The Demolition Party
A double crash announced that the leading battleship of the British squadron had opened fire with her foremost 12-inch guns. In two minutes the action had become general, the whole of the British and French pre-Dreadnoughts engaging with their principal armament, for as yet the range was too great for the 6-inch guns and smaller weapons to be trained upon the distant defences.
Ahead, the mine-sweepers, "straddled" by the hail of projectiles from Sedd-ul-Bahr and Kum Kale, as well as from mobile batteries cunningly concealed in difficult ground, proceeded with slow and grim determination. All across them the sea was churned by the ricochetting shells, while ever and anon a terrific waterspout accompanied by a dull roar showed that they were making good work in clearing away the hostile mines.
The Turks, in spite of the huge 12-inch projectiles that hailed incessantly upon the forts, stood to their guns with fanatical bravery. Tons of brickwork and masonry would be hurled high in the air, after taking with them the mangled remains of the Ottoman gunners and up-ending the Turkish weapon as easily as if it were a mere drain-pipe. Yet a few minutes later the defenders would bring up a field-piece and blaze away across the ruins at the nearest of the British mine-sweepers.
"Port 6-inch battery to fire," came the order.
Almost simultaneously the six secondary armament guns added their quota of death and destruction to the slower crash of the heavier weapons in the barbettes.
The Hammerer and her consorts were rapidly closing the shore, taking advantage of the already seriously damaged forts.
It was by no means a one-sided engagement. Shells from the Turkish defences were ricochetting all around the British warships or expending themselves harmlessly against the armoured plating. Other projectiles tore through the unprotected sides and upper works. Well it was that orders had been given out not to man the 12-pounder quick-firers on the upper deck. Had these weapons been used the casualties here must have been very heavy, for the light battery resembled a scrap-iron store.
Suddenly the men serving the gun in the casemate stopped their rapid yet deliberate work. A hostile shell had penetrated the 6-inch side armour almost under the casemate and had burst close to the lower part of the foremast. The shock well-nigh capsized the Sub, and almost caused the man at the ammunition hoist to drop the hundred-pound shell that he was in the act of transferring to the breech of the weapon. Suffocating fumes eddied through the ammunition hoist into the confined space. In the dim light men were gasping for breath, expecting every moment to find the magazine beneath their feet blown up.
"Hoist out of action, sir," reported one of the men, as he threw the contents of a bucket of water down the choked tube. Although everything of a supposedly inflammable nature had been got rid of, the heat generated by the explosion had been sufficient to start a fire, and the seat of the conflagration was between the armoured floor of the casemate and the magazine below the water-line.
"That's done it," ejaculated Dick dejectedly. It was not on account of the danger, for the men remained calmly within the casemate, trusting to the fire-party to extinguish the flames that were perilously close to the magazine. He was deploring the fact that the jamming of the ammunition hoist had deprived his gun of its supply of shells. The weapon was as much out of action as if the entire gun's crew had been annihilated. It seemed so humiliating to be inactive.
"Number one 6-inch, why are you not firing?" inquired an officer in the conning-tower through one of the voice tubes. There was a tinge of anxiety in his voice. He had noticed the sudden cessation of fire from that particular weapon, and it looked ominous.
"Ammunition hoist damaged, sir," replied the Sub.
"Any casualties?"
"No, sir."
"Then stand by."
Dick heard the whistle replaced in the tube as the officer completed his enquiries. Then hard-a-port the Hammerer described a semicircle, in order to bring her as yet unengaged starboard battery into action.
By this time the Turkish reply was but a feeble one. Pounded by the direct fire from the pre-Dreadnoughts; shattered by the long-range high-angle fire of the Queen Elizabeth and the Invincible, the forts were little better than mounds of rubbish.
Already the British warships had penetrated more than two miles up the formidable Straits, the mine-sweepers performing their difficult task with the utmost coolness and bravery. Night was coming on. All that could be done was to make sure of the complete reduction of the southernmost forts, and continue the sweeping operations as a prelude to a farther advance on the morrow.
Two British seaplanes, hovering at a height of nearly a thousand feet above the hostile positions, reported by wireless that the Turks were abandoning their shattered forts. The opportunity had arrived to consummate the day's work. A signal was made from the flagship to land armed parties. Joyfully the order was received, for the British seaman is not content with doing a lot of damage from afar; he must needs see for himself the result of his efforts.
