As the battle rolled away in the distance, and the smoke of the great
fighting ships grew faint beyond the southern skyline, Captain Crouch
and Jimmy Burke remained standing together on the forecastle peak of the
half-wrecked cargo ship. Not a word had been spoken for some time. It
was Crouch who was the first to find his voice.
"All my life I've been proud of one thing," said he: "that I was born a
Britisher. I was always sort of sorry for a dago of any kind. But,
half-an-hour ago, when I saw the 'Lion' and the 'Tiger' come charging
into action, I felt something in my throat, my lad, that I never felt
before. It was just wonderful and splendid. War, nowadays, isn't so
much a matter of physical strength and courage as a question of national
wealth, industry and invention; we live in a scientific age. And, take
it from me, a ship like the 'Tiger' is a kind of eighth wonder of the
modern world."
"I suppose," said Jimmy, "that what you say is true; things have changed
since men fought with cutlasses and boarded enemy ships. It's more
terrible to-day--and marvellous."
"So it seems to me, too," said Captain Crouch. "And now, this is no
time to stand idle; there's much for both of us to do. Firstly, we must
look to the wounded--and I'm afraid there are more than enough on board.
Secondly, we must see if anything can be done to get the engines under
way."
Accordingly, then and there, they went down into the engine-room, which
they found in a state of chaos. As we know, the chief engineer had been
killed; but, in the alley-way on the starboard side they encountered the
second engineer, whose head was done up in a bandage. He had been
knocked down by the force of an exploding shell, and his head cut open
against an iron stanchion.
It was he, with Crouch and Jimmy Burke, who gathered together as many of
the ship's hands as they could find in a fit state to do an hour's
honest work. They removed such of the smaller parts of the machinery as
had been thrown out of gear, when the total amount of damage done could
be estimated. It was at once evident that there was no possibility
whatsoever of the engines being repaired. Moreover, how the old ship
remained afloat was little short of a miracle. They could hope for
nothing but to be found either by the British squadron returning to home
waters or some ship bound for Newcastle, Leith or Hull.
As far as the wounded were concerned, they were able to do much. Crouch
took possession of the ship's medicine chest, and soon proved that he
had a passable knowledge of both surgery and medicine. A man who has
spent a great part of his life in the wilderness of Central Africa is
not likely to be wholly ignorant as far as drugs are concerned.
More than a fifth of the crew had been killed; and many of the wounded
had received the most ghastly injuries. The modern rifle bullet is a
humane means of waging war. Being nickel-plated it gives a clean wound,
which under ordinary conditions will heal rapidly. If it kills, it
kills instantly, and as often as not without pain. Shell fire, however,
is very different. Leaden shrapnel bullets are both large, rough-edged,
and liable to cause gangrene in those who are not in the best of health.
Common shell, charged with high explosives, causes infinite damage; and
on board steel-plated ships, or in the vicinity of houses, men are
horribly maimed and wounded by fragments of masonry and iron, by flying
stones and splintered woodwork.
Captain Whisker was in a bad way. Though a man of considerable physical
strength, he was in no fit condition to suffer continual loss of blood.
His temperature had already risen to extreme fever heat; and there is
little doubt that, had Crouch not administered suitable drugs in the
right proportion, his old shipmate would have lost his life. As for
Captain Cookson, sitting in a comfortable chair in the midst of the
wreckage of what had once been his cabin, he gave vent to his feelings
and opinions in regard to the German Empire.
Like all sailors he loved his ship. A true seaman will be a special
pleader on behalf of his ship in much the same manner as an adoring
mother will speak of a backward son. If a ship lies so heavy in the
water that, when a squall is blowing, the waves sweep over her decks
like water from a floodgate, she will be described as "steady as a
rock." And if, on the other hand, she rolls at every billow, and
pitches into every minor trough, she is--in the unanimous opinion of her
master and her crew--"seaworthy" in the higher sense of the word,
whatever it may mean.
Captain Cookson loved the "Mondavia"; and when he looked about him and
witnessed the destruction and havoc that had been wrought by the guns of
the German ships, he railed at the whole Teutonic brotherhood, from the
Kaiser to the last interned German waiter in a detention camp in
England.
For all that, by wholesale round abuse, he was likely to do no more good
to himself than harm to the German Empire. The fact was, all on board
were in much greater danger than they knew of. For, during the last
half-hour, the wind had got up, shifting to the south-west, so that once
again they were able to hear the distant booming sound of the great guns
of the rival battle-cruisers.
