THE Council of Aeria possessed, as has already been said,
four-and-twenty stations, scattered over the oceans of the world, which
it used as depôts for the submarine fleets, by means of which, acting
in co-operation with its aerial squadrons, it had made any attempt at
naval warfare hopeless until the disasters described at the beginning
of this book proved that an enemy, in this respect at least, more
powerful than itself, had successfully challenged its empire of the sea.
Of these stations the most important in the Southern hemisphere
was that on Kerguelen Island, or Desolation Land, situated at the
intersection of the 49th parallel of south latitude with the 69th
meridian of east longitude. This lonely fragment of land in the midst
of the ocean, barren of surface, and swept by the almost constant
storms of long winters, had been chosen, first, because of its
situation on the southern limits of the Indian Ocean, equidistant
between Africa and Australia, and, secondarily, because of its numerous
and sheltered deep-water harbours, so admirably adapted for vessels
which were perfectly independent of storm.
Added to this, the island contained large supplies of coal, from which
the motive-power of both the submarine vessels and the air-ships was
now derived by direct conversion of its solar energy into electrical
force through the secret processes known only to the President and two
members of the Council.
So far the Russians had not ventured to make any attack upon this
stronghold, so strongly was it defended, not only by its submarine
squadrons and systems of mines, guarding the entrances to all the
harbours, but also by the large force of air-ships which had been
stationed there since the new naval warfare had broken out.
The warning which Alan had conveyed in his letter to his father was
based on the knowledge that a general attack was soon to be made upon
it both by air and sea, with the object of crippling the power of the
Aerians in the Southern Ocean. No time had been lost in acting upon
this warning. The aerial squadron was increased to forty, with the
_Ariel_ as flagship, and twenty new submarine vessels, the largest and
best possessed by the Aerians, had been despatched from Port Natal to
reinforce the fleet of thirty-five already at Kerguelen Island. With
these must of course be counted the _Narwhal_, under the command of
Alan and Alexis.
The strength of the attacking force could only be guessed at, as even
Alan did not know it, but it was not expected that, however strong a
force the Russians might bring up by sea, they would be able, after the
disaster of Antarctica, to muster more than a dozen air-ships.
The Aerian headquarters was at Christmas Harbour, on the northern shore
of the island. This is an admirably-sheltered inlet running westward
into the land between Cape François and Arch Point, and its upper and
narrower half forms an oval basin nearly a mile long by a quarter of
a mile broad, walled in by high perpendicular basaltic cliffs, and
containing a depth of water varying from two to sixteen fathoms, as
compared with twenty-five to thirty fathoms in its outer half.
North of the harbour, Table Mount rises to a height of thirteen hundred
feet, and to the south is a huge mass of basalt over eleven hundred
feet high. On both of these elevations were mounted batteries of guns
capable of throwing projectiles of great size and enormous explosive
energy to a distance of several miles. There were altogether twelve of
these batteries placed on various heights about the island, and the
guns composing them were mounted on swivels, which enabled them to be
trained so as to throw the projectile either into the sea or high up
into the air.
Soon after daybreak on the fourth day after Alan’s letter had been
received the outlook on Cape François, a bold mass of basalt to
the north of the outer bay, telephoned “_Narwhal_ in sight” to the
settlement at the head of the harbour. Immediately on this message
being received the commander of the station, named Max Ernstein, a
man of about thirty-four, and the most daring and skilful submarine
navigator and engineer in the service of the Council, went on board his
own vessel, the _Cachalot_, and set out to welcome the long-lost son of
the President and convey to him the commission which had been sent out
by air-ship from Aeria.
The _Cachalot_, which may as well be described here as elsewhere as
a type of the submarine warship of the time, was a double-pointed
cylinder, built of plates of nickelised aluminium steel, not riveted,
but electrically fused at the joints, so that they formed a continuous
mass equally impervious all over, and presenting no seams or overlaps.
