_, and two or
three shells hit square 'tween her funnels an' after sup'rstruct'r'.
They must have gone off in her engine room, for there was more steam
than fire risin' from her as we turned an' left her astern, an' she
looked stopped dead. A Hun cru'ser was closin' the blazin' wreck o' her,
firm' hard; but, by Gawd, what d'you think I saw. The only patch on the
ol' _Killarney_ that was free o' the ragin' fires was her stern, an'
from there the steady flashes of her after gun showed it was bein'
worked as fast an' reg'lar as ever I seen it done at any night-firin'
practice. I looked to see her blow up every minnit, but she was still
spittin' wi' that littl' after gun when the sudden flashin' up of the
fightin' lights for'ard turned my attenshun nearer home.
"I could just make out a line of what looked like 'stroyers headin'
cross our bows, an' thought we'd stumbled into 'nother nest o' Huns till
they answered back wi' the signal o' the day, an' I knew it was one of
our own flotillas we'd been catchin' up to. That flashin' up o' lights
come near to doin' for us tho', for it showed us up to a big Hun
steamin' three or four miles off on the port beam, an' he claps a
searchlight on us an' chases it up wi' a sheaf o' shells. The only proj
that hit us bounced off wi'out doin' much hurt to the ship, but some
flyin' hunks o' it smashed the mouldie davit and knocked out most o' the
crews o' the after tubes, includin' the T.G.M.[C] That put a stop to
reloadin' operashuns wi' a mouldie in only one o' the tubes. By good
luck we managed to zigzag out o' the searchlight beam right after that,
an' was free to turn back an' try to start a divershun for the poor ol'
_Killarney_.
[Footnote C: Torpedo Gunner's Mate.]
"Her fires looked to be dyin' down when we first picked her up, but
right after that some more projes bust on her an' she started blazin'
harder than ever. I watched for the spittin' o' that littl' after gun,
but when it come it looked to spurt right out o' the heart o' a blazin'
furnace, showin' the fire was now burnin' from stem to stern. One more
salvo plastered over her, an' that one got no reply. The good ol'
'_Killy_' had shot her bolt, an' her finish looked a matter o' minnits.
"It was plain enough if anyone was still livin' they was goin' to need
pickin' up in a hurry, an' the captain put the _Firebran'_ at full speed
to close her an' stan' by to give a han'. Just then I saw a Hun
searchlight turned on and start feelin' its way up to where the
_Killarney_ was burning, wi' a cru'ser followin' up the small end o' the
beam, seemin' to be nosin' in to end the mis'ry. She did not bear right
for a mouldie, but we opened up wi' the foremost gun, an' I saw the
shells bustin' on her bridge and fo'c'sl' like rotten apples chucked
'against a wall. The light blinked off as the first proj hit home, but
there was no way to tell if it was shot away or no. It was the second
time that night that we'd done our bit to ease off the hell turned loose
on the _Killarney_. Likewise it was the last. From then on we had our
own partic'lar hell to wriggle out of, wi' no time left to play 'Venging
Nemisus' to our stricken sisters. Just a big bonfire sittin' on the sea
an' lickin' a hole in the night wi' its flames--that was the last I saw
of the ol' _Killarney_."
Melton paused for a moment as if engrossed in the memories conjured up
by his narrative, and I took advantage of the interval to hand him one
of those most loved lollipops of Yankee youngster-hood, a plump, hard
ball of toothsome saccharinity called--obviously from its resistant
resiliency--an "All-Day Sucker." When he spoke again I knew in an
instant that a sure instinct had led him to make the proper disposition
of the succulent dainty--that it was stowed snugly away in a bulging
cheek like a squirrel's nut, to melt away in its own good time.
"'Tween the glare of the burnin' _Killarney_," Melton went on after
thrashing his hands across his shoulders for a minute to warm them up,
"the gleam o' the Hun cru'ser's searchlight an' the flash o' our own
gun-fire, we must all have been more or less blinded in the _Firebrand_,
for we had run close to what may have been a part of the main en'my
battl' line wi'out nothin' bein' reported. Our firin' had give us away,
o' course, an' the nearest ships must have had their guns trained on us,
waitin' to be sure what we was. One o' 'em must have made up his mind we
was en'my even before we spotted 'em at all, for the first thing I saw
was the white o' the bow wave an' wake as she turned toward us, prob'ly
to ram. She'd have caught us just about midships if the bridge hadn't
sighted her an' done the only thing open to do--turned to meet her head
on.
