CHAPTER X
THE HYDRO-AEROPLANES
Meanwhile, what had happened to Lieutenant Drake and the rest of the Frome's crew, after the destruction of that little craft? Directly the boats pushed off Drake and those of the men who remained with him gathered on the fo'c'sle and turtle-back deck. Then, as the water came into contact with the red-hot plates, the destroyer's deck buckled amidships. Her motors went crashing through the flaming petrol in the double-bottoms as the vessel tilted and slipped stern foremost beneath the flaming surface of the sea.
All on board imagined that the end had come, when suddenly that part of the ship between the for'ard engine-room bulkhead and the bows shook itself clear of the remainder of the shattered hull and floated on the surface. The destroyer had literally been torn in twain, and the watertight bulkhead kept the forepart afloat. True, there was a perceptible list, but on investigation there was found hardly any water in the forehold.
As soon as the petrol blazing on the water had burned itself out, the boats returned to find that Drake and his companions were alive, though scorched by the terrific heat. Deeming it inexpedient to allow the boats' complement on board the stumpy vessel, Drake ordered them to stand off and lay on their oars. Fortunately there was little wind, although the sea ran high, but guided by an anchor-lamp shown from the bridge, the boats could keep within hail of the lieutenant-commander. At frequent intervals rockets were sent up, for the Frome was not so very far from the regular steamer track, while it was known that other destroyers and one or two cruisers were heading in their direction.
Just after dawn H.M.S. Indus, a powerful cruiser of 22,000 tons, bore down. The lieutenant and his men were taken off the wrecked forepart, and a wireless message was sent to Devonport announcing the details of the outrage on the high seas, and asking for instructions.
To the surprise of everyone on board, the reply came—"Tow remains to Devonport." Not a word was said about continuing the chase, so, to the disappointment of all ranks, the Indus took the sorry remnants of the Frome in tow, and at an easy ten knots headed towards Plymouth Sound.
Thousands of people assembled to see the shattered forepart of the destroyer pass up Drake's Passage. Hundreds of cameras were levelled at her, shoals of boats accompanied the Indus and her tow, till the latter was docked, safe from public observation, in the basin at Keyham.
Then followed several days of irritating official inquiries, which, while the Independencia still roved the high seas, was an utter waste of time. Drake wanted to be off again. His one desire was to retrieve his reputation by capturing the pirate vessel, and rescuing his brother officers.
Cruisers, scouts, and destroyers were despatched, and, spreading fanwise, scoured the Atlantic from Rockall to the Azores; but somehow or other the filibustered ship escaped detection. Then came the news of the holding up of L'Égalité, which, according to the French captain's report, had taken place within twenty miles of the British cruiser Khartoum.
The immediate result of this affair was that a squadron of fast cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers left Brest to join in the hounding-down of the Independencia. The Spanish Government, eager to lay hands upon the notorious anarchist, also despatched two cruisers and four destroyers; so that there was the keenest rivalry between the various nations engaged in the enterprise as to who should have the honour of laying the running and desperate Juan Cervillo by the heels.
All concerned realised that the business must of necessity be a peculiar one, for Drake had reported how the hostages from the Yosen Maru, as well as his own officers who had been trapped, were utilised as screens to prevent the Independencia from being sunk by gun fire. There were three alternatives: either to overhaul and board the pirate vessel, a feat that could only be accomplished on a calm day, and with the Independencia compelled to heave-to; or to sink the offender by torpedoes, trusting that the pirates would cut their hostages adrift ere the ship sunk; or else to dog her so tenaciously that, unable to capture any more liners or tramps, she would be compelled to haul down the red flag through sheer starvation.
The British Admiralty decided to adopt the last alternative, and orders were given that once the Independencia was sighted, all cruisers and destroyers within a certain radius were to be summoned by wireless, and form a close cordon around the modern buccaneer.
All merchant ships fitted with wireless were informed of this new terror of the seas, and requested to "speak" with other vessels not so equipped, as well as to transmit news of the appearance of any suspicious craft answering to the Independencia's description, so that aid could be quickly forthcoming from the nearest warships. Yet in spite of these precautions the officers of the trans-atlantic liners and tramps had an anxious time. Never had the deck officers kept such a keen look-out, especially at night, when the pirate, steaming without navigation lights, might at any moment loom through the darkness and peremptorily order her prey to heave-to.
At Lloyd's the insurance rates went up 60 per cent. The "Atlantic ferry" paid heavily, for would-be passengers, as a matter of precaution, deferred their journey until the time when the danger ceased to exist. Grain-laden tramps from the States and Canada either remained in port or else sailed under convoy, as in the days of the Napoleonic war. The price of food, in consequence, rose tremendously, and coming as it did after a succession of disastrous strikes, the effects of the modern pirate-ship's depredations began to be felt by all classes of the community.