The cylinder was a hundred and fifty feet from point to point, with
a midship’s diameter of forty feet. The forward end was armed with a
sheathing of azurine, the metal peculiar to the mines of Aeria, which
would cut and pierce steel as a diamond cuts glass. This sheathing
formed a ram, which was by no means the least formidable portion of the
warship’s armament.
The upper part of the cylinder was flattened so as to form an oval deck
forty feet long by fifteen wide. A centre section of this deck, three
feet wide, could be opened by means of a lateral slide which allowed
of the elevation of a gun twenty-five feet long, which could be used
either for discharging torpedoes by water or for throwing projectiles
through the air.
It could be aimed and fired from below the deck without the
artillerists even seeing the objects aimed at, save in an arrangement
of mirrors, so adjusted that when the object appeared in the centre of
the lowest of them, the gun could be fired with the certainty of the
projectile reaching its mark. Four underwater torpedo tubes, two ahead
and two astern, completed the armament of the submarine warship.
When under water the deck could be hermetically closed, and sliding
plates could be drawn over the opening of the torpedo tubes, so that
from stem to stern of the cylinder there were no excrescences to impede
the progress of the vessel through the water with the sole exception
of a dome of thick forged glass just forward of the deck, under which
stood the helmsman, who gave place to the commander of the vessel when
she went into action. Her powerful four-bladed screw, driven by engines
almost precisely similar to those of the air-ships, gave her a maximum
speed of a hundred miles an hour.
The _Cachalot_ ran at twenty-five miles an hour down the harbour, and
as soon as he got abreast of Cape François Captain Ernstein, who was
standing on deck, saw a small red flag apparently rising from the waves
about a mile to seaward. A similar flag was soon flying from a movable
flagstaff on the _Cachalot_, and a few minutes later she was lying
alongside the _Narwhal_.
This vessel was a very leviathan of the deep, and as she lay three
parts submerged in the water Captain Ernstein calculated that she
could hardly be less than two hundred feet in length and forty-five in
diameter amidships. She appeared to be built on very much the same plan
as the _Cachalot_ and of the same materials, saving only, of course,
the ram of azurine, which was replaced by one of nickel steel.
As the _Cachalot_ got alongside, a slide was drawn back in the
deck of the _Narwhal_ and the head and shoulders of a man dressed
in close-fitting seal-fur appeared. It was Alan, little changed in
physical appearance since the fatal day that he invited Olga Romanoff
on board the _Ithuriel_, save that he had grown a moustache and beard,
which he wore trimmed somewhat in the Elizabethan style, and that the
frank, open expression of the boy had given place to a grave, almost
sad, sternness, which marked the man who had lived and suffered.
Max Ernstein recognised him at once and saluted as though greeting
a superior officer, for, although all the Aerians were friends and
comrades, the etiquette of rank and discipline was scrupulously
observed amongst them when on active service.
“What do you salute me for?” said Alan gravely, as he reached the deck
and came to the side on which the _Cachalot_ lay. “Do you not see that
I am no longer wearing the golden wings? Are you the officer in command
of the station?”
“Yes, Admiral Arnold,” returned the other, in the same formal tone and
at the same time presenting the letter from the Council. “I suppose you
have forgotten me. I am Max Ernstein, in command of the naval fleet at
Kerguelen. That letter will explain why I saluted and why I have come
to hand over my command to you.”
Before he replied Alan ran his eye rapidly over the letter. As he did
so the pale bronze of his face flushed crimson for a moment, and he
turned his head away from Ernstein, brushed his hand quickly across his
eyes, and then read the letter again more deliberately. Then he turned
and said in a voice that he vainly strove to keep steady--
“This is more than I have deserved or could expect, but obedience is
the first duty, so I accept the command. Come on board, Ernstein; of
course I recognised you, but until I knew how I stood with the Council
I looked upon myself as an outlaw, and therefore no friend or comrade
for you.”
The captain of the _Cachalot_ had a gangway-plank brought up and passed
from one vessel to the other, and in another moment he was standing
beside Alan on the deck of the _Narwhal_, and their hands were joined
in a firm clasp.