"I don't remember that either she or us switched on recognition lights,
but the Hun opened with ev'rything that would bear just before we
slammed together. It must have been by the gun-flashes that I saw she
had three funnels, wi' what looked like some kind o' marks painted on
'em in red. I saw our second funnel give a jump and crumple up as a proj
hit it, an' then a spurt o' flame--from a big gun fired almost
point-blank--looked to shoot right on to the bridge. I thought that it
must have killed ev'ry man there an' carried away all the steering gear.
But no.
"The old _Firebrand_ wi' helm hard-a-port, went swingin' right on thro'
the point or two more that saved her life. I could feel by the way she
jumped an' gathered herself that last second that the ol' girl was still
under control. Then we struck wi' a horrible grind an' crash, an' I went
sprawlin' flat.
"If the Hun had hit us half a wink sooner, or if we had turned half a
point less, we'd have been swallowed alive and split up in small hunks.
As it was, we didn't have a lot the worst o' it, an' p'raps we more than
broke even. It was like a mastiff an' terrier runnin' into each other in
the dark, an' the terrier only gettin' run over an' the mastiff gettin'
a piece bit clean out o' his neck. It was our port bows that come
together, an' for only a sort o' glancin' blow. But it was the stem o'
the _Firebran'_ that was turned in sharpest, an' it was her that was
hittin' up--by a good ten knots--the most speed. She was left in a
terribl' mess, but most o' the damage was from her rammin' the Hun, not
from the Hun rammin' her. While as for what she did to the Hun, the best
proof o' it was the more'n twenty feet of her side-platin'--an upper
strake, wi' scuttl' holes in it an' pieces o' gutterway deck hangin' to
it--that we found in the wreck of our fo'c'sl'. If the hole that hunk of
steel left behind it didn't put that Hun out o' bus'ness as a fightin'
unit till she got back to port an' had a refit, I'll eat it."
I wasn't quite clear in my mind whether Melton meant to imply that he
would eat the hole in the Hun cruiser or the hunk of steel that came out
of it, but there _was_ no room for doubt that the violent crunch with
which he emphasised the assertion had put a period to the life of his
"All-Day Sucker," which was never intended to be treated like chewing
toffy. Dipping into the grab-bag of my "lammy" coat pocket for something
with which to replace it, therefore, I brought up a stick of chewing
gum, and he resumed his story in an atmosphere sweet with the ineffable
odour of spearmint and escaping steam.
"How much the Hun was shook up by that smash," Melton continued, "you
can reckon from this: We was almost dead stopped for some minnits, an'
all out o' control from the time of rammin' till they started connin'
her from the engine-room. There was one fire flickerin' in the wreckage
o' the forebridge, an' another somewhere 'midships, while there was also
a big glare throwin' up where the foremost funnel was shot away. We was
as soft an' easy a target as even a Hun could ask for; an' yet that one
was in too much of a funk wi' his own hurts to let off a singl' other
gun at us in all the time that he must have been flounderin' on at not
much more'n point-blank range. Mebbe he was knocked up even more'n we
thought. Nothin' else would account for him not havin' 'nother go at us.
"Just one wild bally mess--that was what the _Firebran'_ looked like
when I got to my feet again an' cast an eye for'ard. There was too much
smoke an' steam to see clear, an' it was mostly flickers o' red light
where the fires were startin', an' big, black shadows full o' wreckage.
As it looked to _me_ from aft--tho', o' course, the full effects wasn't
vis'bl' till daylight, the bridge an' searchlight platform an' mast was
shoved right back an' piled up on the foremost funnel. The whaler an'
dingy was carried away, an' my first thought, for I was sure she was
sinkin', was that we had no boats to put off in. I could see two or
three wounded crawlin' out o' the raffle, but I knew that the most to be
dished would be in the wreck o' the bridge. The queerest thing o' all
was the flashes o' green an' blue light flutterin' thro' the tangled
steel o' the wreckage. At first I thought I was sort o' seein' things;
but fin'lly I figgered it out as the juice from the busted 'lectric
wires short-circuitin'. It meant, I tol' myself, that the men under them
tons o' steel was bein' 'lectrocuted on top o' bein' crushed.
"It looked like any one o' three or four things would be enough to
finish the ol' _Firebran'_. I remember thinkin' that if she didn't blow
up, she was sure to burn up; an' that if, by chance, she missed doin'
one o' them, she was goin' to founder anyhow. She was already well down
by the head, an'--leastways, it looked so to me at the time--still
settlin' fast. An' I was just reflectin' that, even if she was lucky
enough not to burn up, or blow up, or founder, she was still too easy
pickin' for the Huns to miss doin' her in one way or 'nother, when,
thunderin' out o' the darkness an' headin' up to crumpl' underfoot what
was left o' the stopped an' helpless _Firebran'_, come a hulkin' big
battl' cru'ser, the one I was just tellin' you the _'Lympus_ set me
thinkin' on a while back.
