CHAPTER XVII.
THE END OF THE "BLUECHER."
The "Livingstone," second destroyer in the port-column of the flotilla, was speeding through the long undulations of the North Sea at a modest twenty knots. It was barely a quarter past seven on Sunday morning. Dawn had not begun to show in the eastern sky, and although a dozen or so of the destroyers were in company, only the partly-screened stern lights of the one ahead and the phosphorescent swirl of the one next astern betrayed the presence of others of the flotilla.
Something was in the air. Officers and crew knew that, but vaguely. Orders, significant in their brevity, had been issued overnight for the ship's company to bathe and change into clean clothes. That in itself meant the possibility of an action, while the sudden call to the flotilla to proceed to sea instead of completing the fortnight's "stand-by" in the Forth indicated that no minor operations were contemplated.
The "Livingstone" was cleared for action. Ammunition had been served up, fire hoses rigged, deck fittings removed, and every other possible precaution taken to safeguard the frail craft in the impending action.
The crew were on the tip-toe of expectation: eager to get in touch with the enemy and fearful lest they should find themselves out on a wild-goose chase.
The action, should it materialize, would not be of a minor character, for broad on the starboard beam of the flotilla, though invisible in the darkness, were the giant battle-cruisers "Lion," "Tiger," "Princess Royal," "New Zealand," and "Indomitable."
Flung out, fanwise, were the handy and hard-hitting light-cruisers, supported by other destroyer flotillas, and serving as a screen to the battle-cruisers should any hostile torpedo-craft attempt their vaunted "lancer-thrust" against them.
"Something doin' this time, Aubyn," remarked Gilroy, who was responsible for keeping the "Livingstone" in station. "Wireless from the 'Arethusa' just through, reporting strong enemy squadron. There—look."
The sub. turned his head just in time to catch the flash of a distant gun, quickly followed by another and another. Half a minute later came the dull rumble of the first report. The light-cruisers were in touch with the enemy away to sou'-sou'-east.
A signal lamp flickered from the flagship:—
"All destroyer flotillas proceed to support the light-cruisers. Engage enemy destroyers."
Like hounds released from leash the long, lean, black-hulled craft dashed forward. No need to give a compass course: the now rapidly-recurring flashes told them where their work lay.
Under copious supplies of oil fuel, the "Livingstone's" engines quickly developed more horse-power than they had ever done before. Trailing lurid flames issued from her four squat funnels, and threw their ruddy glare upon the determined faces of the guns'-crews.
Ahead, and on the starboard hand, and astern the position of the rest of the flotilla was likewise indicated by the spurts of flames from their furnaces. Noxious oil-fumed smoke belched in dense columns, glowing like fanned charcoal as it eddied clear of the funnels. The scene resembled a section of the Black Country transferred bodily to the North Sea on a pitch-dark night.
"By Jove, we're in luck!" shouted Gilroy, in order to make himself heard above the hiss of the wind as the destroyer tore at thirty-six knots towards the scene of action. "We've just picked up a wireless to the Flag. We're up against the 'Moltke,' 'Seydlitz,' and 'Derfflinger,' three of Germany's best battle-cruisers, with that old crock the 'Bluecher' chucked in, to say nothing of a swarm of light-cruisers and destroyers. Beatty's got his chance this time: he'll bag the lot with the force he has at his disposal."
And the lieutenant pointed in the direction of the British battle-cruisers, whose position could now be faintly distinguished, well on the port beam, by the splash of flame from their funnels.
"We'll give them something in return for Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool," continued Gilroy. "Ten to one the beggars were off to try the same game again. By Jove! I pity any German submarine that gets foul of that crowd," and he indicated the far spread-out line of destroyers speeding towards their foes.
Just then the lieutenant-commander of the "Livingstone" ascended the bridge.
"Rotten luck, Gilroy," he announced. "The Germans are funking it. They've turned tail."
"The battle-cruisers will head them off yet, sir," suggested Gilroy confidently.
"I hope so—ha! what's this?"
A signalman had just hurried up.
"Destroyers to take up position on battle-cruiser's port quarter," said the skipper. "Confound it! That's put the pot on it, Gilroy."
"It's our smoke, sir, that's troubling the 'Lion,'" replied the lieutenant.
Dawn had now broken sufficiently to discern the lofty hulls, triple funnels, and masts of the five battle-cruisers, as they raced at their maximum speed on a south-easterly course. The four guns of the two foremost superimposed turrets of the "Lion" were already trained to their greatest elevation, awaiting the report of the fire-control platform that their quarry was within hitting distance.
Gilroy was right. The smoke from the destroyers was drifting across the line of fire of the giant ships.
"It's a case of get out and get under—their lee," commented the lieutenant-commander, as a signal was sent up from the parent ship of the flotilla ordering the destroyers to fall back out of the way of the hard-hitters of the fleet.