“That’s the first honest hand that I have grasped for six years, except
Alexis’,” said Alan, as he returned the clasp with a grip that showed
his physical forces had been by no means impaired by his long mental
servitude. “Come down into the cabin, we shall find him there.”
He led the way below, and as soon as Alexis had been told the
unexpected good news, which seemed to affect him even more deeply than
it had Alan, the three sat down at the table in the saloon of the
_Narwhal_, a plain but comfortably furnished room, about twenty-five
feet long by fifteen broad and ten high, to discuss a plan of
operations in view of the expected attack on the station.
Alan at once assumed the authority with which he had been invested by
the Council, and made minute inquiries into the nature and extent of
the defending force at his disposal.
“I think that ought to be quite sufficient, not only to defeat, but
pretty well destroy any force that the Russians can bring against us,”
said Alan, as soon as Ernstein had finished his description. “We have
much more to fear from the air-ships than from the submarine boats,
because the _Narwhal_ would give a very good account of them, even by
herself. Have any more vessels of the type of the _Ithuriel_ been built
since the old _Ithuriel_ was lost?”
“Yes,” replied Ernstein; “but only ten, I am sorry to say. One of them
is here, as I told you just now, but we have forty of the others, and I
don’t suppose the Russians can bring more than a dozen against us.”
“What do you mean?” said Alan. “They have fifty, every one of them
as fast and as powerful as the old _Ithuriel_. I ought to know,” he
continued grimly, “for they were every one of them built under my own
eyes.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Ernstein. “I ought to have told you before
now that we have already won our first victory, and that though we lost
eight vessels we destroyed twenty of the Russians’.” And then he went
on to give Alan and Alexis a rapid description of the pursuit of the
_Revenge_, and the havoc wrought at the end of it by the _Ithuriel_ and
the _Ariel_.
“That is glorious news!” said Alan. “But they have thirty ships at
their disposal still, and I expect they will bring at least twenty of
these against us, and they are all swifter than ours saving only the
_Ariel_. Of course my command ends with the shore, but I think it will
be as well if the captain of the _Ariel_ were to come on board the
_Narwhal_ so that we could arrange our plans of defence together--I for
the sea, and he for the air.”
“But why not come ashore and see him?” said Ernstein. “He and all of us
will be delighted to see you on the island.”
“No,” said Alan, shaking his head. “Alexis and I have promised each
other never to leave the _Narwhal_ until the Russian sea power is
crippled. The day that we set foot on dry land again will be the day
that we give back the supremacy of the sea to the Council, so if we two
Admirals of the Sea and Air are to meet, the commander of the _Ariel_
must come here.”
“Very well,” said Ernstein. “I understand you. Write a note and I will
send the _Cachalot_ back with it. She will bring him back in under half
an hour, for he was up at the settlement when I left.”
Alan wrote the letter forthwith, and the _Cachalot_ departed,
returning, as her captain had said, in less than half an hour, with
Edward Forrest, the commander of the _Ariel_. He was a lean, wiry,
active man of about forty-five, of mixed English, Scotch, and Aerian
descent, with short, crisp, curly black hair and smooth-shaven face,
rather sharp, regular features, and a pair of keen grey eyes which
seemed to look into the very brain of the person he was talking to--a
man of prompt decisions and few words, and one of the most able aerial
navigators that Aeria could boast of.
He held the rank of admiral, and was responsible for the station of
Kerguelen, and the command of the southern seas. He greeted Alan and
Alexis courteously, but a trifle stiffly, as though he thought that
their indiscretion had been somewhat lightly dealt with by the Council.
This, however, was no business of his, for the first law of Aeria
was that the decisions of the President and Council were not open to
criticism by any private or official citizen whatever his rank or
experience.
Therefore, after reading, as a matter of form, the commission sent to
Alan and Alexis, he addressed himself at once to the business of the
moment, and before they had been discussing the plan of defence for
many minutes he was forced to admit to himself that the President’s
son, young as he was, was more than his master both in aerial and naval
tactics.