"Starin' at our own fires must have blinded me a good bit, or I'd have
seen him sooner'n I did. He looked like he been gettin' no end o' a
hammerin', for his second funnel was gone, an' out of the hole it left a
big spurt o' flame an' smoke was rushin' that would have showed him up
for miles. There was a red hot fire ragin' under his fo'c'sl', too, an'
I saw the flames lashin' round thro' some jagged shell holes in his port
bow. Lucky for us, he was runnin' for his life, an' had no time to more
than try to run us down in passin'.
"It must have been just from habit I yelled down my voice-pipe, for I
knew they was no longer controllin' her from the bridge; but the roarin'
o' a fire an' the clank of bangin' metal was the only sounds that come
back. When I looked up again the Hun was right on top of us, an' I must
have just stood there--froze--like to-night wi' the _'Lympus_. By the
grace o' Gawd, he hadn't been abl' to alter course enough to do the
trick. His stem shot by wi' twenty feet or more clearance, an' it was
only the fat bulge of him that kissed us off in passin'. It was by the
glare o' his fires, not ours, which throwed no light abaft the
superstructure I was on, that I saw some of the hands was already
workin' to rig a jury steerin' gear aft. Then he was gone, an' much too
full o' his own troubles to turn back, or even send the one heavy proj
that would have cooked us for good an' all. A few minutes more, an' the
wreck o' the _Firebran'_ begun gatherin' way again, an' when I saw her
come round to her nor'westerly course an' push ahead wi'out settlin' any
deeper, I knew that the bulkheads were holdin' an' that--always
providin' we run into no more Huns--there was a fightin' chance o'
pullin' thro'.
"There was about a hundred jobs that needed doin' all at once, an'
'tween the loss o' dead an' wounded--only about half the reg'lar ship's
company was fit for work. The bulkheads had to be shored, for, wi' the
fo'c'sl' crumpled up like a concertina an' the deck an' side platin'
ripped off from the stem right back to the capstan engine, she was open
to the whole North Sea from the galley right for'ard. This made the
first an' second bulkheads o' no use, an' made the third bulkhead all
that stood 'tween us an' goin' to the bottom. Then there was the
fires--'bove deck an' 'tween decks--that had to be put out 'fore they
got to the magazines, an' the engines to be kept goin', an' the ship to
be navigated, an' the wounded to be looked to. An' on top o' all this,
the ship had to be got into some kind o' fightin' trim in case any more
Huns come pokin' her way. I won't be havin' to tell you it was one bally
awful job, carryin' on like that in the dark, an' wi' half the ship's
company knocked out.
"When I saw it was the first lieutenant that seemed to be directin'
things, I took it the captain was done for, an' that was what everyone
thought till, all o' a sudden, he come wrigglin' out o' the wreck o' the
bridge--all messed up an' covered wi' blood, but not much hurt
otherways--an' began carryin' on just as if it was 'Gen'ral Quarters.'
Some cove wi' the stump o' his hand tied up wi' First Aid dressin' was
sent up to relieve me on the lookout, an' I was put to fightin' fires
an' clearin' up the wreck 'bove decks. As there ain't much to burn on a
'stroyer if the cordite ain't started, we were not long gettin' the
fires in hand, even wi' havin'--cause the hoses an' the fire-mains was
knocked out--to dip up water in buckets throwed over the side. Wi' the
wreckage, the most we could do was to dig out the dead an' wounded an'
rig up for connin' ship from aft.
"It was a nasty job when we started in on the wreck o' the forebridge,
for the witch-lights o' the short-circuit were still dancin' a cancan in
the smashed an' twisted steel plates an' girders, an' it kept a cove
lookin' lively to keep from switchin' some of the blue-green lightnin'
into his own frame by way o' his ax or saw. No one that had been on any
part o' the bridge was wi'out some kind o' hurt, but the three dead was
a deal less than was to be expected. There was also three very bad
knocked up, an' on one o' them the surgeon--a young probasuner
R.N.V.R.--performed an operashun in the dark. It was a cove he was
'fraid to move wi'out tinkerin' up a bit, an' he pulled him thro' all
right in the end. One o' the crew of the foremost gun never turned up,
an' we figured he must have been lost overboard when she rammed.