Two days after the receipt of the wireless message from the French cruiser Desaix, announcing the outrage upon L'Égalité, the liner arrived at Cherbourg in tow of the armoured cruiser Chanzy. Then followed the customary Press interviews with the passengers and crew, with the stock of conflicting and of ten misleading reports. Some of the eye-witnesses, partly through a love of exaggeration, and partly through the result of a highly strung temperament, told ghastly tales of butchery, some even going to the length of asserting that they had seen the passengers who had been removed from the liner being made to walk the plank. No satisfactory explanation could be given as to why, if the pirates were so bloodthirsty as they had been made out to be, the liner had not been scuttled with all hands, until someone explained that Juan Cervillo had spared the ship on account of the third-class passengers.
Then it was that a Socialist Parisian newspaper appeared with a eulogistic three columns and a half on Cervillo's record and aims, and calling upon the Anarchists to give him their moral and active support. The offices of the paper were raided by the gendarmes, and before night the military and the canaille were engaged in hand-to-hand fighting in the streets of Paris. Similar disturbances took place in Madrid, Barcelona, and Naples, and the French, Spanish, and Italian Governments had good cause to wish that the notorious Juan Cervillo was at the bottom of the sea.
At Barcelona the news spread that the Independencia had appeared off that port. The authorities knew that such was impossible, partly on account of the distance from British waters, and also that the Straits of Gibraltar were too well guarded by a strong flotilla cruising betwixt Tarifa and Ceuta. But amongst the ignorant population it was accepted that Cervillo had appeared to proclaim the anarchist rule in Spain, and that night the town was at the mercy of the mob.
It was not until it was found that the ship was the British cruiser Indefatigable—the sea-going instructional vessel for naval cadets, and which bore a striking resemblance to the Independencia—that the disorder ceased. Even then it required four regiments of Spanish infantry to quell the insurrection.
As soon as the new scout Cerberus, could be passed out of dockyard hands, she was commissioned in order to participate in the search for the pirate-cruiser, and to Drake's unbounded satisfaction he was appointed to her for duties in the hydro-aeroplanes, of which the scout carried four.
Vast strides had been made in the construction and efficiency of the hydro-aeroplanes since their demonstration before the King in Portland Roads in 1912. Instead of being, like the first of this class, clumsy aeroplanes fitted with floats, those of the later pattern were swift motor-boats, provided with folding air-planes and propellers, so that they could either keep the sea in fairly heavy weather, or they could soar into the air and perform a thousand-mile flight. Each hydro-aeroplane consisted of an aluminium hull, 35 ft. in length, 6 ft. in breadth, and of a draught when at rest of 9 ins. These were completely decked in, with the exception of a small, open well, which could, if necessity arose, be covered with a water-tight hatch. At one-third the distance from its bows was a small observation turret, the top of which served as one of the bearings, or the shafting of the aerial propeller. The planes, when not in use, folded into recesses in the sides of the hull, the actuation of a pair of tension wires serving to extend and keep them in position for flight. Whereas the original hydro-aeroplanes could not descend to rest upon the surface of a choppy sea, those carried by the Cerberus could not only be relied upon to descend or ascend from the water, but could by reason of their strength and rigid construction safely withstand the impact of a fall from a considerable height. For armament they carried a one-pounder automatic gun, and gear for dropping small bombs charged with high explosives.
On board the Cerberus these four hydro-aeroplanes were carried on the space hitherto occupied by the funnel-casings, for the scout had internal combustion engines, and, save for a small exhaust pipe, was without funnels. Each tender could be hoisted in less than half-a-minute by means of a single-purchase wire rope passing through a block at the end of a derrick, and wound round a motor-capstan. Constructed at one-twentieth of the cost of a submarine, the hydro-aeroplane had already virtually superseded those craft. Save at night, the crews of the hydro-aeroplanes could from a height easily locate the presence of a submarine, and by means of her bombs could destroy it with ease. Before long it was recognised that the era of the submarine, as a destructive means of offence, was past.
Lieutenant Douglas Drake lost no time in reporting himself on board the Cerberus, and within twenty hours of being passed out of dockyard hands the scout left Portsmouth Harbour to join in the search for the pirate-cruiser.
But before the ship had passed through the Needles Channel she was, to the disgust of all on board, ordered to return. That morning the owners of the ss. Duke of Negropont had received a wireless message from the captain of that vessel. It was brief and to the point:—
"Independencia in collision with unknown
vessel, 4.45 a.m. Lat. 40-22-10 N., Long.
22-9-16 W. Both sank; no survivors."