Still maintaining a steady fire with their secondary batteries, the ships proceeded to hoist out their boats. Into these dropped seamen and marines, armed with rifles and bayonets, Maxims were passed into the boats, and charges of gun-cotton carefully stowed away for future use in completing the destruction of the Turkish guns.
"At this rate we'll be through in less than a week," remarked Midshipman Sefton to Dick, as they sat in the stern-sheets of a launch packed with armed seamen. The launch was in tow of a steam pinnace, while astern of her were two more boats, equally crowded.
"Seems like it," answered Crosthwaite, as he looked towards the rapidly nearing shore—a wild, precipitous line of rocks, surmounted by a pile of masonry that a few hours before was one of the strongest points of defence of the Dardanelles. "The Commander told me that the mine-sweepers ought to clear away all the mines as far as the Narrows within the next twenty-four hours. It's in the Narrows we're going to have a tough job."
Without a shot being fired—for the moral of the Turks seemed crushed—the boats grounded on the shore, and rapidly but in perfect order the demolition party landed, formed up, and began the difficult climb to the already sorely battered fort.
"What are you doing here, Sefton?" asked the Sub, observing that the midshipman was following him. "Your place is in your boat, you know."
"I asked the Commander's permission," replied Sefton. "It's not every day that I get a chance of examining a demolished position."
If the truth be told, Sefton was somewhat disappointed. He expected a "bit of a scrap" and a chance to use the heavy Service revolver that he wore in a large, buff-leather holster. At present it was of no use; it was an encumbrance.
"Steady, men," cautioned Crosthwaite, as those of the section under his orders were pressing forward somewhat recklessly. "There may be an ambush."
The warning was justifiable, for the strange silence which brooded over the hillside was somewhat ominous. The Hammerer's men had landed in three parties, two being each under the command of a lieutenant, while Crosthwaite had the third. Between these bodies of men there a keen rivalry as to who should first reach the demolished fort; and as each was advancing by a separate route and was almost entirely hidden from the others, the Sub's party had no means of judging the pace of their friendly competitors.
"'Ware barbed wire."
The men brought up suddenly. They were approaching the nearmost limit of the shell-torn ground. Deep cavities had been made in the rocky soil by the explosions of the heavy projectiles, yet the outer line of barbed wire was almost intact. The posts supporting the obstruction had been blown to atoms, but the wires were twisted and fused into a long, single, and almost inflexible coil impervious to the attacks of the seamen provided with wire-cutters.
A ripping sound, followed by a yell, announced the failure of a burly bluejacket to wriggle under the obstruction. Pinned down by the barbed wire, he was unable to move until his comrades, with a roar of laughter at his hapless plight, succeeded in extricating him.
"We'll prise it up, sir," exclaimed a petty officer. "The men can then wriggle underneath."
"Won't do," objected the Sub firmly. "It will have to be removed."
Two men advanced with slabs of gun-cotton, but again Dick demurred.
"No explosives to be used in the demolition of obstructions," he ordered. "They must be kept for the enemy's guns. We don't want to alarm the rest of the landing-party. Bend a rope there, and half a dozen of you clap on for all you're worth."
A rope was speedily forthcoming. The stalwart bluejackets, digging their heels into the sloping ground, tugged heroically. The stout wire sagged, quivered, and resisted their efforts.
The Sub realized that the obstruction must be removed. Although it was possible to crawl underneath, as the petty officer had suggested, it would never do to leave a trap like that between the fort and the shore. In the event of an ambuscade and a retirement to the boats, delay in negotiating the entanglements might spell disaster.
Another half a dozen men assisted their comrades. Still the wire, now at a terrific tension, showed no signs of being wrenched from its hold.
"All together—heave!"
With a burly "Heave-ho" the dozen bluejackets made a fresh effort. Balked, they gave a tremendous jerk. Something had to go, but it was not the wire. The rope parted with a crack, and twelve seamen were struggling in a confused heap on the steep hillside, while little Sefton, caught by the human avalanche, found himself head over heels in a particularly aggressive thorn-bush.
"Work round to the right there, and see what the infernal wire is made fast to!" ordered the Sub impatiently. "Look alive there, or the others will be at the top before us."
Four or five men hastened to carry out his commands. The work was of a difficult nature, for on either side of the rugged path by which the party had ascended thus far the ground was precipitous and thickly dotted with bushes.
