CHAPTER XXXIII
THE GREAT STRAFE
BILLY BARCROFT would have been disagreeably surprised had the R.N.V.R. sub given him an answer in the negative. He was perfectly aware that Nigel Farrar was rightfully entitled to be sent home on leave, following his escape from an enemy country. Yet, with characteristic impetuosity and zeal, Farrar had jumped at the offer to guide the "Avenger" to the secret U-boat base, and incidentally "get his own back."
In less than twenty minutes the flying-boat returned to her base. Barcroft made his report and obtained the squadron-commander's ready permission to attempt another stunt. Sylvester, rigged out in new civilian clothing and taking the baron's uniform with him as a souvenir, lost no time in catching the first train to Milan, where, with luck, he might join the through express to Paris—and home.
"You'll look me up directly you arrive home on leave, old man?" he asked, when Farrar bade him farewell and a speedy journey, knowing perfectly well that the latter wish was almost as hopeless as asking for the moon.
"I'll certainly look you up before I rejoin my ship," replied the sub evasively.
The Moke regarded his chum curiously.
"Wonder what the move is?" he asked himself. "Farrar's people aren't in England. He has no relatives there as far as I am aware of. I wonder—ah! the sly dog!"
As soon as the flying-boat had replenished her petrol tanks, taken on board a stock of bombs and trays of ammunition, the flight began. Barcroft was anxious to carry out the stunt in broad daylight. With reasonable luck he hoped to be back again by sunset.
The "Avenger" was not alone. Following in V-shaped formation were four of her sister craft, their load of bombs aggregating a little more than a ton. They flew high—between 8,000 and 10,000 feet—with very little noise: the motors were effectively silenced, and only the purr of the pistons and the whirr of the huge propellers disturbed the stillness of the rarefied atmosphere.
High over the Istrian coast they flew, keeping above, but just inside, the chain of islands that had proved more than once the salvation of a hard-pressed hostile vessel.
Presently Farrar pointed to a ridge of mountains slightly on the "Avenger's" port bow.
"That's the show," he declared. "I recognise it by the conical peaks."
"Sure?" asked Barcroft dubiously. "I've flown all along the coast and across those hills, but not a trace of a U-boat base did I twig—and I was mighty particular. Searched every inlet with my binoculars. Not a sign of a wharf, workshop, or anything of that nature."
"I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong," said the sub confidently, as he reached for a pair of powerful glasses. "There you are! See those patches of green in the water?"
"Yes," admitted Barcroft. "They were there last time. Reeds on the mudbanks."
"Camouflage," corrected Farrar. "The whole show is covered with boughs and branches to escape aerial observation. Each of those patches screens a Fritz."
"Does it, by Jove!" ejaculated the flight-lieutenant. He swung round and nodded significantly to his second-in-command. Not a word was exchanged between Barcroft and Kirkwood. Old hands at the strafing business each seemed to know instinctively the other's mind.
A slight depression of the horizontal rudders, a faint click as the ignition was switched off, and the "Avenger" commenced her two-mile glide, descending to two thousand feet, her consorts following her example.
Fascinated, Farrar leant over the side of the hull. This sort of warfare was new to him. It seemed a very one-sided business, for not a shot was fired from the enemy base. Optically there was little to be noted—merely a forked arm of the sea with an island lying almost athwart the entrance, a range of hills enclosing the water, and a number of what appeared to be patches of verdure on the surface of the harbour and also on the sloping ground on the east side.
Suddenly the motor fired again. The flyingboat, quivering under the powerful pulsations, changed her volplane to a horizontal movement, Simultaneously Kirkwood released the first bomb.
For several hundred feet Farrar could follow its descent, until it became a mere speck against the dark green background. Then another, and yet another missile started in its devastating career.
A cloud of smoke, dwarfed to the size of a mushroom, announced that the first bomb had got home fairly in the centre of the seaward tier of moored U-boats. Like the rending of a veil the camouflage vanished, revealing to sight seven of the modern pirates and an ominous gap in the centre.
There was plenty of activity now. Men looking like ants swarmed everywhere, emerging from the interiors of the Unterseebooten and making for the doubtful shelter of dry land. Others, hesitatingly, began to cast off bow and stern ropes, with the evident intention of taking the trapped submarines into deep water and there submerging until the danger was past.
The rapid shower of bombs completely frustrated their attempt. Long, cigar-shaped hulls were shattered asunder, the floating pontoons smashed to matchwood, as the five flying-boats manoeuvred to keep above their much-desired objective.
Once during the strafing operations Farrar glanced at the "Avenger's" skipper. Barcroft, his set features absolutely unperturbed, was steering the flying-boat as coolly as if he had the whole atmosphere to himself, notwithstanding that four other swiftly moving aircraft were describing apparently erratic circles and curves at a reduced rate of about fifty miles an hour within a radius of half a mile. It was an aerial gymkana, in which the merest collision would inevitably result in a tremendous crash, yet the strafing continued systematically and continuously.
