A RUSSIAN RAID.
Mazanoff came to himself about ten minutes later, lying on one of the
seats in the after saloon, and all that he saw when he first opened
his eyes was the white anxious face of Radna bending over him.
"What is the matter? What has happened? Where am I?" he asked, as
soon as his tongue obeyed his will. His voice, although broken and
unsteady, was almost as strong as usual, and Radna's face immediately
brightened as she heard it. A smile soon chased away her anxious
look, and she said cheerily--
"Ah, come! you're not killed after all. You are still on board the
_Ariel_, and what has happened is this as far as I can see. In your
hurry to return the shot from the Russian flagship you fired your
guns at too close range, and the shock of the explosion stunned you.
In fact, we thought for the moment you had blown the _Ariel_ up too,
for she shook so that we all fell down; then her engines stopped, and
she almost fell into the water before they could be started again."
"Is she all right now? Where's the Russian fleet, and what happened
to the flagship? I must get on deck," exclaimed Mazanoff, sitting up
on the seat. As he did so he put his hand to his head and said: "I
feel a bit shaky still. What's that--brandy you've got there? Get me
some champagne, and put the brandy into it. I shall be all right when
I've had a good drink. Now I think of it, I wonder that explosion
didn't blow us to bits. You haven't told me what became of the
flagship," he continued, as Radna came back with a small bottle of
champagne and uncorked it.
"Well, the flagship is at the bottom of the German Ocean. When
Petroff told me that you had fallen dead, as he said, on deck, I ran
up in defiance of your orders and saw the battleship just going down.
The shells had blown the middle of her right out, and a cloud of
steam and smoke and fire was rising out of a great ragged space where
the funnels had been. Before I got you down here she broke right in
two and went down."
"That serves that blackguard Prabylov right for saying we forged the
Tsar's letter, and firing on a flag of truce. Poor Volnow's dead, I
suppose?"
"Oh yes," replied Radna sadly. "He was shot almost to pieces by the
volley from the machine gun. The deck saloon is riddled with bullets,
and the decks badly torn up, but fortunately the hull and propellers
are almost uninjured. But come, drink this, then you can go up and
see for yourself."
So saying she handed him a tumbler of champagne well dashed with
brandy. He drank it down at a gulp, like the Russian that he was, and
said as he put the glass down--
"That's better. I feel a new man. Now give me a kiss, _batiushka_,
and I'll be off."
When he reached the deck he found the _Ariel_ ascending towards the
_Ithuriel_, and about a mile astern of the Russian fleet, the vessels
of which were blazing away into the air with their machine guns, in
the hope of "bringing him down on the wing," as he afterwards put it.
He could hear the bullets singing along underneath him; but the
_Ariel_ was rising so fast, and going at such a speed through the
air, that the moment the Russians got the range they lost it again,
and so merely wasted their ammunition.
Neither the _Ithuriel_ nor the _Orion_ seemed to have taken any part
in the battle so far, or to have done anything to avenge the attack
made upon the _Ariel_. Mazanoff wondered not a little at this, as
both Arnold and Tremayne must have seen the fate of the Russian
flagship. As soon as he got within speaking distance of the
_Ithuriel_, he sang out to Arnold, who was on the deck--
"I got in rather a tight place down there. That scoundrel fired upon
us with the flag of truce flying, and when I gave him a couple of
shells in return I thought the end of the world was come."
"You fired at too close range, my friend. Those shells are sudden
death to anything within a hundred yards of them. Are you all well on
board? You've been knocked about a bit, I see."
"No; poor Volnow's dead. He was killed standing close beside me, and
I wasn't touched, though the explosion of the shell knocked the
senses out of me completely. However, the machinery's all right, and
I don't think the hull is hurt to speak of. But what are you doing? I
should have thought you'd have blown half the fleet out of the water
by this time."
"No. We saw that you had amply avenged yourself, and the Master's
orders were not to do anything till you returned. You'd better come
on board and consult with him."
Mazanoff did so, and when he had told his story to Natas, the latter
mystified him not a little by replying--
"I am glad that none of you are injured, though, of course, I'm sorry
that I sent Volnow to his death; but that is the fortune of war. If
one of us fell into his master's hands his fate would be worse than
that. You avenged the outrage promptly and effectively.
"I have decided not to injure the Russian fleet more than I can help.
It has work to do which must not be interfered with. My only object
is to recover the _Lucifer_, if possible, and so we shall follow the
fleet for the present across the North Sea on our way to the
rendezvous with the other vessels from Aeria which are to meet us on
Rockall Island, and wait our opportunity. Should the opportunity not
come before then, we must proceed to extremities, and destroy her and
the cruiser that has her on board.