For the greater part of the morning plan after plan was suggested,
thrashed out, and either accepted or thrown aside, and when he took his
leave he shook hands with both Alan and Alexis far more cordially than
he had done in greeting, and said with brief, blunt candour--
“This is not the first time that a woman has used a man to upset the
peace of the world, and I tell you honestly that I once thought you
had both turned traitors. I don’t think so now, and I am heartily glad
you are back. If you could only have returned three years ago a lot of
trouble might have been saved, but I must confess that you have both
learnt more in five years than I have in twenty. I will follow your
instructions to the letter.”
“What is done is done,” said Alan, smiling, and yet with a grave
dignity that showed Admiral Forrest that, despite all that had
happened, he was standing in the presence of his master. “The work in
hand now is to regain what we have lost, and if every man does his duty
we shall do so. I think everything is arranged now, and as we have no
time to lose I will say good-morning.”
He held out his hand as he spoke, and Admiral Forrest took his
dismissal and his leave at the same time.
Captain Ernstein took six men out of the _Cachalot_ and placed them at
the disposal of Alan and Alexis, for the working of the _Narwhal_, and
then took his leave to execute his part of the plan of defence.
It was a bitterly cold day, for the southern winter had already
set in in all its severity. The sea to the north of the island was
comparatively smooth, but swept every now and then with violent gusts
of wind from the southward. The sky was entirely covered by thick
masses of cold grey cloud, every now and then torn up into great
rolling masses by the sudden blasts of icy wind from the pole, which
drove fierce storms of hard frozen snow across the bare and desolate
island.
But the roughness of the elements was a matter of small concern to
the crews of the air-ships and the submarine cruisers, for both were
independent alike of sea and storm. The former could literally ride
upon the wings of the fiercest gale that ever blew. Their interiors
were warm and wind-proof, and their machinery was powerful enough to
drive them four and five times as fast as the air-currents in which
they floated, while the latter had only to sink a few feet below the
level of the waves to find perfect calm.
The days, in short, were past when men had been at the mercy of the
elements, and so the atmospheric conditions which would have made a
modern naval attack upon a rocky and exposed coast almost impossible
were not even taken into account in preparing to meet the threatened
assault on Kerguelen Island.
No one knew when or how the first assault would be delivered. All that
was known was that, unless Olga and her advisers had completely altered
their plans, the attack would take place either that day or the next,
and consequently ceaseless vigilance was necessary on sea and land and
in the air.
In accordance with the plan arranged on board the _Narwhal_, ten
air-ships rose above the clouds to an altitude of five thousand
feet, and from each of these an electric thread hung down to as many
signal-stations on the island, all of which were connected with the
headquarters at the top of Christmas Harbour.
Twenty cruisers patrolled the coast at a distance of a mile from the
land, and two miles outside these the _Narwhal_ ran to and fro along
the northern shore. All the more important inlets which had sufficient
depth of water for submarine attack were guarded with mines and chains
of torpedoes, so disposed that no vessel could possibly enter without
firing them, and so giving warning of the locality of the attack.
The afternoon passed without any alarm, and at nightfall the clouds
sent down a blinding storm of snow, which, added to the intense
darkness, made vision impossible both on land and sea, although high
above the clouds the ten air-ships floated in a calm, clear atmosphere,
under the brilliant constellations of the southern hemisphere.
No attack seemed possible without warning, either by sea or above the
clouds, for the hostile air-ships could not approach without being seen
from a great distance through the clear, starlit sky, and without their
lights, which would instantly betray their presence, it was impossible
for the submarine vessels even to find the coast.
Hour after hour passed, and still no hostile sign rewarded the
vigilance of the defenders. No one of the present day could have
guessed that all the preparations had been made for such a battle as
had never been fought before on sea or land, or in the air.
