Then we began firing from the 12-pounder on the bridge and from Tommy's
6-pounders as fast as we could, and what with the noise of the guns
going off so close to me and the whistling of the enemy's shells, I felt
quite dazed, and it was no use to bob or duck, because the air seemed
full of them.
Mr. Pattison startled me to life again by sending me aft with a message
to the Sub. As I ran down the ladder two holes suddenly appeared in the
after funnel, and a cloud of smoke burst out with a roar close to the
after steering-shield. I must confess I stopped running, absolutely in a
funk, and my legs would hardly hold me up. It was only for a second,
though, and I ran aft just as hard as I could. The shelter screen was
all bent and twisted, and in front of it were two of the after 6-pounder
gun's crew lying on their faces, and blood was oozing from under them
and running along the deck. I just managed to give the message to the
Sub, who was bending over them, and then I was horribly sick.
I don't remember how I got back to the bridge, but just as I did so--and
now we were not a hundred yards from the cruiser--a shell burst on the
fo'c'stle close to the port anchor, and pieces came tearing through the
canvas screen round the bridge with a horrid shrieking noise. Looking
down I saw that one of the securing chains had been smashed, and that
the anchor was now half over the side, hanging by one small chain.
Mr. Pattison saw it too, and tumbled down to the fo'c'stle, shouting to
me, "Keep her as she is, and run along her starboard side as close as
you can go."
I knew what he was going to do. If that last securing chain carried
away, the anchor would go overboard, and even if the cable held at the
stopper and did not run out, we might swerve right across the cruiser's
bows and be cut in half.
We were right up to her now, and through her bow-gun ports I could see
the men round the small quick-firers, but the mere fact of having a job
to do prevented me from feeling frightened. Another second and we were
alongside her fo'c'stle, not twenty feet away, and their small guns
fired point-blank at us as we rushed past her side. I remember dimly
noticing Mr. Pattison lying on his stomach on the fo'c'stle lashing the
anchor for dear life. My ears were ringing and painful, my head seemed
to be splitting, but I had enough common sense left to see that the
stern of the cruiser seemed to be swinging into us.
She must have put her helm over, and meant to crush us as her stern
swung round.
I yelled to the quarter-master at the wheel to "hard a-starboard", for
she would be into us before we could clear her. I could just see his
face as he stood on the steering platform below, and he heard me, but
shook his head grimly and put the helm over to port. Our bows were
already flying past her quarter-deck, and I saw at once that he was
right and I was wrong, for our stern immediately began to swerve
outwards.
It was a terrible moment, for she was swinging into us faster than we
were swinging away from her.
She must strike us and I thought all was over, and gripped hold of the
bridge rails, waiting for the bump.
Another second--there was a crash! We heeled right over to port till I
saw the lee gunwale a-wash, and, oh horrors! the two men lying on the
deck aft slipped overboard with shrieks of agony and fear. I saw our
stern crumple like tissue-paper. We grated along, separated, righted
ourselves, and were flying away.
Mr. Pattison jumped up to the bridge, yelling to "'midships the helm",
but it would not move, and was jammed hard over.
All the men aft had been knocked off their feet, and I saw them
scrambling up again as Mr. Pattison rushed aft, and all crowded round
the crumpled stern.
We were now steaming in a circle, and our broadside was exposed to the
cruiser, which commenced firing very rapidly again.
Then I saw the men aft jump clear of the rudder chain, the rudder swung
amidships, and, thank God! we darted away; but something must have
happened to the engines, for we were not going nearly so fast.
This has taken a long time to write, but probably did not last fifty
seconds. It seemed a lifetime.
Directly we were clear Mr. Pattison came for'ard and took charge.
They had unshackled the steering chain, he told me, and the rudder had
swung amidships. The starboard propeller had been smashed in the
collision, and, with only the port screw working and the helm almost
useless, we struggled along in a very erratic manner, our bows now going
round to starboard and now falling off to port.
Shells were shrieking all round us, but going wild, probably because we
were swerving so much from side to side.
To avoid exposing the men, Mr. Pattison ordered all those on deck to
take shelter under the fo'c'stle, leaving only himself on the bridge and
the quarter-master at the wheel.