As the day dawned the thick haze of smoke that marked the position of the runaway raiders could be seen, although from the bridge of the destroyer the hostile ships were invisible. The cannonading away to the sou'-east had now ceased; apparently the enemy torpedo-boats had attained a temporary security under the wing of their larger craft. Suddenly Terence remembered that he had not had his breakfast. Although it was not his watch, excitement had kept him on deck, and now in the lull the workings of the inner man demanded attention. It was a quarter to nine when he entered the mess. Three minutes later, before the steward had time to bring in the coffee, a terrific detonation caused the "Livingstone" to shake like an aspen leaf.
Breakfast completely forgotten, the sub. dashed on deck. He knew what had happened: the "Lion" had fired the opening shot of the engagement with one of her monster 13.5-in. guns.
She was not yet within range. Terence realized that by the fact that she did not follow the single shot by salvo after salvo, that the projectile—weighing nearly a ton—had shrieked ineffectually towards the rearmost of the German ships.
To the sub. it seemed as if the fifty odd feet of steel cylinder that projected from the "Lion's" B turret was rising slowly on its complicated mountings. Obedient to the master-hand in the fire-control platform the giant weapon was being "laid" upon an invisible target 20,000 yards away.
Then—flash! crash!
Flames of cordite enveloped the whole of the fore-part of the "Lion." Above the bank of haze from the so-called smokeless powder, the gunnery-lieutenant in the fire-control platform was coolly watching the result of his second trial shot.
There was no doubt about it. The British battle-cruisers, pelting along at 28 1/2 knots, were slowly but surely overtaking their prey. Already the "Bluecher," credited with but a fraction over 25 knots, was falling astern of her consorts. In their frantic dash for the safety of their own mine-fields the three swifter vessels paid no heed to the fact that one of their own ships was sooner or later to bear the brunt of the Englishmen's guns.
Naval chivalry which caused the gallant "Monmouth" to share the fate of the luckless "Good Hope" in the action off Coronel was found wanting amongst the disciples of "kultur." Instead of attempting to cover the "Bluecher's" retreat, the "Derfflinger" and her fellow-raiders ran, abandoning her to her fate.
Terence glanced at his watch as the first salvo burst from the avenging "Lion." It was nearly ten minutes past nine. Truly, he thought, it was a magnificent sight to see Beatty's flagship wreaking vengeance upon the cowardly bombarders of Scarborough; yet in the light of a general action it seemed a one-sided affair, as shell after shell sped on its way towards the still invisible German ships and none came in reply.
Gilroy, perched upon the bridge weather-rail, was coolly taking snapshots of the "Flag" with a pocket kodak. The men of the destroyer were so impressed by the sight of the "Lion" in action that it was with the greatest difficulty that they could be brought to realize their position: to watch for any lurking submarine that might seize an opportunity of loosing a torpedo against the swiftly-moving mass of 26,000 tons displacement.
A column of spray flung high in the air at fifty feet from the "Lion's" starboard beam announced the fact that the German battle-cruisers had been overhauled sufficiently for them to get the range of their pursuers. Then shell after shell began to fall around the flagship. Occasionally a projectile would strike a glancing blow against the armoured sides of the British vessel, but unswervingly she held on, if anything increasing her rapidity of fire.
A hoist of flags fluttered up to the signal yard arm of the "Lion" and stood out as stiff as if made of sheet iron in the strong breeze.
From the leader of the flotilla came the answering pendant, each of the destroyers acknowledging the signal in turn. Enemy torpedo-boats were threatening an attack, and the British destroyers were to beat off the hornets that had the audacity to attempt to hurl themselves within torpedo-range of the battle-cruisers.
"Now for it," thought Aubyn, as he left the bridge and took up his station at the after 4-in. gun.
Swift as was the "Lion" the speed of the destroyers was greater. Forging ahead they left the battle-cruisers well on the starboard quarter. Heavy projectiles, passing handsomely over the short masts of the "Livingstone" and her consorts "straddled" the "Lion," some falling short, others ricochetting from the water two hundred yards in her wake.
The contest between the rival destroyer flotillas was of short duration. Apparently the German boats had no intention of joining action. It was merely a manoeuvre on their part to screen their already severely damaged battle-cruisers by means of dense columns of smoke.
In a sense they were successful, for under cover of the pall of black vapour the larger German ships altered course and steered in a northerly direction, but as the torpedo-boats drew off Terence discerned for the first time one of the enemy battle-cruisers.
She was listing heavily to port. Flames were bursting from her amidships, her funnels had disappeared and two legs of her tripod mast. Yet in spite of her damaged condition she was endeavouring to crawl out of line, slowly shaping a course to the nor'-nor'-west. Still firing as she wallowed in her death-agony, she was being marked for special attention by the "Indomitable," which, under the admiral's orders, had hauled to port to complete the work of destruction.
