THE "ANZAC'S" DAY
ON deck a few smoke-begrimed seamen were engaged in directing hoses
upon the still smouldering wreckage of the superstructure; others
were unbattening the armoured hatches and clearing away some of the
debris.
Handing Greenwood to the care of two of the men, Tressidar made his
way to the conning-tower, with the intention of reporting himself to
the captain.
The entrance, protected by a section of armoured plate set
vertically, was blocked with wreckage. The sub. put out his hand to
steady himself as he surmounted the obstruction. To his surprise the
metal wall was hot, almost unbearably so. The impact of the shell
that had cracked the dome of the conning-tower had generated intense
heat to the rest of the structure.
Within lay the bodies of the captain, first lieutenant, and three
seamen. One of the latter had been struck on the temple with a sliver
of steel that had entered the narrow slit in the armoured walls. The
rest of the occupants were stunned, as effectually as if each had
been hit on the head with a club, for blood was trickling from their
mouths and nostrils.
It was no time to render assistance. A glance ahead showed that the
"Anzac" was still describing a vast curve. Already she had turned
more than nine points and was again drawing within range of the
invisible shore-batteries.
Grasping the wheel of the steam steering-gear, the sub. attempted to
steady the vessel on her helm. There was no response. The mechanism
was no longer in order.
The voice-tube communicating with the engine-room was fortunately
intact, although the telegraph-indicator had been shattered by the
tremendous concussion. On enquiry, Tressidar learnt that the main
steam-pipe of the port engine had been fractured by a shell that had
entered the engine-room, although the main force of the explosion had
been directed against the coal in the wing bunkers. Down below, the
artificer engineers and engine-room ratings were toiling desperately,
placing copper sheathing on the fractured pipe and making it secure
by means of "lagging" and rope.
Only the starboard engine was running, with the result that, in the
absence of control of the helm, the monitor was circling aimlessly.
The sub. tried another voice-tube. To his satisfaction he was
answered by the chief quartermaster.
"Hand wheel party present?" enquired Tressidar.
"All present, sir," was the reply.
"Then connect up and stand by."
Quickly the change was made, and once more the battered monitor was
under control.
By this time Tressidar had discovered that he was actually in
command. Reports from the carpenter's crew revealed the satisfactory
news that the "Anzac" was still sound below the water-line, while the
engine-room staff expressed their belief that the defects in their
department could be temporarily made good within half an hour.
Men were busily engaged in ridding the deck of the wreckage of the
tripod mast, which they did by the simple yet drastic expedient of
completely severing the legs by means of gun-cotton charges.
Although the training-gear of the turret was undamaged, a glancing
shell had snapped six feet off the chase of one of the 14-inch guns,
rendering it useless for further service. The other gun was intact,
but so furious had been the firing that only three rounds remained.
With the destruction of the aerials and the dislocation of the
delicate apparatus, communication by wireless was no longer possible;
nor was there any spar from which a signal might be flown. Sound
signals, too, were useless, since the deafening cannonade between the
other monitors and the shore outvoiced all other noises.
A patrol-boat presently dashed up and drew close alongside the
damaged monitor, and asked if any assistance were required.
"You might take our wounded," replied Tressidar. "We've a number of
casualties And we should like instructions from the flagship. No; we
are still under control and capable of making five knots. There is no
necessity for a ship to be detached to tow us."
As quickly as possible the wounded officers and men were transhipped,
the patrol-vessel meanwhile wirelessing the senior officer and
requesting instructions for the "Anzac," stating that she was no
longer able to resume her station in action.
The reply was: "Proceed to Harwich under own steam." There was no
mention of a destroyer being sent as escort.
When, at length, the engine-room repairs were effected, the sorely
battered monitor, looking little better than a mass of scrap-iron
above the low deck, forged slowly ahead on her homeward voyage. The
survivors, having washed and changed, were piped to dinner, the
principal item of the menu being "Zeppelins in the clouds," namely,
sausages served with gravy.
"Rather ominous," thought Tressidar amusedly, as he overheard the men
discussing the food "Ominous for the Huns, though."
Two hours later the rest of the flotilla was out of sight, although
the dull rumble of gunfire proclaimed that the bombardment was still
maintained. At four in the afternoon the North Hinder Lightship was
sighted. From that point westwards there were no sea-marks, the
Galloper and other light vessels off the Suffolk coast having been
withdrawn.
Slowly the "Anzac" steamed, her rate being considerably less than
Tressidar had anticipated. With the loss of the major portion of the
funnel and the weak spot in her main steam-pipe her horse-power had
fallen appreciably.
Night came on and with it a mist. Stellar observations were no longer
possible. Navigation depended solely upon dead reckoning on a compass
course and the constant use of the lead.