I was sent with the necessary orders, and for the first time noticed
Ping Sang and A Tsi standing on deck near the for'ard torpedo-tube quite
unconcerned; but I hustled them for'ard, and everybody, even the Sub,
Tommy, and I, had to crowd down below, and did not see what happened
during the next five minutes, though they were evidently making better
shooting, for we heard several small explosions where shells must have
struck.
All at once there was a muffled roar and the hissing noise of escaping
steam.
We three jumped on deck and saw a great hole in the deck near the base
of the foremost funnel, and clouds of steam and smoke pouring from it.
We opened the manhole cover to the for'ard boiler compartment, more
steam and smoke came swishing out, and in the middle of it crawled out a
stoker, with his face and arms terribly scalded. He just managed to
pull himself out, and, yelling with pain, would have thrown himself
overboard, had not the Sub caught him and hurled him to the deck, where
he lay writhing and shrieking.
Tommy and I peered through the manhole to see if anyone else was alive,
but the Sub shoved us aside, and, with a heaving-line lashed round him,
and holding an old oilskin in front of his face, crawled down. His name
was Harrington--I must tell you it, because this was the pluckiest thing
Tommy and I ever saw.
We took charge of the heaving-line, and he half-stumbled or was
half-lowered down into the steam.
When he got down the ladder and put his feet into the water we could
hear swishing about, he gave a great cry of pain--it must have been
nearly boiling--but he did not hesitate, and we could dimly see him
groping about on the bottom plates, and could also see that the water
was rapidly rising, and was quickly over his knees.
He called out in a squeaky voice for another rope, and lashed it to
something, which we two and some men who came to help hoisted up.
It was another of the stokers, but such a sight as I shall never forget.
He was quite dead, and half the flesh was torn from one shoulder and
from one side of the face.
As we hauled him on deck his skin seemed to come away with his clothes
wherever we touched him.
Oh, it was a most fearful sight!
Tommy and I were roughly pushed away by an old petty officer, and the
body was covered with a tarpaulin.
We could not keep our eyes off that heap, and should have fainted in
another second had not Harrington himself appeared out of the manhole
with his face just like beef and bleeding, and his hands like turkeys'
claws.
He fell down on the deck, and as I knelt down he said in a hoarse
whisper; "My feet, my feet! For God's sake undo my boots!"
We unlaced them, and oh, the terrible pain it was to him to take them
off! and though we cut his socks with a knife, the skin all came off
with them. He had fainted by that time.
Then I heard Mr. Pattison's voice, and Tommy rushed aft and brought some
brandy and a pillow, and we propped his head up and poured a little
brandy down his throat, though it was difficult to do it, because his
tongue was so swollen.
They covered him with a blanket, but he was a huge man, and his two raw
feet stuck out at the end. I shall never forget them.
All this terrible time I had noticed nothing else, but now, looking over
the side, I saw that the destroyer was only going very slowly, and that
there was a big hole at the water-line, where that last shell had come
aboard, and water was pouring in.
No shells seemed to be coming our way now, and looking towards the
island I saw the cruiser steaming away from us without firing, and,
hurrah! hurrah! two great splashes of water leapt up, one after the
other, close to her stern, and boom! boom! came the reports of heavy
guns from the north.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted Tommy, "there's the _Strong Arm_."
You can imagine what a relief it was and what we felt.
We yelled and shouted like mad things, and even Harrington had strength
enough to raise his head and wave his arm, though he could not make as
much noise as a mouse.
It was indeed the _Strong Arm_ firing her foremost guns, and making a
great bow wave as she steamed towards us.
"Out collision mat!" shouted Mr. Pattison, and the order was yelled down
the fo'c'stle and everyone came rushing out, got a line round the
destroyer's bottom, made it fast to the collision mat, and hauled it
over the great rent in the side.
It took three or four minutes to do this, and by that time the deck
seemed quite close to the water, and the stern seemed even lower. The
_Strong Arm_ was now drawing up rapidly.