"Hurrah! The 'Bluecher's' done for!" shouted the torpedo-gunner of the "Livingstone."
Terence could hardly believe his eyes. Was that battered wreck the same vessel that a few weeks before he had seen pouring death and destruction into the peaceful town of Scarborough?
He brought his glasses to bear upon the ill-fated raider. In spite of her enormously thick armour huge rents were plainly visible in her sides. One of her heavy gun-turrets had been blown clean away. 'Tween decks the greater part of her was a glowing furnace. It seemed a marvel how the crew could maintain even the feeblest fire, yet, under the influence of morphia supplied by their officers, half-dazed men still worked the remaining effective guns with the ferocity of madmen.
Then the "Tiger," showing scars of honourable wounds, but still vitally intact, came up, hurling shell after shell into the doomed vessel.
Cat-like in her death-agonies the "Bluecher" sought to deal her antagonist a coup de grâce by letting loose a torpedo.
Keenly alert to such a possibility, the cool and collected captain of the British battle-cruiser detected the ripples that marked the approach of the deadly "tin-fish." Ordering the "Tiger's" helm to be put hard over, he had the satisfaction of seeing the torpedo miss its mark by a bare twenty feet.
As the "Bluecher" showed no sign of surrendering it was necessary to hasten her end. Looming up through the black and yellow smoke that drifted in huge volumes to lee'ard came the saucy "Arethusa." Fearless in the midst of a rain of light projectiles her torpedo-men gathered round two of her above-water tubes. At any moment a fragment of a shell might strike the warheads of the two missiles ere they took the water, and send the light-cruiser to her doom.
Like a trick swimmer making a clean dive, the first of the gleaming cylinders left the tube and disappeared amidst the feathery spray. Five seconds later the second torpedo sped on its way to destruction.
The first alone would have been sufficient. Striking the "Bluecher" fairly amidships the powerful weapon blew a gaping hole in the hull of the already foundering vessel. More and more she heeled, till the whole length of her bilge keel became visible.
With the characteristic consideration to a beaten foe the British vessels ceased firing. Instinctively the German sailors knew that they were free to leave the doubtful shelter of the armoured portions of the ship and to save themselves, if possible.
Aft poured the scorched and dazed survivors of the ship's company, forming up upon the steeply shelving deck. Some, with a devotion to their Fatherland, broke into song with "The Watch on the Rhine," while the officers, linking arms, stood awaiting the final plunge—if plunge it might be called.
"Jump, you silly blighters!" shouted an excitable bluejacket from the "Arethusa," and the invitation was taken up by others, while the crews of the light-cruisers and the nearmost destroyers hastened to lower boats to assist in the errand of mercy.
"She's going!" ejaculated Gilroy, as the huge hull turned completely over on its side, and with hardly any agitation of the sea slid gently under the waves, throwing those of her crew who had not already jumped into the water.
The "Livingstone" by this time had come to a standstill at about a cable's length from the spot where the "Bluecher" had disappeared. The only boat she had fit for service was lowered, and into it clambered Terence and four seamen.
Before they had gone fifty yards Aubyn noticed that the boat was leaking badly. Already the water was above the floor boards. One of the men was obliged to use the baler vigorously, while the others kept to their oars, the sub. holding the boat on her course by means of considerable lee helm.
"Lay on your oars, men," exclaimed Terence, and leaning over the side he was just in time to grasp the hair of a scorched and blackened German bluejacket as he was sinking for the last time. Two more men were rescued, one stark naked, save for an inflated swimming collar; the other wounded in half a dozen places by pieces of flying metal.
So intent were the crews of the numerous boats upon their work of saving life that they failed to notice a new peril. Only a warning shout from the quarter-deck of the "Arethusa" recalled them to the fact that they were not fighting civilized foes but enemies whose methods of waging war were on a par with those of the old Red Indians, the ferocious Boxers, or the fanatical tribes of Somaliland.
Overhead was a Zeppelin, accompanied by a couple of German waterplanes. Although it must have been perfectly obvious to the observers that the British tars were rescuing their beaten foes, the aircraft began a rapid bombardment with bombs.
One missile, fortunately without exploding, dropped an oar's length from the "Livingstone's" boat. Others, detonating with a sharp crack, assisted in sending a score or so of the "Bluecher's" crew to their death.
Filled with fury, that during the engagement had been foreign to them, the British tars were compelled to relinquish their task of saving life. Back to their respective ships they rowed, and a hail of projectiles was launched against the treacherous Zeppelin and her consorts.
This was more than the unwieldy gas-bag could stand. Circling and ascending higher and higher she flew out of the danger zone and made off back to Heligoland.
But the engagement was not yet over.
From the flagship of the admiral commanding the destroyer flotillas came a signal:—
"Proceed to N.E. and engage enemy-destroyers and submarines."