lighter was half a cable's length or so off our port bow when the battle
cruisers, spouting smoke like young volcanoes, came charging out to
take up the chase of the Hun, and, by a strange chance, it was lounging
indolently square athwart the course of the Flagship. The sharp bows of
the _Invincible_ shore it through like a knife, and her propellers, with
those of the _Inflexible_, quickly reduced boat and cargo to bobbing
bits dancing in their bubbling wake.[A]
"It really hurt me to see that good food and drink snatched almost out
of our mouths, as it were, but I tried to put on a brave front and turn
the matter off as a joke. 'Beer and pork sausage,' I remarked to one of
my officers who had just come up to the bridge to report; 'the battle
cruisers seem to have a good appetite for Hun diet this morning. I only
hope they'll have as good luck gulping down the Huns themselves.'
"'It's only "sausage" they put their teeth in, I'm glad to say, sir,' he
replied with a grin. 'The men managed to hoist the beer aboard somehow
before casting off the lighter, and as I came along just now I heard
some one ordering that the cask be put down in a "syfe plyce wher' it
won't be 'oled if th' 'Un 'its us."'
"'My word!' said the Captain, with the same look on his face that it
had worn on another occasion when he had told me of the 'banquets' that
had been served on the _Carmania_ when the _Cornwall_ had foregathered
with her at a certain mid-Atlantic rendezvous after the former had
sunk the _Cap Trafalgar_. 'My word! but we _did_ enjoy that beer when
the time came to drink it. Yes, they shared and shared alike with the
officers. Good old pirate law as to loot and salvage, you know.'
"The _Kent_, which was at five minutes' notice, was the first ship to
get under weigh, probably with orders to keep the enemy in sight but
not, of course, to try to engage them. The _Glasgow_ was the next out,
and then the _Carnarvon_. The _Cornwall_ was ready to follow close on
the heels of the latter, but, as I have told you, had to wait for the
battle cruisers, which were now under weigh. We went out not far astern
of the _Inflexible_, and the _Bristol_, which had been on long notice in
the inner harbour, was last, at a considerable interval.
"The battle cruisers, with their turbines, worked up to full speed a
great deal more rapidly than the ships with reciprocating engines, and,
heading straight down the wake of the retreating Germans--now showing
their fore-shortened silhouettes in 'Line Ahead' on the south-western
horizon--they quickly drew away from all but the _Glasgow_. The latter,
not long out of the dry dock and swiftest of the lot in any event, had
passed the _Kent_ and was holding a southerly course, evidently with
the intention of keeping the Hun light cruisers in sight and reporting
their movements.
"It took something like two hours after the British ships were out to
convince Von Spee that all his efforts to go 'mehr schnell' were going
to be of no avail. There was nothing left for him to do but to 'der
fight gemachen.' In this he had two alternatives--to fight with all of
his ships, or to fight a delaying action with a part of them and give
the others a chance to escape. His choice was the one that any other
sailor as gallant and able as Von Spee had proved himself to be would
inevitably have taken. He plumped to fight with the _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_, and let the _Nürnberg_, _Leipzig_, and _Dresden_ make
the most of their chances of scattering to safety. His signal, as we
learned it later from prisoners, was substantially this: 'Light cruisers
will make every endeavour to escape to South American ports. Armoured
cruisers will engage enemy, and endeavour to delay.'
"It was just about noon that I saw the tower-like, smoke-crowned
silhouettes of the German ships gradually begin to lengthen, and when
they held steady more or less beam-on I knew that the turn of eight
points meant that Von Spee had made his decision. As the dark profiles
began to draw apart--the two longest heading to port and the three
shortest to starboard--I realised at once what that decision was. The
armoured cruisers were going to try to draw the pursuit to the south,
while the light cruisers sought safety by 'starring' on divergent
courses to the south and south-west.