At midnight Tressidar, having previously instructed the quartermaster
of the watch to awaken him should anything occur, lay down on the
deck in the wake of the conning-tower. In less than a minute he was
sleeping fitfully, the drums of his ears throbbing with the reaction
after the deafening cannonade.
It seemed to him that he had been asleep but a few seconds when he
was awakened by a dull, grinding noise and the quartermaster shouting
to the engine-room for "hard astern."
The "Anzac" was aground.
"The men in the chains reported fourteen fathoms not a minute ago,
sir," said the quartermaster. "The water must have shoaled like the
roof of a house."
The hull was throbbing under the pulsations of the engines as the
twin screws lashed cascades of phosphorescent water past the
monitor's bulging sides. The ship showed no tendency to slide off.
She had struck hard.
The sub. ordered the engines to stop. He knew that it wanted two
hours to low water. Further attempts to get the monitor off must be
deferred until after quarter flood, which would be at four forty-five
in the morning.
Fortunately the sea was calm. There was little wind. At some distance
away the sullen rollers were breaking heavily on the shoal. Since the
monitor was not making water and lay on the lee side of the submerged
bank, there was little danger. Provided the wind did not spring up,
she would float without damage with the rising tide.
But the unpleasant fact was apparent that Tressidar had run his ship
ashore--a far more serious case in the eyes of My Lords than if the
monitor had been lost in action.
With dawn the mist dispersed. By observations the sub. discovered
that the "Anzac" had bumped on the Galloper Shoal. He had not made
sufficient allowance for the cross set of the tide, and instead of
passing between the Outer Gabbard and the Galloper, the monitor had
"smelt out" the latter, with ignominious if not serious results.
No other vessel was in sight. With her boats destroyed, the "Anzac"
had no means of laying out an anchor astern. Even if she had, the
steam capstans were useless, having suffered with the rest of the
deck gear during the bombardment. The monitor would have to get off
under her own steam.
Tressidar was still searching the horizon with his telescope when one
of the seamen raised a warning shout:
"Zepp. dead ahead, sir."
There was no mistaking the form of the immense rigid airship. Flying
at a height of two thousand feet, she was heading in a direction that
would bring her almost immediately above the stranded monitor. The
belated night-raider, returning from a visit to the Midlands, had
allowed dawn to overtake her before she was more than a few miles
from the Suffolk coast.
There was little time to be lost, for the hostile airship was moving
through the air at a rate of nearly fifty miles an hour. Without
doubt she would do her best to destroy by means of bombs or aerial
torpedoes the stranded British monitor.
At the word of command the gun's crew manned the sole workable
weapon--the 14-inch turret-gun. Up from the magazine by means of the
hydraulic loading-tray a huge shell was hoisted. It was one of the
remaining three--a new type of gigantic shrapnel, similar to those
fired with disastrous results on the Turks by the super-Dreadnought
"Queen Elizabeth." For once, at least, a 14-inch gun was to be used
as an anti-aircraft weapon.
Under the sighting hood the captain of the turret directed the
training of the huge but docile piece of ordnance. The target was an
easy one as regards bulk, for the gun-layer could plank shell after
shell with unerring accuracy into an invisible target fifteen miles
away; but, on the other hand, there was the speed and great elevation
of the Zeppelin to be taken into consideration.
Anxiously Tressidar watched the chase of the sixty odd tons of metal,
as the muzzle of the weapon, moving as smoothly as a billiard cue,
reared itself into the air. For an instant it seemed to hesitate,
then with a flash and a deafening roar the gun spoke. A mushroom of
black smoke, 'twixt which the course of the projectile could be
followed, leapt from the recoiling weapon.
"Too high," muttered the sub. disappointedly, as the trail of smoke
from the tracer of the shell mounted higher and higher, until it
looked to be far above the flimsy target.
The next instant he felt like cheering madly and doing an impromptu
hornpipe, for the shell had exploded above and within a very short
distance of the doomed Zeppelin. Had it done so at ten times the
distance the result would have been much the same.
Literally riddled with fragments of metal and smitten with the full
force of the blast from the explosion, the airship began to drop with
fearful rapidity, her ends curling upwards like a writhing worm.
Then, like a flash of lightning, the whole of the buckled fabric
burst into flames, the disintegrated fragments falling with a series
of splashes into the sea.
For quite a minute after the collapse of the air-raider there was
silence on board the monitor. The dramatic suddenness of the whole
affair could at first hardly be realised. Then a rousing cheer burst
from the throats of the depleted ship's company. The "Anzac" had
created a war-record--bringing down a Zeppelin with a 14-inch gun.