Still unnoticed, they submerged immediately, charged the firing-tank, flooded the torpedo-tube, and stood by to fire. Now was the critical moment—not of the journey, perhaps, but to demonstrate beyond question that it had been successfully accomplished. The B11 crept up again to within fifteen feet. There was a fraction of a pause, and the torpedo was launched. This meant her discovery, of course, and, had not the torpedo gone home, a second chance could hardly have been expected. But it was a good shot, followed by a loud explosion, and a cautious peep through the periscope showed the Messudiyeh, completely surprised, to be sinking by her stern.
Built by the Thames Iron Works Company in 1874, she was of no great value as a battleship; and, although she had been reconstructed in Genoa in 1902, and carried two 9.2-inch guns besides a secondary armament, she was not in any sense a serious opponent, and her maximum speed was but 16 knots. But she was one of the only three battleships in the Turkish Navy; she carried a crew of 600 and was guarding the minefields; and the moral effect of her loss in so dramatic a fashion was profound. But a few years before, and this journey of Lieutenant-Commander Holbrook's would have seemed but the vain imagining of a novelist. Now it was a fact, and a fact that could be repeated, as others of his colleagues were to demonstrate.
Meanwhile the alarm had been given. The batteries on either side had opened fire and shells were beginning to plunge in all directions; and the B11 modestly sought concealment. With torpedo-boats quartering the surface, she dropped into darkness again, and then, for a horrible moment or two, it seemed that her end had come. At a depth of thirty feet there came an ominous shock; for ten minutes, she grated along a bed of shingle; but her good luck held, and she slid at last undamaged into the deep channel that she had been looking for. So the return journey began; the five rows of mines were once more successfully passed; at a depth of sixty feet, she drew level with Cape Helles, and then, after nine hours below, she came to the surface again. Thus ended a voyage hitherto unequalled in the submarine records of any navy, and one that secured for Lieutenant-Commander Holbrook the first Victoria Cross awarded to a naval officer since the beginning of the war.
Lieutenant-Commander Holbrook was a pioneer and his vessel was a comparatively old one, but scarcely less thrilling and, from the purely material standpoint, considerably more fruitful, was the voyage undertaken, about six months later, by Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith in the E11. Leaving Imbros at three o'clock one summer morning, he set out for the Dardanelles, dived at daybreak, and pushed his way, as Holbrook had done, beneath the defences of the Narrows. Emerging on the other side of these, he rose to the surface and saw a couple of battleships within range. By this time, however, the standard of vigilance above the Narrows had been very considerably raised; and, before E11 could discharge any of her torpedoes, her presence was discovered, and the ships escaped.
They opened fire as they did so, thus giving the general alarm, and the E11 accordingly submerged for the rest of the afternoon, not showing her periscope again till dusk, when she apparently had the sea to herself. She then proceeded, in naval phrase, into the Sea of Marmora at her leisure, but for a few days was unable to get in touch with any enemy craft. Not satisfied with this, she then made her way to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, where, on Sunday morning, she sighted and sank a big Turkish gunboat. This vessel went down in five minutes, but must have contained a gunner of some merit, since, before disappearing, she opened fire and with her second shot hit the E11's periscope.
This was soon repaired, however, and the next day she sighted a steamer and told her to stop. An officer and two men were sent aboard her, where they found a 6-inch gun, numerous gun-mountings, and some 15-inch ammunition; and accordingly, after the crew had taken to the boats, this vessel was also sent to the bottom. Hardly had she vanished when another steamer was sighted and, refusing to stop, chased into harbour, where she was torpedoed in the very act of making herself safe alongside a pier. A little later, yet a third vessel was seen and also chased to the shore; and then there ensued one of the strangest little actions that had been fought during the course of the war. For, at that moment, a body of Turkish cavalry came galloping up to defend the ship, and opened fire on the submarine, just as a boarding-party was about to leave her. For a few minutes, a duel followed between the E11 and the horsemen on shore, some of the latter being dropped from their saddles before the submarine dived and torpedoed the ship.
Monday had been a busy day, but on Tuesday Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith decided to enter Constantinople. In this he was successful, and, having made the harbour, torpedoed and sank a transport loaded with troops, exploding a second torpedo upon the shore, and creating a very considerable local panic. From Tuesday to Friday time passed uneventfully, but, on Friday morning, a convoy was sighted, consisting of five transports escorted by destroyers. Selecting the first and biggest, this was torpedoed, sinking in less than three minutes, the others escaping, and the E11 successfully evading the destroyers. Three more of these transports, as well as a supply-ship, were sunk a day or two afterward, and, a few days later, yet another transport was torpedoed, and a last one, on the way home, was sunk just before entering the Narrows.
With a round dozen vessels to her credit, the E11 then dived beneath the minefields, and might well have been thought to have had sufficient adventures for one small vessel in a single trip. But there was another in store for her that might readily have been her last for, when she came to the surface again that evening, it was to discover a mine, like a piece of seaweed, hanging over her bows and caressing her side. It was a perilous moment, but, in the words of one of her crew, the mine was "chucked" off as speedily as possible, and the E11 safely received into the waiting arms of her escort. For this voyage Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith also received the Victoria Cross, and every member of his crew the Distinguished Service Medal.
This was a great record, but it was closely pressed by many of her colleagues, notably the E14; and we find her in the Sea of Marmora again in August doing her best to sustain it. This time her voyage was made conspicuous by an extraordinarily daring journey on the part of her second in command, Lieutenant D'Oyly Hughes, who had already been decorated for his services in the earlier raid just recorded. His object was, if possible, to destroy a viaduct over which passed the Ismid Railway, skirting the coast; and, with this in view, on the night of August 21st, he left the submarine, about sixty yards from the shore. In readiness for his attempt, a raft had been prepared, on which were carefully packed his charge of explosives, his clothes, a revolver, a sharpened bayonet, an electric torch, and a whistle.