The sea offers but few sights more melancholy than the wave-washed derelict—the now desolate, helpless and forlorn thing that was once a ship, the home of men—seen in the half-light of a winter dawn, rising and falling sluggishly on the dirty grey swell—the aftermath of storm—with white water washing through its broken bulwarks, yards and sails adrift, a thing without life on the sad sea waves.
A wireless message from a ship passing the derelict on the previous day had brought an M.L. from the nearest naval base to search the area, and after a night of wandering over shadowy grey slopes of water the dawn had revealed it less than two miles distant.
There could be no doubt as to its nationality, for the white cross of Denmark, on the red ground, was painted on the weather-beaten sides, now showing just above the sea. Deserted and half-waterlogged, it was being kept afloat by a cargo of timber, some of which could be seen in chaos on the deck.
The M.L. approached cautiously, with thick rope fenders over her rubbing-streak to prevent the frail hull from being damaged. This coming alongside other ships in the open sea, except in the very calmest of weather, is a ticklish man[oe]uvre, and requires considerable skill in the handling of these small and very fragile craft. What would be considered quite a light blow on the stout hull of any ordinary ship would crush in the thin timbers of a patrol launch, for in the construction of these boats speed and shallow draught were the predominant factors considered.
When the M.L. had been made fast on the lee-side of the derelict a boarding party scrambled over the damaged bulwarks on to the sea-washed deck. Here was a scene of chaos—rigging tangled and swinging loosely from masts and yards; sails torn and shreds still clinging to ropes and spars; loose planks of her deck cargo lying all over the place, and a general air of abandon and desolation difficult to describe.
A mass of broken woodwork in the well of the ship was soon discovered to be the remains of a deck-house, and this gave the first clue to the reason for her sorry plight. Pieces of shrapnel were found sticking in the timbers, and further search revealed shell-holes through the hull and cut rigging. A signal was flying from the mizen halyards, and the name on the counter, although spattered with shot, was still, in part, decipherable—Rickivik, Copenhafen.
So the officer in charge of the boarding party commenced his report with the name of the ship and the port from which she hailed, adding thereto the evident fact that she had been heavily shelled—just a brief statement which left to the imagination all the incidents and, alas! tragedies of an unequal fight.
A high-explosive shell had struck the little raised poop, demolishing the hatchway leading to the cabins beneath, and some heavy work with axe and saw would have been necessary to obtain an entry had an easier way not been available through the shattered skylight. In the low-roofed cabin all was disorder. Tables and lockers were smashed, and the shell which had burst overhead had filled the place with heavy broken timbers from the deck above.
So low was the cabin roof of this small three-masted barque, and so dark the interior, that it was difficult to see about. A lantern was procured and a careful search commenced. The yellow light fell on drawers pulled out and their contents—when worthless—flung on the floor; glasses and bottles smashed and a quaint old China figure lying intact on the broken timbers. But of the ship's papers there was no trace, with the single exception of an old Bill of Health, issued six years previously in Baltimore. Then the area of search moved from the cupboards and drawers to the floor—broken by a shell which had evidently penetrated the ship's stern and passed longitudinally through the cabin, exploding near the base of the companion-hatch.