Nothing was visible but the snow-covered earth and the storm-swept sea,
for the sentinel ships, floating far above the clouds, were beyond
the reach of vision. And yet, if the combined fleets of the modern
world had attacked Kerguelen that night, not a ship would have escaped
to tell the tale of annihilation, so terrible were the engines of
destruction which waited but the signal of battle to strike their swift
and irresistible blows.
It was about half-past six o’clock the next morning when Alexis, who
was on watch in the conning-tower of the _Narwhal_, saw a faint beam of
light illuminating the water a long way ahead. He instantly signalled
to Alan--“Enemy in sight. Back. I am going to ram.”
Alan, unwilling to leave the new crew, who were not yet perfectly
acquainted with the working of the machinery, had taken command of the
engine-room alternately with Alexis, who was now taking his four hours’
watch in the conning-tower, and to whom the fortune of war had given
the honour of striking the first blow. The _Narwhal_ backed rapidly,
and as she did so Alexis turned a small wheel in the side of the
conning-tower, and the whole chamber sank into the hull of the vessel.
As soon as it stopped he pulled a lever and a heavy steel sheet slid
over the opening where the glass dome had been. In front of him as he
stood at the steering-wheel was a long, very slender needle hung with
extreme delicacy on a pivot, up which an electric current constantly
passed.
This needle was terrestrially insulated by a magnet which always swung
opposite to the magnetic pole, and when acted upon only by the steel of
the vessel’s fabric, swung indifferently as long as there was no other
vessel within a thousand yards of the _Narwhal_. But the moment one
came within that distance the needle pointed towards it with unerring
accuracy, as it was doing at the present moment.
Alexis allowed the vessel to back until he saw the needle begin to
waver. Then he knew that the thousand-yard limit had been reached, and
signalled--
“Full speed ahead.”
The next moment the engines were reversed and the _Narwhal_ bore down
on her invisible prey. The needle became rigid again. Alexis kept it
pointing dead ahead as the _Narwhal_ gathered way and rushed silently
but with irresistible force upon her victim.
She passed over the thousand yards in forty seconds. Then came a dull,
rending crash, a slight shiver of the mighty fabric, and then she
swept on her way as though she had passed through a couple of inches
of planking instead of the steel hull of a submarine warship more than
two-thirds her own size.
And so in silence and darkness, without the discharge of a gun or the
flash of a shot or an audible cry of human pain, the work of death and
destruction began and ended. In the passing of an instant a warship
had been destroyed which could have annihilated a fleet of modern
battleships in detail without once appearing above the surface of the
water.
The moment that the shock told Alexis that the ram of the _Narwhal_
had done its work, he signalled “Stop,” and as the vessel slowed down
he watched the momentous fluctuations of the needle in front of him.
It oscillated for an instant and then became still again, pointing to
another victim hidden away somewhere under the dark waters. He brought
the vessel round until it pointed ahead again, and then once more the
leviathan plunged forward at full speed on her errand of destruction.
Thirty seconds later a rasping tearing sound, told him that he had
ripped the side out of a second Russian vessel; and again he stopped,
and again the fatal tell-tale needle pointed to a mark on which he
hurled his irresistible ram. So the work went on, and vessel after
vessel was torn to pieces and sunk in the midst of the darkness and
silence of the wintry sea, without even a warning having been given
either to the consorts of the destroyed vessels or to those nearer in
shore, all of which were, of course, outside the range of the needle’s
indication. But for this fact Alexis would have been unable to do his
work, for he would not have known whether he was ramming friend or foe.
When the ram had found its mark for the twelfth time, the needle
oscillated vaguely to and fro, showing that within a thousand-yards
radius at least there were no more victims to be found. Then the
_Narwhal_ rose to the surface of the water, and Alexis resumed his
watch as the vessel patrolled the coast again at a speed of fifty miles
an hour.
Alan now came and relieved Alexis from his watch. As he entered the
conning-tower he said--
“How many is that you’ve settled? A dozen, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Alexis, “but I can hardly think they can have been anything
but scouts, and so we shall have the main fleet to tackle yet.”