A few bombs struck the surface of the water, but direct hits were numerous and devastating. Of the twenty-four submarines only three remained afloat. Some might have been submerged by design on the part of their crews. Even then they stood a poor chance against the enormous concussion of the powerful missiles. Even a buffer of twenty feet of water was unable to save the steel hulls from being shattered.
Ashore three distinct fires had been started, two in the sand-bagged and camouflaged workshops, the third in a large liquid-fuel store, from which the flames were mounting a couple of hundred feet in the air. Crowds of German and Austrian soldiers, sailors and workpeople, driven from their futile shelters, were running in all directions, and still the bombs dropped remorselessly and destructively.
A passive spectator Farrar felt not the slightest qualms. A woodman destroying a nest of young adders could not have shown less compunction. The cold-blooded murderous record of the U-boats had put them without the pale. Stamped with the brand of Cain, every man's hand was against them, Allies and neutrals alike, for the modern pirates, compared with whom Morgan, Lolonois, and Gramont were gentlemen, had roused the indignation and horror of the civilised world.
"No eggs left!" reported Kirkwood laconically.
Barcroft nodded. The other flying-boats had also exhausted their stocks of bombs, but their task was not yet done. Photographs showing the damage done had to be taken, from which enlargements were to be subsequently made in order to confirm the observer's reports.
Although the members of the Royal Air Force are the least given to exaggeration, there have been instances in which observers have unintentionally overrated the damage done by their bombs. Objects seen through dust and smoke are apt to appear different from what they actually are, while in the tension and excitement of a raid a casual glance might convey an erroneous impression on the mind, upon which inaccurate reports are based. But the camera, emotionless and strictly impartial, records the scene with absolute fidelity; hence the importance of photography as a necessary adjunct to the airman's panoply of war.
Suddenly a cloud of white smoke mushroomed a few hundred feet below the "Avenger." Another leapt seemingly from nothingness at an unpleasantly short distance on her quarter. The anti-aircraft guns were getting into action at last, and the strafe no longer promised to be a one-sided business.
Soon the "air was stiff" with flying shrapnel, while shells of a hitherto unknown type added to the flying-boats' peril. These missiles, on bursting, liberated long tentacles of the lightness of silk that floated in strings of fire in the air.
A burst of shrapnel, seemingly close under the "Avenger's" nose, caused the flying-boat to pitch and roll like a tramp in ballast in a heavy seaway. Before Barcroft could get her under control the uppermost of the triplanes was foul of one of the burning tentacles.
The bight of the flaming tendril engaged against the forward knife-edge of the plane, while the ends, swept backwards by the rush of the flying-boat through the air, swung together like a gigantic streamer of flame in the "Avenger's" wake.
No manoeuvre could possibly extricate the flying-boat from the fiery embrace. A tail-spin, instead of enabling the plane to back away from the tentacle, would result in the streaming ends winding themselves round the spread of canvas; while in addition the falling aircraft would lose all advantage of altitude ere she recovered from the "spin."
Although the fabric of the planes was supposed to be of fire-resisting material the prepared canvas was already smoking and charring. Like a flash Farrar realised the danger. The time had come for him to act, and with characteristic alacrity he seized upon the chance.
Swarming aloft, with a knife between his teeth, he gained the upper plane. The windage was terrific, smoke and embers were swept into his face, the heat scorched his hair. Hanging on like grim death with one hand he slashed at the fiercely-burning tow, through the centre of which a fine flexible wire maintained cohesion of the deadly firebrand. Hacking fiercely at the wire, regardless of the flames that ate into his hand, his efforts were rewarded by the sight of the severed tentacle disappearing like a streak of lightning in the wake of the swiftly moving planes.
Then, and only then, did the burning pain assert itself. All power to move seemed to have vanished from his arm. Muscles and sinews were completely numbed, while the tightly contracted flesh throbbed and plunged with the excruciating torture of the livid burns.
"I'm in the cart this time," he muttered, wincing with the agony of the fire. "Hanged if I can climb back again, and the plane's still smouldering."
Vainly he endeavoured to smother the charring fabric. His right arm was as helpless as that of a new-born babe. Stealthily, yet steadily, the patch of calcined canvas was increasing. At any moment, fanned by the terrific draught, it might burst into flames.
Then he became aware of some one lying flat beside him: of Kirkwood drenching the burning plane with a fire-extinguishing chemical, of the spray of the liquid blowing back into his face.
"That's settled it, by Jove!" shouted Kirkwood in the sub's ear. "Nip on down. Can't? Here, let me give you a hand."
As in a dream the injured officer found himself assisted to the hull of the flying-boat. She had left the bursts of shrapnel far astern and was heading homewards. Her consorts were also returning—all four.
"Good man!" exclaimed Barcroft admiringly, as Farrar gained the deck. "What, hit?"
The sub shook his head. Everything was growing very dim and misty.
"Not at all!" he replied, his voice sounding strange and distant. "Not at all. A great strafe, wasn't it?"
"Mind his hand, Billy," exclaimed some one warningly—also dim and distant seemed his voice. "It's pretty bad."
Barcroft was only just in time to save the injured sub from dropping inertly at his feet as merciful oblivion overtook him.