"I think there will be no harm in my telling you that in all the
possible contingencies we had discussed under which we might meet the
enemy, there was none which roughly approximated to the conditions
imposed upon us by the fact that he had unexpectedly come upon us in
harbour--surprising us no less than himself--and forcing us to tumble
out in pursuit of him in much the same order as a farmer and his family
sallying forth following an alarm in their hen roost. What we had
generally agreed would happen was that we--ourselves spread over a wide
expanse of sea in 'Line Abreast'--would sight the enemy steaming in
similar formation, and in that event it was understood that our battle
cruisers should attend to the two German armoured cruisers, while the
rest of us took on such of his light cruisers as we could most readily
bring to action. Though already scattered over many miles of sea, our
problem was really only that of conforming this 'elastic' general plan
to present conditions.
"The battle cruisers altered course instantly to continue the chase of
the enemy armoured cruisers, but the Admiral, doubtless realising that,
scattered as we were, each of the rest of us (already conversant with
his general instructions) would be his own best judge as to where he
could be most useful, left us to pick our own quarries. I made up my
mind at once to go after the light cruisers, and, signalling 'Come on,
_Kent_' (the Captain of the _Kent_ was my junior, and therefore subject
to my orders in a case of this kind), headed off in the direction of
what were still little more than three dark blurs on the south-westerly
horizon. The _Glasgow_, which was a long way ahead to port, also decided
(in view of instructions) in favour of going after the light cruisers,
and, altering course sharply, passed astern of the battle cruisers and
converged with the _Kent_ and _Cornwall_ in the chase. The _Carnarvon_,
which for some reason was not steaming her best, and had been left a
good distance astern, held on after the battle cruisers. The _Bristol_,
which had been delayed in getting out of harbour, had been ordered to
look after some steamers which had been following Von Spee, and which we
believed to carry coal and provisions. We afterwards learned that one
of them had a cargo of potatoes, and as potatoes chanced to be another
of the many things which the _Cornwall_ was short of at this time, I
have always harboured the same kind of grudge against the _Bristol_ for
sinking these as I have against the _Invincible_ for putting down my
salt pork.
"As soon as it became evident what courses the Hun ships were steering,
I signalled to the _Kent_ to go after the port ship, which turned out to
be the _Nürnberg_, while I gave my attention to the middle one of the
three, the _Leipzig_. This would have left the _Glasgow_ free to pursue
and engage the third ship, the _Dresden_, which her twenty-six knots
of speed should have enabled her to do handily. This plan, if it could
have been carried out, would have made a clean sweep of Von Spee's
squadron then and there, instead of giving the _Dresden_ a new lease on
life, and some weeks more of uncertainty for merchant vessels of both
the South Atlantic and Pacific. Where it slipped up was through the fact
that the _Glasgow_ could not avoid engaging the _Leipzig en passant_
while endeavouring to get within range of the _Dresden_, and, once
having taken on the latter, she was, bulldog-like, reluctant to draw off
until her opponent was finished. As there was no other ship fast enough
to catch up the _Dresden_, her escape was inevitable.
"It was a little after four in the afternoon--almost to a minute the
time I had reckoned it would be--that the fine burst of speed the
_Cornwall_ had been putting on brought the _Leipzig_ well within
range, and I gave the order to open fire. Previous to this the latter
had been engaging in a very lively little running fight with the
_Glasgow_, neither appearing to be inflicting serious damage to the
other. The Hun's four-point-ones were about balanced by the _Glasgow's_
equal number of four-inch, but the latter's two six-inch gave her a
comfortable margin that would have decided the issue in her favour in
the end. The German gunners, always at their best at the beginning of an
action, were making good practice, however, and the _Glasgow_ would have
known she had had a fight on her hands before it was over.
"At the intervention of the _Cornwall_, with her fourteen six-inch guns,
the _Leipzig_--very pluckily and properly--turned her attention to the
heavier armed, and therefore the more dangerous, of her two adversaries.
We began hitting her at our third salvo, and it must have been about the
same time that a shell from one of her well-served four-point-ones came
crashing into the _Cornwall_. I must say it was jolly good work for such
comparatively small guns. The extremely high angle they had to be fired
at, though, reduced their chances of hitting, and I recall especially
one beautifully bunched salvo which struck the water so close to the far
side of the ship that it might almost have been dropped from an
air-ship.