“Do you think any of them have got through?” said Alan. “You know they
may have approached from east and west as well, and if so they are
lying inside of us.”
“No,” replied Alexis, “I don’t think they would do that. You see we
have the advantage of them in this way. They can’t see ten yards in
front of them unless there is bright sunshine on the water, or unless
they turn their lights on to the full, in which case they would betray
their presence at once.
“Then they don’t know what has become of the _Narwhal_, and probably
think that she has been attacked by an overwhelming force, or blown up
by some lucky torpedo. They daren’t go inshore in force for fear of
springing a mine, and so you may depend upon it the twelve we have
destroyed were scouts, prowling about very slowly and waiting for
daylight to examine the coast and find a way into Christmas Harbour.
“They must have been in single line, and we had the luck to catch one
of the end ones first, and so we sank the lot in the order in which
they were floating. I don’t think we can do anything more till daylight
except run up and down the coast and keep a sharp look-out to seaward
and on the needle.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Alan. “You’d better go and get an hour’s
sleep if you can.”
“There won’t be much sleep for any of us till to-night,” said Alexis
quickly, pointing to the clouds over the island. “Look! the row has
begun in the air already.”
Alan glanced up and saw a series of intensely bright flashes stream
downwards through the clouds, which at the same moment were rent and
rolled up into vast shadowy billows by some tremendous concussion of
the atmosphere above them. There could be only one explanation of this.
The attack on the island had begun from the air, and the flashes were
those of the first shots of the aerial bombardment.
[Illustration: THE CLOUDS WERE RENT AND ROLLED UP INTO VAST SHADOWY
BILLOWS. _Page 122._]
What had really happened was this.
A fleet of fifty submarine warships, under the command of Michael
Lossenski, the eldest son of Orloff Lossenski, who was now Olga
Romanoff’s chief adviser in the conduct of the war that she had
commenced with the Aerians, had reached the northern coast of Kerguelen
Island about four o’clock in the morning in order to co-operate with
an aerial squadron of fifteen vessels led by the _Revenge_, under the
command, nominally, of Lossenski’s second son Boris, but really of Olga
herself.
As Alexis had surmised, the twelve vessels destroyed by the _Narwhal_
were scouts sent out to, if possible, feel their way to the entrance
of Christmas Harbour, which was known to be the headquarters of the
station.
These were to have returned to the fleet with all the intelligence they
could get as to bearings and soundings, and the position of mines
and the defending fleet. Then at daybreak, that is to say about eight
o’clock, the whole squadron was to have advanced to the entrance to the
harbour, ramming any of the defenders who barred their way, and then,
after sending a swarm of torpedoes into the mouth of the bay to explode
the mines and blow up any submarine defences that might exist, to have
made a rush for the inner bay at the same time that the air-ships
engaged the land defences.
The naval portion of the programme was completely frustrated by the
destruction of the scouts, while the aerial attack was foiled by the
look-outs stationed above the clouds. Soon after seven it became light
enough at their altitude for the powerful glasses of their commanders
to make out the fifteen Russian air-ships coming up from the southward
at a distance of about twenty miles.
A few minutes later they were themselves discovered by the Russians,
and Olga, to her intense chagrin, saw at a glance that all hope of a
surprise was gone. By some means or other the Aerians had received
intelligence of the attack, and were ready for it.
The terrible experience taught by the disaster of Antarctica warned her
and her lieutenants that any approach, now that they were seen, must be
made with the utmost caution, for they had no precise knowledge as to
the range of the Aerian guns. All they knew was that it was very great,
and that where one of their projectiles found its mark destruction
followed instantly.
Added to this, there was another difficulty. The dense masses of cloud
completely hid both sea and land from their view, and made accurate
shooting at the land defences impossible. Consequently there was
nothing for it but to fight the battle out in the upper regions of the
air, against a force of whose actual strength they were ignorant. They
dare not attempt to surround the ten air-ships, which hung stationary
over the island, for this meant bringing all their guns into play,
while they could only use half of their own.
