Captain Whisker was in a bad way. Though a man of considerable physical strength, he was in no fit condition to suffer continual loss of blood. His temperature had already risen to extreme fever heat; and there is little doubt that, had Crouch not administered suitable drugs in the right proportion, his old shipmate would have lost his life. As for Captain Cookson, sitting in a comfortable chair in the midst of the wreckage of what had once been his cabin, he gave vent to his feelings and opinions in regard to the German Empire.
Like all sailors he loved his ship. A true seaman will be a special pleader on behalf of his ship in much the same manner as an adoring mother will speak of a backward son. If a ship lies so heavy in the water that, when a squall is blowing, the waves sweep over her decks like water from a floodgate, she will be described as "steady as a rock." And if, on the other hand, she rolls at every billow, and pitches into every minor trough, she is--in the unanimous opinion of her master and her crew--"seaworthy" in the higher sense of the word, whatever it may mean.
Captain Cookson loved the "Mondavia"; and when he looked about him and witnessed the destruction and havoc that had been wrought by the guns of the German ships, he railed at the whole Teutonic brotherhood, from the Kaiser to the last interned German waiter in a detention camp in England.
For all that, by wholesale round abuse, he was likely to do no more good to himself than harm to the German Empire. The fact was, all on board were in much greater danger than they knew of. For, during the last half-hour, the wind had got up, shifting to the south-west, so that once again they were able to hear the distant booming sound of the great guns of the rival battle-cruisers.
The ship lay in one of the innumerable channels that divide the shoals of the Dogger Bank. When any wind is blowing, it stands to reason that the current in these channels is exceedingly strong, since the sandbanks act in much the same way as breakwaters, holding back the tide, whilst the water becomes congested elsewhere.
Now, under the influence of the freshening wind, the "Mondavia" began to roll heavily upon the swell, and seeing that the upper part of the ship had been destroyed piecemeal by a hurricane of shells, she was in no fit condition to weather even the suspicion of a squall.
She began to ship water from the very first; and soon afterwards, Crouch, who was scanning the horizon with great anxiety, watching every shift of the wind, came to the conclusion that, unless the wind dropped as abruptly as it had risen, the "Mondavia" would go down.
The afternoon was now well advanced. The surface of the sea was broken in all directions by a great number of white waves running strongly northward. It was low tide, and on some of the shallows the foam showed white as snow in the sunlight that was now, for the first time that day, breaking from behind the clouds.
The "Mondavia" rolled as a ship rides at anchor. Her engines had been rendered useless; she was not capable of steaming a hundred yards. In addition to this her steering-gear was so seriously damaged, and the rudder itself so out of order, that she could do nothing else but drift, like a derelict, upon the tide.
To all intents and purposes, the ship was already a wreck; and every time she rolled to starboard, she shipped water in her holds; so that in less than an hour she was so low down that both well-decks were flooded, and those who passed along the alleyways were obliged to wade knee-deep in water. It must also be remembered that all her boats had been destroyed. Though the great guns were now silent towards the south, and there could be little question that the British squadron was returning, there was neither a sail nor a smoke-stack in sight, as far as the eye could reach.