THE BATTLE
"Th' signal book! Get the signal book!" bawled Greer amid the uproar.
"W'ere is it?"
"In the flag locker! Chuck the flags out, too! Scatter 'em out!"
"W'ot you want to signal?"
"Submarine--tell 'em to look out for submarines!"
Hogan, who held the volume in the crook of his bandaged arm, licked his
thumb and jabbed through the leaves in distracted attention. "There
aren't no code letters for submarine!" he cried at last--"not in here!"
"No," shouted Black, the _Vulcan's_ former captain, "that's an old
code--wasn't any submarines then!"
"Spell it out!" commanded Caradoc from the bridge. "Sharp about it!"
The men worked in a clutter of buntings, assembling the flags in nervous
haste. Black laid out the nine letters and the crew hurriedly hooked
them together. Ten minutes later, they strung the signal between the two
splintered masts with a queer drunken gala effect.
The _Vulcan_ was no longer the German squadron's sole target. Down
on the Teuton battle line thundered five English cruisers, filling the
north with rolling smoke, their turrets spangled with cannon flashes,
prows shearing white walls of foam.
The sky above the _Vulcan_ was filled with the drone of hurtling
shells. They sounded as thick as swarming bees. The cannon fire of the
approaching English ships mounted to a ragged roar. When the on-coming
line was less than five miles distant, Caradoc shouted an order to
Galton and the little tug swung around broadside on, displaying her
warning signal like a billboard. Through the battle smoke, Madden saw an
answering flag go up on the nearest ship. A cheer broke out from the
crew at this recognition of their work.
"They'll pass it around among the fleet by wireless!" shouted Caradoc in
Madden's ear.
"Do you know that ship, Smith?" called Madden excitedly.
"The _Panther_--held a commission on her once."
"Is it possible?" Madden peered at her through his glasses with renewed
scrutiny.
They were so close now that the American could pick out the crew of
range finders working in the fighting tops; he could glimpse the huge
guns in the forward turrets as they flashed and roared amid shrouds of
smokeless powder haze. Madden realized he was seeing what every landsman
dreams of seeing: a naval battle. For some inscrutable reason, Caradoc
had headed the _Vulcan_ clear around and now faced the enemy, like
a rat terrier amid a battle of mastiffs.
Madden turned aft as the tug swung around to follow the fortunes of the
_Panther_. He could see German shells exploding now and then on her
decks; sometimes they would strike the sea and send up typhoons of water
and weed. As he gazed a small-calibre gun was struck, and there was
nothing but a ragged smoking hole where the port had been. An instant
later, the mizzen top was shrouded in an emerald flame, and when the
smoke cleared, only a jagged stump of iron thrust skyward. The crew of
range finders had been wiped out in an instant. Several hours later,
Leonard learned that the whole German gunfire had been focussed for
several minutes on the _Panther_.
But now that gray, smoke-wreathed cruiser rushed on indomitably, flanked
by her thundering consorts. The half-naked men on the _Panther's_
decks looked curiously small in their huge rushing fortress. German
shells battered her decks amid spangling green flames but could not stop
her. As she overtook the _Vulcan_, the concussion of cannon fire
and bursting shells grew so terrific it ceased to be noise. It resolved
itself into blows, terrific air movements that smote Madden all over. It
pounded his ear drums with physical blows; it tore at the bridge of his
nose, jarred his teeth, sent shooting pains through his head, for he was
not wise enough to stuff his ears with cotton and hold his mouth open.
It shook the pit of his stomach and nauseated him. It was a sound
cyclone. Added to this the sickening acrid smell of niter explosives
filled the atmosphere.
On came the _Panther_ through the green foam of German fire,
mingling the mighty vibrations of her engines, the hiss of leaping walls
of water, tempests of cannon fire and vindictive shriek of leaping
shells.
Caradoc leaned over to Madden and yelled something at the top of his
voice. Madden shook his head as a signal that he could not hear. Smith
repeated so loudly that his long face grew red with the strain. It was
impossible to catch a word. Besides, Leonard's ears ached as if the
drums were ruptured.
Caradoc caught up a speaking trumpet and held it to his friend's ear.
"Don't look at the _Panther_!" cried a drowned voice. "Watch ahead
for the submarine!"
The submarine! Sure enough, there was the submarine, silent stiletto,
waiting beneath the sea to stab this fiery monster. Madden's heart
leaped into his throat. Was it possible so slight an antagonist could
engulf the battle cruiser?