"Pois'nous as it was workin' on deck, that wasn't a circumstance to what
it must have been carryin' on below. I didn't see nothin' o' that end o'
the show, thank Gawd, but every man as came out o' it alive said it was
just one livin' bloomin' hell, no less. There was a good number o' coves
who did things off han' that saved the ship from blowin' up, or burnin'
up, or sinkin', an' three o' the best o' 'em was a engine-room
artif'cer, a stoker P.O., and a stoker that was in the fore stokehold
when the bridge was pushed back an' carried away that funnel. They
ducked into their resp'rators, stuck to their posts a' kept the fans
goin' till the fumes was all cleared away. Nothin' else would have saved
the foremost boiler--an' wi' it the ship herself--blowin' up right then
an' there. Same way, gettin' on the jump in backin' up Number 3
bulkhead--the one that was holding back the whole North Sea--was all
that kept it from bulgin' in an' floodin' right back into the
stokeholds. It was the chief art'ficer engineer that took on that job,
an' it was him, too, that stopped up the gaps left by the knocking down
o' the first and second funnels.
"Even after it at last seemed like we was goin' to keep her from sinkin'
or blowin' up, things still looked so bad to the captain that he ditched
the box o' secret books for fear o' their fallin' into the hands o' the
Hun. As we'd have been more hindrance than help to the Fleet, he did not
try to rejoin the flotilla, but turned west an' headed for the coast o'
England on the chance of makin' the nearest base while she still hung
together. All night she went slap-bangin' along, wi' the engines shakin'
out a few more rev'lushuns just as fast as it seemed the bulkhead was
shored strong enough to stand the push o' the sea.
"Mornin' found her still goin', but what a sight she was! My first good
look at what was left o' her give me the same kind o' a shock I got the
first time I had a peep at my mug in a glass after havin' small-pox in
Singapore. She wasn't a ship at all, any more'n my face was a face. She
was just a mess, that's all, an' clinkin' an' clankin' an' wheezin' and
sneezin' an' yawin' all over the sea. An' the sea was empty all the way
roun', wi' no ship in sight to pass us a tow-line or pick us up if she
chucked in her hand an' went down.
"We had our hands so full keepin' her afloat an' under weigh, that it
wasn't till four in the afternoon--more'n sixteen hours after we rammed
the Hun cru'ser--that we found time to bury our dead. It was like
gettin' a turribl' load off your chest when we dropped 'em over in their
hammocks wi' a fire-bar stitched in alongside 'em to take 'em down.
Nothin' is so depressin' to a sailor as bein' shipmates wi' a mate that
ain't a mate no longer. Even the ol' _Firebran'_ 'peared to ride easier
an' more b'oyant after the buryin' was over, as if she knowed the worst
o' her sorrer was left behind.
"Luck took a turn against us again just after dark, for the wind shifted
six or seven points an' started blowin' strong from dead ahead. We had
to alter course some to ease off the bang o' the seas a bit, an' fin'ly
the speed had to be slowed even slower'n before to keep the bulkhead
from being driv' in. But she weathered it, by Gawd she did, an' next
mornin' the goin' was easier. We made the Tyne at noon. It was just a
heap o' ol' scrap-iron so far as the eye could see, that they let into
the Middle Dock the next day, but it was scrap-iron that had come all
the way from Jutland under its own steam, an' wi' no help from no one
save what was left o' the lads as once manned a 'stroyer called the
_Firebran'_.
"It hadn't taken long to reduce her from a 'stroyer to scrap-iron, an'
it didn't seem like it took much longer--time goes fast on home
leave--to turn that scrap-iron back into a 'stroyer again. The ol'
_Firebran's_ got many a good kick in her yet, so they say, an' I'd ask
for nothin' better'n to be finishin' the war in her."
I thanked Melton for his yarn, bade him good night, and was about to
start picking my way to my cabin to turn in, when I sensed rather than
saw that there was something further he wanted to say, perhaps some
final tribute to his officers and mates of the _Firebrand_, I thought.
There was a shuffling of sea-booted feet on the steel deck, a nervous
pulling off and on of woollen mittens, and it was out.
"I just wanted to say, sir," he said, "that I likes the Yankee Jackies
very much; 'specially their candy an' chewin' gum. I was just wonderin'
if that last stick you give me was all----"
I emptied both pockets before I renewed my thanks to Melton and bade him
a final good night. There are strange ingredients entering into the
composition of the cement that is binding Britain and America together,
and if there is any objection to chewing gum it certainly cannot be on
the ground that it lacks adhesiveness.