At last, on the curve of the waves, is marked the outline of the
enemy! Alas! They are only torpedo-boat destroyers! Swift and powerful
destroyers, I admit, but Austria might very well have offered us an
adversary of our own class. But let us be satisfied with the windfall.
Too many days have been thrown away against invisible adversaries.
These at least are real, living and full of ardour. They gallop toward
us, torpedoes pointed; we point toward them our big guns, which cannot
yet reach them; the game is equal. Like us, they have run up the
battle-flag, and the _Waldeck-Rousseau_, driving over the waters like
a thoroughbred, drags with her her cruisers and her two squadrons of
torpedo boats to the adventure in which some one must die.
A few minutes pass, packed with anxious silence. The men shut up in
the hidden vitals of the ship strain their ears to catch the muffled
sound of the first salvo; they may be killed in a moment, if some
well-pointed torpedo should touch the cruiser, but they give their
whole souls of bronze to their apparatus and their machines, so
that nothing may go wrong in this marvelous crisis. Through their
range-finders, the gun-pointers watch the distance vanishing by a kind
of miracle. Twenty thousand yards--eighteen thousand yards--fifteen
thousand--fourteen thousand. Two thousand yards more, and the storm of
our artillery will break over our adversary. In three parallel lines
the Austrian destroyers pour forth torrents of smoke; they are in solid
formation; each line glides over the blue water like a gleaming boa
constrictor. Alongside of us our torpedo-boat destroyers have drawn
together and are plowing up clouds of foam that sparkle like silver in
the sun.
But what do we see over there? The Austrian lines open out, bend upon
themselves, and their heads describe a wide curve. Is it possible? They
are going away! They refuse to fight! With a raging anguish we all try
to persuade ourselves that our eyes are deceiving us. It is a trick of
the sunshine, a puff of wind that bends their smoke. * * * Not at all.
They have completed their turning movement and show us their heels,
looking like three railroad trains speeding away on rails of foam.
Oh! to have our eyes on our revenge for so many useless weeks, and to
see it escape just at the limit beyond the reach of our guns! To feel
that under our feet our gigantic machines, which, nevertheless, are
not weakening, can no longer catch up with the prey whose legs are too
long for us! To measure the distance, and to feel it growing greater,
a little more each second, like an elastic that is being stretched!
Fourteen thousand yards!
Fourteen thousand one hundred. Fourteen thousand two hundred. * * *
Ah! we would fain command the waves, hurl a sudden hurricane into the
air, churn the sea into foam and billows. Our potent keels would not
slow down, but the destroyers would crash against each billow, would
go slower, would exhaust their force, and our triumphant dash would
overmatch their cowardice.
They flee toward the labyrinth of the Dalmatian Islands, which grow
larger before us like a family of ocean monsters rising from the sea.
We continue to pursue. Sixteen thousand--seventeen thousand yards.
Perhaps the poltroons will be seized with remorse or indecision. But
it is not so; their flight is a premeditated ruse. High up in the sky,
slipping and gliding among the transparent clouds, a war plane swoops
over the French warships, passes along them, and drops bombs that only
our skillful dodging makes harmless; they burst opposite our ships.
On the surface of the water one of the cruisers perceives the furrow
of a periscope! Some lurking submarine has launched its torpedoes,
perhaps; our speed has deceived it; no one is touched; we take a flying
shot at the streak of foam, which instantly disappears. The submarine
plunges into the depths, the aeroplane is already out of sight, and
the destroyers are close to the channel of the archipelago. Eighteen
thousand yards--nineteen thousand.