"One of the gunners told me an amusing incident in connexion with that
first hit. A boy, engaged in passing six-inch shells, was inclined to
be rather nervous at the outset, and was coming in for a good deal of
chaffing from his more callous mates. When the bang and jar of that
first explosion ran through the ship, a shell had just been handed
him to shove along, but, quivering all over, he stood rooted in his
tracks and demanded to know what the noise was. A guffaw of laughter
ran round, at the end of which an old gunner replied, 'That, me son,
is our fust vaxinashun mark.' Gradually a grin of comprehension and
reassurance replaced the look of terror on the lad's face as he realised
that it isn't necessarily so serious a thing after all to have a shell
burst above your head. 'Right-o!' he cried, passing the shell smartly
on; ''and this proj. on to the 'Un an' prevent a small-pox epidemic
breakin' out 'board _'is_ ship.' The joke had passed all the way round
the ship before the fight was over, and there was red-hot rivalry to
the end to keep the Hun's small-pox rate down by 'vaxinashun.' When you
think of it, there's nothing funny about the joke at all; but there's
nothing equal to the roughest of chaff to keep men's spirits up and
their nerves steady in a fight, and it's because these lads of ours
take fighting in the same happy-go-lucky spirit that they take their
sport that they're such incomparable stayers--that they're always going
stronger at the finish than when they started, no matter what the
course.
"I remember another amusing little incident which occurred at about
this stage of the game. Owing to the fact that there was no voice-pipe
connexion from the bridge to the foretop and other 'nerve-centres,' it
was imperative that I should fight the ship from the conning tower--an
irksome necessity on account of the circumscribed vision. I found
myself making occasional rounds of 'afternoon calls' to the various
places with which I wanted to keep in closer touch, or from where I
had a better chance to see how things were progressing than from the
box of the conning tower, and one of these took me to the bridge,
whose sole occupant was the signalman at the range-finder. Silhouetted
black against the sky and with not enough cover to protect him from a
pea-shooter, he was still going quietly about his work and apparently
having the time of his young life.
"The _Liepzig's_ gunnery had not begun to go to pieces at this juncture,
and every little while one of those beautifully bunched little salvoes
of four-point-ones would throw up its pretty nest of foam jets in the
near-by water. A shell from one of these struck somewhere amidships as I
came out upon the bridge, and I found the man at the range-finder just
throwing an appraising glance over his shoulder to where the fragments
of a whaler were mounting skyward in a cloud of smoke. 'My word, sir,'
he greeted me with, 'but it's jolly glad I am I ain't back ther' w'ere
the projers catch you 'tween decks. Now, up 'ere it's diff'rent--they
just passes straight on into the water.'
"'They pass straight through!' I repeated. 'What do you mean by that?'
'Jest wot I sez, sir,' he replied. 'Look w'ere you're standin', sir! The
canvas ain't 'arf stiff enuf to stop 'em.'
"I looked. On my left the canvas wind-shield was punctured with a smooth
round hole at about the level of my waist, while on my right a similar
strip had been pinked about even with the calf of my leg. From the upper
hole the ragged ends of the painted canvas were bent inwards: from the
lower hole, outwards.
"''Twas from the 'Uns' last salvo but one, sir,' said the signalman,
grinning down at me over the range-finder. ''Twould 'a' jest about
plugged you in the knees. You was jest too late in comin' up, sir.'
"I believe I told him," said the Captain with a laugh, "that, while I
should hate to be setting an example for unpunctuality on my own ship,
I sincerely hoped and trusted that I should continue being equally late
for 'appointments' of that kind. He was a brave chap, that one, and
I'm glad to say my recommendation brought him a D.C.M. for the way he
carried on that afternoon.