Figuratively hanging on by their eyebrows the seamen worked along, following the course of the aggressive wire, till they were lost to sight beyond a fantastically shaped boulder.
Suddenly one of the men reappeared.
"Here's a blessed 12-pounder, sir," he announced. "What are we to do with it?"
Followed by Midshipman Sefton, who in the excitement caused by this latest discovery had lost all interest in the painful operation of extracting thorns from various remote portions of his anatomy, Crosthwaite hastened to the spot with as much haste as the nature of the ground would permit. The rest of the men, with the exception of those detailed to carry the explosives, also scrambled over the intervening ground.
A ghastly sight met their gaze. Beyond the boulder, and screened from seaward by a partly-burnt cluster of brushwood, was a field-piece. One wheel of the carriage had been smashed. The other was held only by a few spokes, while the muzzle of the weapon was buried deep in the ground. Coiled round the chase and jammed between the trunnion and the carriage was the end of the barbed wire. The gun was splattered with the yellow deposit from the explosion of a British lyddite shell, while all around lay the mangled bodies of the Turkish artillerymen. Five yards to the rear of the damaged weapon were the scanty remains of a limber. The same shell that had wrought the destruction of the gun and the men who served it, had completely exploded the ammunition.
"Smash the breech mechanism!" ordered Dick.
Two of the armourer's crew sprang to the gun for the purpose of breaking the interrupted screw-thread that locks the breech-block in the gun. Their efforts were in vain, for the explosion of the shell had rendered the breech-block incapable of being moved.
A fresh rope was speedily forthcoming. Its bight was placed under the heel of the 12-pounder, and by the united efforts of the seamen the heavy weapon was up-ended and toppled over the slope. Crashing through the brushwood, it rolled and bounded for quite a hundred feet, then with a resounding splash disappeared underneath the waters of the Dardanelles. The remains of the carriage were then hurled over, but, held up by the barbed wire that had caused so much fruitless effort, the mass of shattered steel effected a twofold purpose in its fall. It swept the cliff path clear of brushwood and brought the barbed wire into a position that it no longer formed an obstruction.
"This way up, men!" exclaimed Dick, pointing to a fairly broad and easy path in the rear of the gun emplacement. The Turks had conducted their defence with considerable cunning, for midway between the fort and the shore they had, by great exertion and ingenuity, placed several field-guns in well-sheltered spots, hoping that while the fire of the Allies was directed upon the visible batteries, their light pieces could with comparative impunity deliver a galling fire upon the mine-sweepers and the covering torpedo-boat destroyers. Unfortunately for the enemy the far-reaching effect of the heavy shells had resulted in the silencing of the concealed weapons, the men serving them being for the most part slain at their posts. A few had attempted to escape, but before they got beyond the danger zone they too were wiped out by the death-dealing lyddite.
The path Dick had indicated was the one by which the field-pieces had been lowered from the higher ground. It was obstructed in several places by craters torn by the explosion of the British shells, but these afforded no difficulty to the bluejackets.
Wellnigh breathless with their exertions, they reached the fort only to find, to their chagrin, that they had been forestalled by their friendly rivals, for the British flag floated proudly on the captured position.
So devastating had been the fire from the ships that the fort was little better than a shattered heap of brickwork and masonry. Armour-plated shields had been rent like paper, guns of immense size been dismounted and hurled aside like straws. Bodies of the devoted Ottoman garrison lay in heaps. Everything was smothered with a yellowish hue from the deadly lyddite and melanite. Yet several of the huge 80-ton guns were seemingly serviceable. These had to be rendered totally useless by means of slabs of gun-cotton placed well within the muzzle and fired electrically.
Sub-lieutenant Crosthwaite was studiously engaged in making a rough plan of the fort when Sefton, his soot-grimed face red with excitement, approached him.
"I believe I've found a magazine or something, sir," he exclaimed. "It's a funny sort of shop—like a tunnel. There are half a dozen Turks there——"
"Eh?" ejaculated Dick incredulously.
"Dead as door-nails," Sefton hastened to explain. "They look as if they had been suffocated. But the air's pure enough down there now."
Placing his notebook in his pocket, the Sub walked with Sefton across the littered open space in the centre of the fort till they came to a salient angle that faced the northern or landward side. Here the rubble rose to a height of about twenty feet. In places the wall, composed of armour-plate and concrete, had been riven from top to bottom, huge slabs of masonry being held up only by mutual support. On the top of the debris were half a dozen bluejackets, taking advantage of the daylight that still remained in flag-wagging a message to one of the destroyers.
