The Long Trick

by Bartimeus

"Thank God I've lived to hear that noise!" muttered the Lieutenant. He straightened up, staring ahead through his glasses in the direction of the invisible fight.

For a while no one spoke. The tense minutes dragged by as the sounds of firing grew momentarily more distinct. The uncertain outline of the near horizon was punctuated by vivid flashes of flame from the guns of the approaching enemy. They were still hidden by the mist and apparently unconscious of the Battle-Fleet bearing down upon them like some vast, implacable instrument of doom. The target of their guns suddenly became visible as the Battle-cruisers appeared on the starboard bow, moving rapidly across the limit of vision like a line of grey phantoms spitting fire and destruction as they went. Misty columns of foam that leaped up from the water all about them showed that they were under heavy fire.

The Battle-Fleet was deploying into Line of Battle, Squadron forming up astern of Squadron in a single line of mailed monsters extending far into the haze that was momentarily closing in upon them. The curtain ahead was again pierced by a retreating force of Cruisers beaten back on the protection of the Battle-Fleet and ringed by leaping waterspouts as the enemy's salvos pursued them.

As yet the enemy were invisible, but when the last ship swung into deployment the mist cleared for a moment and disclosed them amid a cloud of smoke and the furious flashes of guns. The moment had come, and all along the extended British battle-line the turret guns opened fire with a roar of angry sound that seemed to split the grey vault of heaven. As if to mock them in that supreme instant the mist swirled across again and hid the German Fleet wheeling round in panic flight.

The gases belched from the muzzles of the guns, together with the smoke of hundreds of funnels caught and held by the encircling mist, reeled to and fro across the spouting water and mingled with the grey clouds from bursting shell. Through it all the two Fleets, the pursuing and the pursued, grappled in blindfold headlong fury.

Thorogood's battery was on the disengaged side of the ship during the earlier phases of the action. Across the deck they heard the guns of Tweedledee's battery open fire with a roar, and then the cheering of the crews, mingled with the cordite fumes, was drowned by an ear-splitting detonation in the confined spaces of the mess deck, followed by a blinding flash of light.

Tweedledee was flung from where he was standing to pitch brokenly at the foot of the hatchway, like a rag doll flung down by a child in a passion. He lay outstretched, face downwards, with his head resting on his forearm as if asleep. Most of the lights had been extinguished by the explosion, but a pile of cartridges in the rear of one of the guns had caught fire and burned fiercely, illuminating everything with a yellow glare.

Lettigne, Midshipman of the battery, was untouched; deafened and deathly sick he took command of the remaining guns. He, who ten seconds before had never even seen death, was slithering about dimly lit decks, slippery with what he dared not look at, encouraging and steadying the crews, and helping to extinguish the burning cordite. In darkened corners, where they had been thrown by the explosion, men were groaning and dying….

That shell had been one of several that had struck the ship simultaneously. Mouldy Jakes opened his eyes to see a streak of light showing through a jagged rip in a bulkhead. The light was red and hurt his eyes: he passed his hand across his face, and it was wet with a warm stickiness. His vision cleared, however, and for a few moments he studied the drops of water that were dripping from the gash in the plating. "Crying!" he said stupidly. The shells that pitched short had deluged the fore-part of the ship with water, and it was still dripping into the interior of the turret. Mouldy Jakes raised his head, and a yard or two away saw Morton. The breech of one of the guns was open, and Morton was lying limply over the huge breech-block. The machinery was smashed and twisted, and mixed up with it were dead men and bits of men….

A little while later the Fleet Surgeon, splashed with red to the elbows, glanced up from his work in the fore-distributing station and saw a strange figure descending the hatchway. It was Mouldy Jakes: his scalp was torn so that a red triangular patch hung rakishly over one eye. Flung over his shoulder was the limp form of an unconscious Midshipman. For a moment he stood swaying, steadying himself with outstretched hand against the rail of the ladder.