"It's very funny the things one 'imagines' in the course of an action,
one in which you are being hit, I mean. There isn't a lot of your
ship that you can see from a conning-tower, and so when anything
happens--like the explosion of a shell, for instance--you (generally
more or less sub-consciously, for your whole active mind is engrossed
with fighting the ship) have to speculate on where it struck and what
damage it did. Here is an example of one of my efforts in this line
that afternoon. A terrific smashing-banging followed the explosion of a
shell somewhere amidships, and from the nature of the racket I instantly
jumped to the conclusion that it could be only one thing. 'After funnel
carried away,' I announced to my Staff Paymaster, whom I had kept
standing by to take notes and the time of any incidents I thought worth
recording, though just why I concluded it was the _after_ one I don't
remember. 'After funnel carried away,' he repeated, and jotted down the
entry against the time the disaster had occurred.
"Well, I carried on for the next hour or two with the distinct idea in
my mind that one of the funnels was gone, and I even recall wondering
several times in the course of the next hour or two whether any damage
had been caused in the engine-room, or whether the wreckage was likely
to get afire, or whether the smoke would be getting in the way of the
guns. Indeed, it is quite possible I tried to get some assurance on
these points by voice-pipe. I don't remember precisely. At any rate, it
was quite definitely fixed in my mind that that funnel was gone, so that
when the next time I poked out to have a look round, I found that it was
not even dented, I could hardly believe my eyes. I really am not quite
sure to this day what it was that made the infernal banging which I took
to be that funnel going over the side.
"Everything considered, the _Leipzig_ made as gallant a fight as it is
possible to conceive. Under the fire of two ships, either of which was
faster and more heavily gunned than herself, knowing all the time that
her sister ships--almost as completely outclassed as herself--could
never be counted upon to come to her aid, and, finally, desperately
short of ammunition, the way in which she carried on to the end was
worthy of the traditions of any navy. Indeed, it has often occurred
to me that Von Spee and his officers--from their long service on the
China station--had kept themselves entirely free of the contaminating
influences of Potsdam which have made the names of the High Sea and the
U-boat fleet words anathema. British Naval Officers who had met those of
the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ in the Orient still speak of them with
kindness, and even occasionally with affection, and certainly no one
could have faced defeat and death with a finer or more resolute spirit
than they did at the Falklands. Perhaps, for the sake of their souls, it
was fortunate that they never got nearer home than the South Atlantic.
"As I have told you, it was about our third salvo which made our first
hit upon the _Leipzig_, a shell of this carrying away her topmast. The
latter, in falling, appears to have killed the Gunnery Lieutenant, which
must inevitably have made it at least a temporary interference with the
control. The Torpedo Lieutenant, whom we picked up among the survivors,
took over the direction of the firing from the foretop from that time
on.
"There was no appreciable falling off in the _Leipzig's_ firing until
the fight had been in progress about two hours. Then the hammering from
our shells began to tell rapidly, and at about six-thirty, when I noted
that both her mainmast and after funnel had been carried away, and that
she was blazing with heavy fires in several places--the firing became
spasmodic, and finally, with the exception of a single gun, ceased
altogether. At this juncture, as I learned subsequently, there were but
eighteen unwounded men left in the ship, and it was a 'scratch' crew of
these who, bringing up odd shells from wherever they could find them,
continued the fight as long as they had anything to fire. Then they lit
their pipes, sat down on the deck and waited for the end.
"At seven-fifteen, seeing her engines had failed her and that she was
lying an apparently helpless hulk in the trough of the now rising sea,
I gave the order to cease firing. Scarcely had I done so, however,
when there came another flash from that one unsilenced gun, and its
well-placed shell pierced the paint-room in the _Cornwall's_ forepeak.
The ensuing clouds of smoke were so dense that I gave orders for the
fire to be extinguished with all despatch. Luckily, the fumes proved to
have come almost entirely from the shell itself. It was only afterwards,
of course, that I learned in what desperate straits the _Leipzig_ was at
this moment. At the time, as she still appeared desirous of carrying on
the fight, I had no choice but to commence firing again. This last salvo
or two was quite thrown away, however, that is, so far as settling the
fate of the enemy was concerned. Indeed, the injury done to her in the
first two hours of the fighting would ultimately have sent her to the
bottom, while the fact that her shells--except for the odd ones chivvied
together for the one gun--must have been at an end about the same time
would have left her quite incapable of doing us much harm save with a
torpedo. As I have said, however, I did not know these things then, and
so could only continue trying to inflict the heaviest damage possible as
long as she kept firing.