The American turned and stared ahead over the shell-beaten sea with all
his eyes. The little _Vulcan_ was now racing along some half-mile
in front of the English battle line, her warning signal still stretched
between her splintered masts. She rushed at top speed, vibrating under
the stress of her engines. Five or six miles ahead the German squadron
had turned and was flying southward before the superior English force.
Flashes of fire and dull thunder still belched from their after turrets.
Leonard tried to confine his attention to the adjacent waters in careful
search for the diving boat's periscope, but the terrific spectacle
across the smoky spangled sea gripped his eyes beyond his control.
The ship on the eastern wing of the Teuton line was in flames. The fire
burst out of the gun deck ports, lapping up over the boat decks in long
red curling tongues. Her cannon fire had ceased, and from what Leonard
could see, he thought the English ships had quit firing at her. She
still fled southward, however. Smoke began to roll out of her turrets,
and her crew came swarming out on her deck like a disturbed ant's nest.
Through his glasses, Madden saw them hunched against the fire, working
to launch a boat, when of a sudden there was a blinding flare; a huge
cloud of smoke leaped from the sea, and after four or five minutes, a
thunder heavily audible even amid the roar of battle rumbled in Madden's
ears. It was the solemn note of a battleship destroyed by its own
magazines. When the smoke cleared away there was left nothing save
tossing waves and bits of flotsam here and there.
The horror of the tragedy was lost for Leonard in another, more
appalling scene. The right central battleship had lost control of her
steering gear, and now she ran wildly amuck in the fleeing line like a
drunken giant of steel.
Through accident, or by the last shift of seamanship, she veered about
broadside on, her huge guns still belching defiance. In crazy flight,
she barely missed one of her own squadron, then rounded back in a great
circle for the English line. No doubt her crew did not try to stop her,
hoping that her unguided charge might work some damage to the enemy.
On she came, against the focussed storm of English cannon, her prow,
forward turrets, bridge, masts, fairly disintegrated under a bastinado
of twelve and fourteen-inch shells. Yet it seemed as if she would
survive it all and ram some English cruiser, when a cloud of steam broke
out of her hold. A lucky shot had exploded her boilers. Her wild charge
ceased instantly, but her sub-calibre guns still chattered defiance at
the crushing odds. Giant shells were now pounding her at point-blank
range. At some stroke of a cruiser to the right of the _Panther_,
the German ship heeled heavily on her starboard side.
Through his glasses, Madden could see the
sailors still struggling to work the guns, though
scores of them were wiped from the deck at
every English shell. Amid clouds of smoke the
black cross of the German battle flag fluttered
undaunted.
In a few minutes the enemy listed until her guns were at such a high
angle they could no longer be trained against the enemy. Her forward
turret was completely blown away. Bursting shells kept a constant glare
around her. Her boiler and furnace rendered her hold untenable, for her
crew came out of the smoke and formed orderly platoons on her crippled
deck. Shells swept gaps through their files, but they closed again in
regular formation, standing oddly erect on the up-tilted deck. There
was not a gun they could man, not a blow could they strike, yet the men
stood firm in the steel cyclone sweeping across their shattered deck.
Then Madden turned his lens on a group a little to one side of the main
formation, and his eye caught the gleam of silver horns, the rise and
fall of a drummer's arm, the fierce beating of a director with a baton.
It was the ship's musicians. The band was playing, the men were chanting
the battle hymn of the empire; out of the heart of the foundering
cruiser, out of the souls of the passing warriors rose triumphantly,
"_Die Wacht am Rhein_."
Sudden tears filled the eyes of the American and dimmed the splendid
sight. He turned impulsively to his friend.
"Caradoc! My God!" he screamed in his ear, "why don't they quit firing!"
"Their flag is still flying--no doubt the halyards are shot away!"
Even while Smith screamed, a sudden and startling attack was launched
from the _Panther's_ rapid fire and machine guns. They sounded
a shrill treble amid the profound shaking bass of the giant cannon.
The boys looked sharply about to see the object of this abrupt attack,
when they suddenly heard the shrill whistling of steel all about their
ears.
With the utmost horror, Madden saw every tiny port spouting continuous
flame in his direction. Steel frothed the sea all around the
_Vulcan_. Missiles struck the little tug and glanced off with sharp
musical twangs. The crew of the little boat, who swarmed on deck,
wonderstruck at the battle of the giants, suddenly darted to cover with
wild yells.