Then I was sent with a couple of men to screw down the hatch covers
leading to Mr. Pattison's cabin and the ward-room, and by the time we
had done it the deck was a-wash.
The starboard engine had stopped by now, and we lay wallowing with a
horrid log-like jerky motion whilst the men tried to get a tarpaulin
over the hole in the stern, but did not seem to do any good.
The boats were next got into the water. They were full of holes, but by
stuffing their jumpers into the shot holes in the whaler and by bailing
hard, they just managed to keep her afloat. The collapsable Berthon
boats were quite useless, being pierced in half a dozen places, and the
dinghy was smashed to smithereens.
There was only the whaler for fifty men. This meant that most of us
would have to take our chance of hanging on to an oar or wooden grating
till the _Strong Arm_ could pick us up.
By the time we had lowered Mr. Harrington (the Sub) and the scalded
stokers into the whaler our stern was quite under the water, and we were
heeling over to starboard, till fittings, not secured to the deck, began
sliding down, and the sea came over the foot of our deck stanchions. We
could actually feel poor old "No. 1" sinking under us--a horrid
sensation.
"Scramble on deck, boys! All up from below!" was shouted down the
engine-room and stokehold hatches, and everybody began taking off their
boots and jumpers.
This gave me a very creepy feeling.
Steam was roaring out of the escape-pipe, and we all anxiously looked
first at Mr. Pattison, expecting him to give the order to jump, and then
towards the _Strong Arm_, wishing she would come along faster.
Mr. Pattison was hanging on to the bridge rails--the bridge had a
tremendous slant--to keep himself upright, and the signalman hoisted a
signal that we were sinking.
The _Strong Arm_ came rushing up, firing fast from her bow guns, and for
one horrid second I thought she would not see our signal in the
excitement of chasing the cruiser.
Tommy and I were hanging on to the torpedo-tube aft with our feet in
water, and I heard him gasp, with a very white face, "She's going on";
but a moment later we saw her boats' crews clambering over the nettings
into their boats, and raised a mighty cheer of relief as she slowed down
abreast of us. Her boats were lowered with a run and a splash, and came
pulling over to us as hard as men could pull, and as they arrived
alongside our men were ordered to scramble on board them.
We had a row as to who should jump first, for Tommy said that he
_belonged_ to the destroyer and I was only a passenger, so that he ought
to be the last to leave; but I said that as I was senior to him--I was
two places above him passing out of the _Britannia_--it was my duty to
see him get into the boat first.
We had to cling to the torpedo-tube to argue it out, for the deck was
now so steep we couldn't stand on it.
"Get into the boats you young idiots!" shouted Mr. Pattison. "Why are
you keeping the boats waiting, you lop-eared sons of Ham?"
So we settled the matter by both jumping at the same time. I was jolly
glad that I did not let him have his own way.
Just as we had all shoved off, Mr. Pattison being the test to leave, we
heard a cracking noise--a bulk-head must have given way--"No. 1" almost
righted herself--her bows came out of water and pointed higher and
higher, till they were almost upright. There she stayed while you could
have counted fifteen or sixteen, and then slowly slipped down out of
sight.
There was just a little swish as the sea rushed in to cover her, two of
her capstan bars came shooting out of the water, and poor old "No. 1"
had disappeared. I felt rather snuffy, and I knew Tommy did too. We soon
were aboard the _Strong Arm_, and down in the gun-room they all crowded
round and asked questions. It was not till then that I discovered that
my cap was missing, and found too that my hair was all matted together
with blood.
Tommy searched and found a cut about an inch long, and felt rather
annoyed, I think, that he himself hadn't anything to show.
You can imagine I felt jolly proud to have been wounded, though it did
rather take the gilt off the ginger-bread not to have known it at the
time. It was probably a piece of the shell that smashed the
anchor-securing chain.
It must have delayed the _Strong Arm_ nearly an hour, to stop her
engines alongside "No. 1" and to get all of us aboard, and by that time
the pirate cruiser was only a cloud of black smoke on the horizon, with
the three little destroyers which had again come out of the bay steaming
after her at full speed.
*CHAPTER XI*
*The Action off Sin Ling*