"That shot through my paint-lockers was the last fired by the _Leipzig_,
and I have good reason to believe that the shell was literally the last
four-point-one left on the ship. Two or three of Von Spee's ships
had wasted a good bit of their quite irreplaceable munitions in what
must have been an almost useless bombardment of Papeete, in the French
Societies, while on their way across the Pacific, and Coronel made
still further inroads into the magazines. I do not know whether any
other ship, like the _Leipzig_, exhausted all its heavy shells before
being sunk, but all of them must have been very low in any case. This
fact fully vindicates the decision (which I told you of some time ago)
resolved upon by those responsible for the disposition of the greatly
inferior force of British ships in South American waters before the
intention of sending out the battle cruisers was known, to seek out and
fight Von Spee, regardless of the odds, in the hope of clipping his
claws for the future by compelling him to fire away as many as possible
of his remaining shells.
"As soon as it became evident that the _Leipzig_ was incapable of
further resistance, the _Glasgow_ (as the senior ship) signalled 'Do
you surrender?' but to this there was no reply. Whether this failure
to respond was fortuitous or deliberately intentional I was never able
to learn definitely, but, from the fact that her flag was kept flying
to the last, I am inclined to the belief that it was the latter. It is
still possible, however, that she had no halyards, flags, lights, or
anything else to signal with, even had she so desired. She _did_ send up
a Verey light at this juncture, but whether that was intended to convey
some message to us, in lieu of any other means of doing so, or whether
it was a sort of gesture of farewell to any of her sisters that might
still be afloat, we never knew. If the latter, it failed of its purpose,
for the _Dresden_, the only one of Von Spee's ships still above water,
had melted into the mists of the horizon hours before.
"On the chance that the rocket was meant as a distress signal, we
steamed in as close as seemed wise, considering the fact that even a
sinking ship may launch a torpedo most effectively, and lowered away
our boats with all despatch. The fact that, with a seven per cent. list
to port due to being holed twice below the water-line on that side,
it was difficult to lower the boats to starboard, as well as the fact
that several of our port boats had been smashed by shellfire, hampered
the work of relief, and the _Leipzig_ had gone down, while the nearest
whaler was still some distance away. Any of the wounded that may have
got clear of the sinking ship succumbed quickly to the icy coldness of
the water, but of the eighteen unwounded men remaining after the action
closed, sixteen were picked up--eleven by the boats of the _Glasgow_,
and five by those of the _Cornwall_.
"One burly Hun, picked up by my coxswain whom I had sent in charge of
my galley, gave the lad the surprise of his life, when he exclaimed (in
impeccable Cockney English), the instant he was safe aboard: 'G'blyme,
myte, but ein't it bally cold?' I found out later that he had been for a
number of years an interpreter in the Law Courts of Sydney, Australia.
An extremely significant admission that he made me in the burst of
confidence induced by thankfulness at finding himself safe and sound
after the hell he had been through, was to the effect that he had
received notice of mobilisation toward the end of June. One could not
ask for better evidence than that of the deliberation with which Germany
prepared for the war which she has made such frantic efforts to delude
the world into thinking was 'forced' upon her by the Allies--in August!
"My greatest surprise of the day, and certainly the most welcome, came
when I asked for a report on our casualties. There were none, or rather
only one--the ship's canary, killed in its cage when a shell exploded in
the wardroom pantry. This, considering the fact that the _Cornwall_ had
been hit eighteen times by four-point-one shell, was indeed good luck,
and fully vindicated the plan I had followed of fighting the earlier
stages of the battle at a range which, while short enough to allow my
heavier guns to do deadly execution, was still somewhat extreme for the
lighter ones of the enemy. The latter, it is true, were sighted up to a
very considerable range, but both their accuracy and effectiveness fell
off greatly as the angle at which they had to be elevated to carry these
long distances was increased.