"They're crazy! They're daft!" screamed Madden. "Shooting at us! What's
the matter with 'em?"
Caradoc, also, seemed to share the madness. He suddenly spun his wheel
to the left, veered in a sharp circle, and dashed straight toward the
course of the _Panther_ into the thickest of the hail. Leonard
stood beside him, frozen stiff, when straight ahead, he suddenly saw a
periscope show for an instant, then disappear in a little swirl of
water. The submarine had come into the action.
The tug rushed straight through the bullet-rumpled water to the point
where the metal fin had disappeared, like a terrier dashing at a
rathole.
With the disappearance of the submarine's "eye," the fusillade ceased
abruptly. The great cannon were firing more slowly now and there came
short intervals of comparative silence in the battle.
From the bridge Caradoc bellowed fiercely at his men: "Spread around the
rail--keep a sharp lookout for the submarine!" The crew came back with a
will now that they learned the bombardment had not been intended for
them.
In the meantime the tiny David had put the great Goliath to flight. The
_Panther_ was endeavoring to save herself. She veered out of the
thundering battle line and zigzagged easterly, in full flight from any
enemy that she could almost drop down one of her smokestacks.
And the little _Vulcan_ swung about in an effort to keep up with
her principal. On she rushed, shaking and puffing like a locomotive, her
bright flags flying the submarine warning, as if the speeding giant
ahead of her were likely to forget it.
Suddenly Hogan bawled out: "By th' port! By th' port, sir! There she
rises!"
Another shrill storm from the giant showed that the gunners aboard the
_Panther_ also saw the periscope.
Again the _Vulcan_ dashed at the diving terror as it disappeared
and the cruiser swung clear around in a northerly tack. Her commander
was trying to outguess the man under the sea.
A strange game of blind-man's-buff the three dissimilar crafts were
playing. Caradoc assumed the submarine pilot would guess that the
_Panther_ had fled north, and he sent the tug spitting along a
course that would lie between the cruiser and her enemy. The
_Panther_ was forced to repass the _Vulcan_ in the new maneuver.
The giant and pygmy were flying along at top speed, fairly abreast,
scarcely five hundred yards apart.
Leonard took his eyes off the starboard sea a moment to look at the lion
which this mouse was trying to nibble free, when suddenly, not thirty
yards on the _inside_ of the tug popped up the periscope.
The American rushed to the wheel, jerked it to the starboard. "Yonder!
Yonder!" he bellowed in Caradoc's ear, pointing.
[Illustration: The Battle.]
Again the guns shrilled forth; a steel sleet wailed about the
_Vulcan_. Into the teeth of this blast, the tug circled and lunged.
With fascinated eyes, Madden watched the periscope cut a swirling circle
on the midst of the beaten water and straighten on the _Panther_.
Now the metal eye was directly under their swaying starboard. A moment
they sped side by side, toward the imperiled cruiser. Madden could
almost have touched the wireless masts. A whine of bullets ripped one of
their lifeboats like a saw and sputtered through the superstructure.
The periscope, which thrust six or seven feet out of water, disappeared
under the swell of the _Vulcan's_ hull. Suddenly the tug swung her
blunt beak around with the sidelong blow of an angry swine. Madden went
flying to the right rail of the bridge to stare down at the imminent
tragedy.
A dim shadowy bulk was hurtling through the blue water. Suddenly, just
as the tug's prow swung athwart her course, the submarine lined up
straight with the _Panther_. A great belching of bubbles wallowed
up through the turbulent sea as a sign that the torpedo was launched.
A heart-stopping moment, in which the diving boat, the darting shadow of
the torpedo, the blocking prow of the _Vulcan_ was clear.
A titanic upheaval of water; volcanic fires leaping out of the heart of
the deep; a roar so absolutely appalling that it reduced the battle to a
whisper!
The prow of the _Vulcan_ reared up and bent back over the main
deck. In the same instant, out of the cauldron sea, an enormous
cigar-shaped object was flung end-over-end, as a child flings a spindle.
There was one flashing glimpse of conning tower, smashed plates. Then a
clap of surging air that seemed as solid as oak picked Madden up as if
he had been thistledown. He felt himself whirling through space.
Somehow, he caught a glimpse of a string of signals that had been blown
from the wrecked masts of the shattered _Vulcan_. Then he felt a
stinging blow of water as he hit the sea.
The submarine had destroyed both herself and the tug with her first
torpedo.