II. A Striking Force
Daybreak, drawing back the dark shroud of night from the face of the North Sea, disclosed a British minelaying submarine making her way homeward on the surface. To the two oilskin-clad figures on the conning tower, chilled and streaming wet in the cheerless dawn, it also betrayed feathers of smoke above the horizon astern. The submarine promptly dived to investigate at closer quarters, and was rewarded by the spectacle of a German cruiser squadron, screened by destroyers, steering a northwesterly course at high speed.
The submarine did not attempt to attack with her torpedoes. She retired instead to where the sand-fog stirs in an endless groundswell, and the North Sea cod hover about the wrecks of neutral merchantmen. In these unlit depths she lay for an hour, listening to the chunk of many propellers pass overhead and die away. She knew nothing of the mysterious chain of events which sent those cruisers venturing beyond the protection of the far-reaching German minefields. She was as ignorant of popular clamour in Germany for spectacular naval activity as she was of the presence of a large convoy of laden freighters a hundred miles away to the northward, escorted by destroyers and making for a British port. These matters were not her “pidgin.” On the other hand, having once sighted the German cruisers, she became very much concerned with getting the information through to quarters where it would be appreciated. Accordingly, when the last of the water-borne sounds ceased, the submarine rose to the surface, projected a tiny wireless mast above the wave-tops, and sent out the Call rippling through space.
It was addressed to a certain light cruiser squadron, lying at its buoys with the needles of the pressure gauges flickering and the shells fused in the racks beside each gun, waiting day and night in much the tense preparedness with which the fire brigade waits.
Within two hours the light cruisers were out, ribands of foam and smoke unreeling astern of them, with their attendant destroyers bucketing and plunging on either side of them, flinging the spray abroad in the greeting of a steep easterly swell. The last destroyer swung into station ere the line of minesweepers, crawling patiently to and fro about the harbour approaches, were blotted from view in their smoke astern. Presently the harbour itself faded out of sight; in lodging, cottage, and villa the women glanced at the clocks as the ships went out, and then turned to their morning tasks and the counting of the slow hours....
East into the sunlight went the slim grey cruisers, and then north, threading their swift way through the half-known menace of the minefields, altering course from time to time to give a wide berth to the horned Death that floated awash among the waves. At intervals the yard-arm of the leading light cruiser would be flecked with colour as a signal bellied out against the wind, and each time speed was increased. Faster and faster they rushed through the yellowish seas, fans and turbines humming their song of speed, and the wind in the shrouds chiming in on a higher note as if from an æolian harp.
The spray rattled like hail against the sloping gun-shields and splinter-mats, behind which men stood huddled in little clusters or leaned peering ahead through glasses; cinders from the smoke of the next ahead collected in little whorls and eddies or crunched underfoot about the decks; the guns’ crews jested among themselves in low voices, while the sight-setters adjusted their head-pieces and the layer of each slim gun fussed lovingly about the glittering breech mechanism with a handful of waste....
Then suddenly, above the thunder of the waves and singing of the wind, a clear hail floated aft from a look-out. Bare feet thudded on the planking of the signal bridge, bunting whirled amid the funnel smoke, and the hum of men’s voices along the stripped decks deepened into a growl.
“Smoke on the port bow!”
A daylight searchlight chattered suspiciously—paused—flashed a blinding question, and was silent.
Orders droned down the voice-pipes. Somewhere a man laughed—a sudden savage laugh of exultation, that broke a tension none were aware of till that moment. Then a fire-gong jarred: the muzzle of the foremost gun suddenly vomited a spurt of flame, and as the wind whipped the yellow smoke into tatters, the remaining light cruisers opened fire.
Bang!... bang!... bang!... bang!... bang!
On the misty horizon there were answering flashes, and a moment later came a succession of sounds as of a child beating a tray. The light cruisers wheeled to the eastward amid scattered columns of foam from falling shells, and as they turned to cut off the enemy from his base the destroyers went past, their bows buried in spray, smoke swallowing the frayed white ensigns fluttering aft. In a minute they had vanished in smoke, out of which guns spat viciously, leaving a tangle of little creaming wakes to mark the path of their headlong onslaught.
Neck and neck raced the retreating raiders and the avenging Nemesis from the east coast of Britain. Ahead lay the German minefields and German submarines and the tardy support of the German High Seas Fleet. Somewhere far astern a huddle of nervous merchantmen were being hustled westward by their escort, and midway between the two the hostile destroyer flotillas fought in a desperate death-grapple under the misty blue sky.
When at length the British light cruisers hauled off and ceased fire on the fringe of the German minefields, the enemy were hull down over the horizon, leaving two destroyers sinking amid a swirl of oil and wreckage, and a cruiser on her beam ends ablaze from bow to stern. The sea was dotted with specks of forlorn humanity clinging to spars and rafts. Boats from the British destroyers plied to and fro among them, bent on the quixotic old-fashioned task of succouring a beaten foe. Those not actively engaged in this work of mercy circled round at high speed to fend off submarine attack; the light cruisers stayed by to discourage the advances of a pair of Zeppelins which arrived from the eastward in time to drop bombs on the would-be rescuers of their gasping countrymen.
The bowman of a destroyer’s whaler disengaged his boathook from the garments of a water-logged Teuton, grasped his late enemy by the collar and hauled him spluttering into the boat with a single powerful heave of his right arm.
All about them cutters and whalers rising and falling on the swell were quickly being laden to the gunwales with scalded, bleeding, half-drowned prisoners. A midshipman in the stern of a cutter was waving a bedraggled German ensign and half-tearfully entreating his crew to stop gaping at the Zeppelins and attend to orders. The barking of the light cruisers’ high-angle guns was punctuated by the whinny of falling bombs and pieces of shrapnel that whipped the surface of the sea into spurts of foam. In the background the sinking cruiser blazed sullenly, the shells in her magazine exploding like gigantic Chinese crackers.
In the bows of the whaler referred to above the able seaman with the boathook sat regarding the captive of his bow and spear (or rather, boathook). “’Ere, Tirpitz!” he said, and removing his cap he produced the stump of a partly smoked cigarette. The captive took it with a watery smile and pawed his rescuer’s trousers.
“Kamarad!” he said.
“Not ’arf!” said his captor appreciatively. “Not ’arf you ain’t, you—— —— son of a—— ——!”
The second bow, labouring at his oar, looked back over his shoulder.
“’Ush!” he said reprovingly. “’E can’t understand. Wot’s the use o’ wastin’ that on ’im?” He spat contemptuously over the gunwale.
. . . . .
The following thoughtful description of the action appeared in the German wireless communiqué next morning:
“Our light forces in an enterprise off the English coast put to flight a vastly superior strength of armed merchant cruisers escorted by destroyers. English fleet on coming to the rescue was compelled to withdraw, and our forces returned to harbour without further molestation.”
Every man to his own trade.