"Here's the show," announced Sefton, pointing to a narrow passage between two immense artificial boulders.
At one time the opening had been much wider, and had been provided with stone steps, but the irresistible shock had contracted the passage, and had buried most of the steps under a heap of rubble.
"We want a lantern for the job," observed Dick. "How did you manage to see? You ought not to have gone on an exploring expedition without someone accompanying you."
"I've brought my electric torch," said the midshipman, studiously ignoring the latter portion of the Sub's remarks.
Unnoticed by the signalling party, the two young officers descended. For twenty yards they had to exercise considerable effort in order to negotiate the bulging sides, but beyond this the passage opened to a width of nearly six feet.
"Mind where you tread," cautioned Sefton, flashing his lamp on the ground. "They are not dangerous, but it isn't pleasant."
Either lying on the stone floor or propped up in a sitting position against the wall were the bodies of several Turkish infantrymen. Most of them were tunicless, while half a dozen 100-pounder shells lying on the ground showed that these men were engaged in bringing ammunition from the magazine when death in the form of lyddite fumes overtook them. There were no visible marks of wounds, so it was fairly safe to conclude that no shell had burst within the tunnel. Further, it showed that somewhere underneath the ruined fort was a still intact store of projectiles which would have to be rendered useless to the Turks before the demolition party returned to their ship.
"Didn't those fellows give you a turn?" enquired Dick.
"A bit at first," admitted the midshipman. "Then when I realized that if they had meant mischief they would have plugged me long before I saw them, I began to think something was wrong with them—and there was."
For nearly a hundred feet the passage zigzagged. With the exception of the dip near the main entrance the floor was almost level. At intervals were niches covered with steel slabs. The place had been electrically lighted, but owing to the destruction of the power-house the lamps were extinguished. Sefton's surmise was correct. It was a magazine, for the peculiar pattern of the electric bulbs in their double glass coverings told Dick the reason for the precaution.
"This is as far as I have been," announced Sefton, pointing to a heavy canvas screen.
"Then we had better both go carefully," added Dick, drawing his revolver, an example that the midshipman eagerly hastened to follow. "Don't go letting rip, mind, without you want to blow the whole crowd of us to pieces. Use your revolver as a moral persuader if there should be any of the enemy skulking here."
Telling the midshipman to keep close to the wall, and to hold the torch at arm's-length with the rays directed into the unexplored part of the tunnel, Dick pulled aside the curtain, half-expecting to find himself confronted by a dozen more or less intimidated ammunition-bearers.
The place was deserted.
"We'll carry on," said the Sub. "By Jove, what a big show! Absolutely shell-proof, I should imagine."
"I can only just hear the row outside," added the midshipman, as the muffled reports of the guncotton explosions showed that the demolition party were doing their work thoroughly.
The magazine was a vault hewn out of the solid rock. It had evidently been in existence for some years, certainly before the modernizing of the fortifications. The ammunition stowed here consisted of shells for the smaller quick-firers, as the absence of tram-lines for conveying the projectiles that were too heavy to man-handle proved.
"Krupp ammunition," reported Sefton, flashing his torch upon the base of one of the brass cylinders. "My word, when our fellows bust that lot up, won't the Turks feel a bit sick!"
"We'll get the men to bring the firing-charges as soon as possible," said Dick. "If we had known of this before, it would have saved no end of work. There would have been no need to have destroyed every gun singly."
"Can't say I envy the fellow who has to fire the stuff," added Sefton. "Hello, what's that?"
The noise of the detonating charges had ceased. Instead came the unmistakable crackle of rifle-firing.
"Look alive!" ordered the Sub. "Our fellows are being attacked."
Brushing aside the canvas screen the two officers made their way along the tunnel as swiftly as the dancing beams of the midshipman's torch permitted.
Before they reached the rise leading to the open air there was a terrific concussion. A waft of hot, pungent fumes bore down upon Dick and his companion. They were compelled to stop, almost choking in the stifling atmosphere. The rays from the torch failed to penetrate the dense brownish cloud of smoke and dust.
"Carry on," spluttered Dick; then noticing that the midshipman seemed on the point of asphyxiation, he seized the torch and, dragging his companion, made for the open air.
Suddenly he came to an abrupt halt. The gap between the crumbling walls no longer existed. They were trapped.