While they were debating on a plan of operations, two new factors in
the coming struggle were swiftly and unexpectedly brought into play. As
soon as the news of their arrival had been telegraphed to headquarters,
the _Ariel_ took the air and passed under the clouds to the rear of
the Russian squadron. Ten miles behind them, she swept round sharply,
and with her wings inclined to the utmost, and her engines working at
the fullest capacity, she took a mighty upward swoop, passed through
the clouds like a flash of light, and before the Russians knew what
had happened, she was floating three thousand feet above them, out of
reach of their guns, and hurling projectile after projectile into their
midst. Three of their ships, struck almost simultaneously, were torn
into a thousand fragments, and vanished through the clouds.
It was the glare and shock of this explosion that Alexis had seen
from the conning-tower of the _Narwhal_. The remaining Russian ships
instantly scattered and sank through the clouds to seek a refuge from
the foe whose deadly blows they were completely unable to return.
But the moment they appeared on the under-side of the cloud-sea, all
the guns of the land batteries opened fire in all directions with
time-shells, and so rapid were the discharges, and so terrible the
energy of the explosives, that the whole firmament above the island
seemed ablaze with them, while the concussions of the nether atmosphere
were so tremendous and continuous, that it would have been madness for
the Russian air-ships to have approached within the zone of fire with
which the Aerians had covered and encircled their positions.
The clouds were torn and broken up into vast whirling masses, which
completely obscured the view of the Russians, and rendered anything
like accurate shooting in the direction of the island impossible. Worse
than this, the range of the great land guns, fired at an elevation
of forty-five degrees, was so enormous that they were forced by the
incessantly exploding projectiles, which were hurled up into the air in
all directions, to retire to a distance which, beyond the most random
shooting, the results of which were spent upon the rocks of the island
and the sea, rendered their own guns useless.
Rise up through the clouds they dare not, for they knew the _Ariel_ was
still there, and that the first ship that showed herself would be an
almost helpless mark for one of the ten guns which, for the time being,
commanded the heavens. There seemed nothing for it but an ignominious
retreat, for, as Boris Lossenski said to Olga when, furious with rage
and mortification, she reproached him with a lack both of skill and
courage, an attack upon a volcano in full eruption would have been
child’s play to an assault at close quarters on Kerguelen Island.
Their one hope of success had lain in a surprise, and that, by some
unaccountable means, had been made impossible. They had reckoned only
on the air-ships and the submarine defences, and even these they had
expected to take unawares. The terrible power of the battery guns,
which were able to spread their seas of fire through the air and to
shake the very firmament itself with their projectiles, had been a
revelation to them.
They could not train their own guns without seeing their mark, and
neither flame nor smoke betrayed the position of the batteries, while
on the other hand the artillerists on the island had simply to surround
the station with a zone of fire and a continuous series of atmospheric
convulsions through which no air-ship could have passed without the
risk of overturning or completely collapsing.
So Olga was at last convinced that her choice lay between abandonment
of the attack or running the gauntlet of fire in the almost forlorn
hope of engaging the land batteries and an aerial fleet of unknown
strength at close quarters.
Baffled and defeated, and yet convinced that to continue the unequal
contest under its present conditions would be merely to court still
more disastrous defeat, and even probable destruction, Olga at last
allowed Lossenski to give the signal for retreat, and the Russian
squadron withdrew to a position twelve miles northward of the island.
Its departure was seen both from the air and the land, and the
cannonade immediately stopped.
Meanwhile Alan had run the _Narwhal_ into the mouth of Christmas
Harbour flying his red flag. He was met by the _Cachalot_, and,
after telling Captain Ernstein what he had done, and learning of the
repulse of the Russians in the aerial battle, he directed forty of the
submarine vessels to follow him out to sea to look for the Russian
flotilla.