"And do you think we shall get such an opportunity?"
"I don't know," replied Natas. "But it is possible. I don't think it
likely that the fleet will have coal enough for a long cruise in the
Atlantic, and therefore it is possible that they will make a descent
on Aberdeen, which they are quite strong enough to capture if they
like, and coal up there. In that case it is extremely probable that
they will make use of the air-ship to terrorise the town into
surrender, and as soon as she takes the air we must make a dash for
her, and either take her or blow her to pieces."
Arnold expressed his entire agreement with this idea, and, as the
event proved, it was entirely correct. Instead of steering
nor'-nor'-west, as they would have done had they intended to go round
the Shetland Islands, or north-west, had they chosen the course
between the Orkneys and the Shetlands, the Russian vessels kept a due
westerly course during the rest of the day, and this course could
only take them to the Scotch coast near Aberdeen.
The distance from where they were was a little under five hundred
miles, and at their present rate of steaming they would reach
Aberdeen about four o'clock on the following afternoon. The air-ships
followed them at a height of four thousand feet during the rest of
the day and until shortly before dawn on the following morning.
They then put on speed, took a wide sweep to the northward, and
returned southward over Banffshire, and passing Aberdeen to the west,
found a secluded resting-place on the northern spur of the
Kincardineshire Hills, about five miles to the southward of the
Granite City.
Here the repairs which were needed by the _Ariel_ were at once taken
in hand by her own crew and that of the _Ithuriel_, while the _Orion_
was sent out to sea again to keep a sharp look-out for the Russian
fleet, which she would sight long before she herself became visible,
and then to watch the movements of the Russians from as great a
distance as possible until it was time to make the counter-attack.
As Aberdeen was then one of the coaling depots for the North Sea
Squadron, it was defended by two battleships, the _Ascalon_ and the
_Menelaus_, three powerful coast-defence vessels, the _Thunderer_,
the _Cyclops_, and the _Pluto_, six cruisers, and twelve
torpedo-boats. The shore defences consisted of a fort on the north
bank at the mouth of the Dee, mounting ten heavy guns, and the
Girdleness fort, mounting twenty-four 9-inch twenty-five ton guns, in
connection with which was a station for working navigable torpedoes
of the Brennan type, which had been considerably improved during the
last ten years.
Shortly after two o'clock on the afternoon of the 30th the _Orion_
returned to her consorts with the news that the Russian fleet was
forty miles off the land, heading straight for Aberdeen, and that
there were no other warships in sight as far as could be seen to the
southward. From this fact it was concluded that the Russians had
escaped the notice of the North Sea Squadron, and so would only have
the force defending Aberdeen to reckon with.
Even had they not possessed the air-ship, this force was so far
inferior to their own that there would be little chance of
successfully defending the town against them. They had eleven
battleships, twenty-five cruisers, eight of which were very large and
heavily armed, and forty torpedo-boats, to pit against the little
British force and the two forts.
But given the assistance of the _Lucifer_, and the town practically
lay at their mercy. They evidently feared no serious opposition in
their raid, for, without even waiting for nightfall, they came on at
full speed, darkening the sky with their smoke, the battleships in
the centre, a dozen cruisers on either side of them, and one large
cruiser about a mile ahead of their centre.
When the captain of the _Ascalon_, who was in command of the port,
saw the overwhelming force of the hostile fleet, he at once came to
the conclusion that it would be madness for him to attempt to put to
sea with his eleven ships and six torpedo-boats. The utmost that he
could do was to remain inshore and assist the forts to keep the
Russians at bay, if possible, until the assistance, which had already
been telegraphed for to Dundee and the Firth of Forth, where the bulk
of the North Sea Squadron was then stationed, could come to his aid.
Five miles off the land the Russian fleet stopped, and the _Lucifer_
rose from the deck of the big cruiser and stationed herself about a
mile to seaward of the mouth of the river at an elevation of three
thousand feet. Then a torpedo-boat flying a flag of truce shot out
from the Russian line and ran to within a mile of the shore.
The Commodore of the port sent out one of his torpedo-boats to meet
her, and this craft brought back a summons to surrender the port for
twelve hours, and permit six of the Russian cruisers to fill up with
coal. The alternative would be bombardment of the town by the fleet
and the air-ship, which alone, as the Russians said, held the fort
and the ships at its mercy.
To this demand the British Commodore sent back a flat refusal, and
defiance to the Russian Commander to do his worst.