The ship lay in one of the innumerable channels that divide the shoals
of the Dogger Bank. When any wind is blowing, it stands to reason that
the current in these channels is exceedingly strong, since the sandbanks
act in much the same way as breakwaters, holding back the tide, whilst
the water becomes congested elsewhere.
Now, under the influence of the freshening wind, the "Mondavia" began to
roll heavily upon the swell, and seeing that the upper part of the ship
had been destroyed piecemeal by a hurricane of shells, she was in no fit
condition to weather even the suspicion of a squall.
She began to ship water from the very first; and soon afterwards,
Crouch, who was scanning the horizon with great anxiety, watching every
shift of the wind, came to the conclusion that, unless the wind dropped
as abruptly as it had risen, the "Mondavia" would go down.
The afternoon was now well advanced. The surface of the sea was broken
in all directions by a great number of white waves running strongly
northward. It was low tide, and on some of the shallows the foam showed
white as snow in the sunlight that was now, for the first time that day,
breaking from behind the clouds.
The "Mondavia" rolled as a ship rides at anchor. Her engines had been
rendered useless; she was not capable of steaming a hundred yards. In
addition to this her steering-gear was so seriously damaged, and the
rudder itself so out of order, that she could do nothing else but drift,
like a derelict, upon the tide.
To all intents and purposes, the ship was already a wreck; and every
time she rolled to starboard, she shipped water in her holds; so that in
less than an hour she was so low down that both well-decks were flooded,
and those who passed along the alleyways were obliged to wade knee-deep
in water. It must also be remembered that all her boats had been
destroyed. Though the great guns were now silent towards the south, and
there could be little question that the British squadron was returning,
there was neither a sail nor a smoke-stack in sight, as far as the eye
could reach.
And even had there not been a dozen wounded men on board--many of whom
were in a critical condition--the situation had been none of the
pleasantest. Once again, it looked as if all on board were doomed.
Crouch, seeing that there was no time to waste, gathered together all
the men he could find, and set about the construction of a raft. In
this task he was aided by the dilapidated condition in which the German
battle-cruisers had left the ship. In the ordinary course of events, on
such occasions, it is necessary to break up the deck with axes; but
here, this work had already been done by the shellfire of the
"Bluecher." The demolished chart-room and the shattered bridge afforded
an abundance of material. There was no lack of rope on board, and the
buoyancy of the raft was considerably increased by a number of
life-buoys and belts.
The raft was constructed on the forward well-deck, where the men, often
standing up to their waists in water, worked in feverish haste; and it
is astonishing what prodigies of labour can be accomplished in so
terrible a situation. Indeed, they worked not only to save, their own
lives, but also the lives of those of their comrades who were unable to
assist themselves.
One after the other, the wounded were brought down from the main-deck,
and laid upon mattresses, spread side by side upon the raft. There was
something extraordinarily precarious in the state of these unhappy men,
since they had no means of knowing whether the buoyancy of the raft
would maintain the weight of them all, when the ship, at last, went
down. Crouch had taken every precaution that was possible; practically
without exception the lifebuoys and cork lifebelts had been lashed
underneath the raft, the better to serve their purpose.
When it became clear that the ship was sinking rapidly, Crouch ordered
all hands to the forward well-deck, to be ready for the crisis.
Fortunately, the ship was going down on an even keel. It was probable,
however, that at the last moment she would dive. If she did so stern
foremost, all would be well; but if she shot down into deep water bows
first, then the chances were that the foremast would foul the raft,
which would either be destroyed piecemeal, dragged under water, or so
tilted up that those who had sought safety there would be cast headlong
into the sea.
The disaster came about quite gradually, and in the very way that suited
them best. They had plenty of warning that the ship was about to go.
The raft had been manned by all--except a few who were prepared to
swim--when the water rose like ether in a tube from the after well-deck
to the poop. And then--of all strange things--the whole ship bobbed
forward, like a playful duck in a pond, whilst the sea spread in a long,
single wave from the poop to the forecastle-peak, above which the raft
shot clear like a ship launched from the slips.
When they found themselves free and floating upon the surface of the
water, they marvelled that the whole thing had been so inconceivably
simple. They were huddled together like a flock of sheep, and in three
minutes they were wet from head to foot in spray and from the water that
splashed upward through the gaping holes in the structure of the raft.
The last they saw of the "Mondavia" was the top of her shattered funnel,
gliding on the surface for the fraction of a second, like the dorsal fin
of a shark. Then, even this small black object vanished, and there was
nothing to be seen but an infinity of bubbles and hundreds of broken
pieces of spar and splintered, painted wood. The "Mondavia" was gone.