All the craft were furnished with tell-tale needles similar to the
one on board the _Narwhal_, for it is impossible to see a sufficient
distance under water to effectively attack an enemy as agile as the
submarine warships were, and this fact had led to the universal
employment of the needles.
As it was now quite light, the whole Aerian squadron, with the
exception of five vessels whose duty it was to act as scouts under
water, proceeded seaward on the surface of the waves, keeping a
sharp look-out for the remains of the Russian fleet, which they soon
discovered lying about five miles off the island. They could make out
thirty-five of the long, black, half-submerged hulls lying together
like a school of whales with the waves breaking over them as over
sunken rocks.
Alan immediately signalled from his conning-tower in the manual
sign-language, used by the Aerians to communicate between their
air-ships, to his consorts, and ordered them to scatter and form a wide
circle round the Russian squadron at a distance of a mile, and a depth
of two fathoms, but on no account to approach within a thousand yards
of them. When they had reached their positions they were to rise to the
surface and each was to discharge a couple of torpedoes towards the
centre of the circle. After that they were to retire and leave the rest
to him.
The moment the order had been passed through the fleet, everyone of the
vessels disappeared and proceeded to her station. The _Narwhal_ sank
at the same time until nothing but the glass dome of her conning-tower
remained above the water.
By carefully noting the course steered by the compass, and accurately
measuring the distance travelled by the number of revolutions of the
propeller, each captain was able to place his craft in the desired
position.
So perfectly, indeed, was the manœuvre performed that when the vessels
rose to the surface they formed a circle two miles in diameter, in the
centre of which lay, within a space of about two hundred yards square,
the Russian flotilla, the commanders of which, afraid to advance nearer
to the shore without the intelligence which they still awaited from
their scouts, and confounded by the awful spectacle presented by the
aerial battle, of the issue of which they were utterly ignorant, were
waiting in bewilderment and indecision the issue of the events which
had taken such a marvellous and unexpected turn.
The manœuvre ordered by Alan had been executed so promptly and secretly
that the Russians were not even aware that they were surrounded until
torpedo after torpedo, coming in from all points of the compass, began
exploding in their midst, hurling vast masses of water and foam up
into the air, tearing their plates and crippling their propellers, and
disabling half their number before they had time to recover from the
confusion into which the sudden attack had thrown them.
To communicate signals from one vessel to another under such
circumstances was impossible, and so united action was out of the
question. All that the captains of the vessels could see was that
there were enemies upon all sides of them. The explosion of the eighty
torpedoes had churned the water up into a mass of seething foam, in the
midst of which fifteen vessels were lying crippled and helpless on the
surface, while six more had been sent to the bottom.
This was bad enough, but while the captains of those which had escaped
were recovering from the stupefaction into which this sudden disaster
had thrown them Alan saw his chance, and as soon as the last torpedo
had exploded headed the _Narwhal_ full speed into the midst of them.
Then followed a scene which would have beggared all description.
The great ship, moving at a speed of nearly three miles a minute, tore
her way through the half-crippled squadron, hurling everything she
struck to the bottom of the sea. Every Russian vessel that was able to
do so after the first assault sank out of the way of the terrible ram
of the _Narwhal_ and headed off at full speed into the open sea.
But for those that were partially or wholly disabled there was no
escape. Alan standing in his conning-tower, his teeth clenched and his
blue eyes almost black with the fierce passion of battle and revenge,
whirled his steering-wheel this way and that, and as the steel monster
swung round in rapid curves in obedience to the rudder, he hurled her
again and again upon his practically helpless victims, piercing them
through and through as though their plates had been cardboard instead
of steel.
When the last one had gone down he left the conning-tower, hoisted his
flagstaff, and flew a signal to his consorts to return to harbour. What
had become of the Russian vessels that had escaped he neither knew nor,
for the present, cared.
The victory of the Aerians both at sea and in the air was complete, and
he was certain that the Russians had received such a lesson as would
convince them that Kerguelen Island was impregnable to any assault that
they could make upon it, unless they were able to take its defenders by
surprise--a contingency which was justly considered impossible.