Where the _Ithuriel_ and her consorts were lying the hills between
them and the sea completely screened them from the observation of
those on board the _Lucifer_. Arnold and Tremayne had climbed to the
top of a hill above their ships, and watched the movements of the
Russians through their glasses. As soon as they saw the _Lucifer_
rise into the air they returned to the _Ithuriel_ to form their plans
for their share in the conflict that they saw impending.
"I'm afraid we can't do much until it gets a good deal darker than it
is now," said Arnold, in reply to a question from Natas as to his
view of the situation. "If we take the air now the _Lucifer_ will see
us; and we must remember that she is armed with the same weapons as
we have, and a shot from one of her guns would settle any of us that
it struck. Even if we hit her first we should destroy her, and we
could have done that easily yesterday.
"It has felt very like thunder all day, and I see there are some very
black-looking clouds rolling up there over the hills to the
south-west. My advice is to wait for those. I'm afraid we can't do
anything to save the town under the circumstances, but in this state
of the atmosphere a heavy bombardment is practically certain to bring
on a severe thunderstorm, and to fetch those clouds up at the double
quick.
"I don't for a moment think that the British will surrender, big and
all as the Russian force is, and as they have never seen the effects
of our shells they won't fear the _Lucifer_ much until she commences
operations, and then it will be too late. Listen! They've begun.
There goes the first gun!"
A deep, dull boom came rolling up the hills from the sea as he spoke,
and was almost immediately followed by a rapid series of similar
reports, which quickly deepened into a continuous roar. Every one who
could be spared from the air-ship at once ran up to the top of the
hill to watch the progress of the fight. The Russian fleet had
advanced to within three miles of the land, and had opened a furious
cannonade on the British ships and the forts, which were manfully
replying to it with every available gun.
By the time the watchers on the hill had focussed their glasses on
the scene, the _Lucifer_ discharged her first shell on the fort on
Girdleness. They saw the blaze of the explosion gleam through the
smoke that already hung thick over the low building. Another and
another followed in quick succession, and the firing from the fort
ceased. The smoke drifted slowly away, and disclosed a heap of
shapeless ruins.
"That is horrible work, isn't it?" said Arnold to Tremayne through
his clenched teeth. "Anywhere but on British ground would not be so
bad, but the sight of that makes my blood boil. I would give my ears
to take our ships into the air, and smash up that Russian fleet as we
did the French Squadron in the Atlantic."
"There spoke the true Briton, Captain Arnold," said Natasha, who was
standing beside him under a clump of trees. "Yes, I can quite
understand how you feel watching a scene like that, for country is
country after all. Even my half-English blood is pretty near boiling
point; and though I wouldn't give my ears, I would give a good deal
to go with you and do as you say.
"But you may rest assured that the Master's way is the best, and will
prove the shortest road to the universal peace which can only come
through universal war. Courage, my friend, and patience! There will
be a heavy reckoning to pay for this sort of thing one day, and that
before very long."
"Ha!" exclaimed Tremayne. "There goes the other fort. I suppose it
will be the turn of the ships next. What a frightful scene! Twenty
minutes ago it was as peaceful as these hills, and look at it now."
The second fort had been destroyed as rapidly as the first, and the
cessation of the fire of both had made a very perceptible difference
in the cannonade, though the great guns of the Russian fleet still
roared continuously and poured a hurricane of shot and shell into the
mouth of the river across which the British ships were drawn, keeping
up the unequal conflict like so many bull-dogs at bay.
Over them and the river hung a dense pall of bluish-white smoke,
through which the _Lucifer_ sent projectile after projectile in the
attempt to sink the British ironclads. As those on board her could
only judge by the flash of the guns, the aim was very imperfect, and
several projectiles were wasted, falling into the sea and exploding
there, throwing up mountains of water, but not doing any further
damage. At length a brilliant green flash shot up through the smoke
clouds over the river mouth.
"He's hit one of the ships at last!" exclaimed Tremayne, as he saw
the flash. "It'll soon be all up with poor old Aberdeen."
"I don't think so," exclaimed Arnold. "At any rate the _Lucifer_
won't do much more harm. There comes the storm at last! Back to the
ships all of you at once, it's time to go aloft!"
As he spoke a brilliant flash of lightning split the inky clouds
which had now risen high over the western hills, and a deep roll of
thunder came echoing up the valleys as if in answer to the roar of
the cannonade on the sea. The moment every one was on board, Arnold
gave the signal to ascend. As soon as the fan-wheels had raised them
a hundred feet from the ground he gave the signal for full speed
ahead, and the three air-ships swept upwards to the west as though to
meet the coming storm.