Those who, as a wise precaution, had taken to the water, now that it was
seen that the raft was safe, scrambled one after the other, drenched and
dripping, to this frail, uncertain place of safety. There, crowded
together, shivering from the wet and from the cold, they awaited
whatsoever fate might be held in store for them, in the midst of the
desolation of the sea.
They could not have been more than fifteen miles from the coast, but
that, to them, was an infinite distance; they could never hope to gain
the security of land. They had neither sail nor mast; there had been no
time to make one or the other. Neither had they any means of propelling
the raft. They could but drift whither tide and wind and current took
them, and this was out to sea.
Moreover, it was now rapidly growing dark. The sun, which had remained
hidden throughout the greater part of that memorable day, showed for a
few minutes upon the north-western horizon, in a great flood of red and
gold, and then dropped down into the sea. At the same time, the squall
freshened once again; the wind showed signs of blowing up to a gale; and
to make matters worse, a kind of sea fog--dripping wet and cold--drove
up from the south, like a great cloud of smoke.
Crouch was a man who had a will of iron and a great heart of gold. He
knew that his own life, and the lives of all those who were with him,
was in the hands of an Almighty Power. Those poor, lonely castaways
were in the care of Providence.
At such an hour, they were not likely to forget the God Who had given
them birth, Who had first opened their eyes to all the beauties of the
earth, and held them wonderstruck, time and time again, at the immensity
of the eternal sea. As one man, they offered up silent, breathless
prayers. Nor were these prayers that they might live, such as might
issue from a coward's lips, but prayers for ever-lasting grace, for
forgiveness and courage to the last.
Crouch drew near to Jimmy. The raft was now so strained and lifted by
the broken surface of the water that she groaned and fretted as in pain.
"I fear one thing," said he, "and one thing only; if the wind holds
she'll break. She can't bear the strain much longer. She was knocked
together like a Canton flower-boat, or an Irish fence."
"There's still hope," said Jimmy Burke.
He spoke in a monotone, in a voice without expression, as if his words
meant nothing. Indeed, he himself hardly understood them. In his heart
he saw no cause to hope; there was no reason why they should be saved.
He was wet to the skin and well-nigh frozen, so numbed in all his limbs
that he could scarcely move. And it is only natural, when the body is
reduced to this condition, that the mind should cease to work; it
becomes a mere machine; and words are spoken in much the same way as a
monkey jabbers or a parrot talks, without regard to their meaning.
They waited in patience, in silence and a fortitude that was something
more than heroic. They waited for nearly another hour. By then, it was
almost dark. The raft still held together, though those on board of her
were almost perished. The sea fog had evidently driven past, for a few
stars were visible above them.
And then it was that H.M.S. "Cockroach" hove in sight, steaming due
north-westward at the rate of thirty knots an hour.
As one man, they lifted their voices in a great shout that went out upon
the loneliness of the black, rolling waters, to reach the ears of men in
comparative security, who stood bewildered and amazed in the very hour
of their triumph and elation.
His Majesty's ship "Cockroach," but newly come from the thunder of the
Dogger Bank, changed her course on the instant, and veered round to the
south. And a little after, those castaways were saved.
They were well cared for by the seamen on board the
torpedo-boat-destroyer, who could talk of nothing but victory and the
sinking of the "Bluecher." The survivors of the tramp steamer were
given food and warm drinks; and the lights of Tynemouth were in sight
when Jimmy Burke went on deck with Crouch and the Lieutenant-commander.
The night had cleared. Above them was a whole canopy of stars. A new
moon, too, had risen--a moon that heralded another month of the World
War, of carnage, victory and repulse. And this moon had traced upon the
surface of the sea a narrow, glittering silver pathway, which was like a
road that led from out of all these scenes of horror and destruction to
a far-off land of happy dreams. And on a sudden, into this silver
pathway, there hove the shadows of two mighty giants. They heard the
engines of a great ship groaning, as the strong screws churned the
water; and then they saw the dark, colossal outline of one of the
monarchs of the sea, with an even greater ship in tow.
Both were men-of-war that moved forward slowly, cumbrously, as if in
pain. It was the wounded "Lion," crawling back to port--broken,
bleeding, but invincible to the very end. On that calm, moonlit night,
the "Lion" stood forth as a symbol of all England: hard hit and heavy of
heart, but resolute, defiant and unconquerable.