Events have brought our ship's company quickly to their stations. The chief officer stands, step on the ladder, awaiting orders. "Right! Lay aft! Cease fire, unless you have a sure target! Look out for the destroyers blanking the range!" He runs along, struggling through the mass of troops. The men are strangely quiet; perhaps the steady beat of our engines measures out assurance to them—as it does to us. Their white-haired colonel has come to the bridge, and stands about quietly. Other officers are pushing along to their stations. There is not more than subdued and controlled excitement in a low murmur. The men below crowd up the companionways from the troop-decks. In group and mass, the ship seems packed to overflowing by a drab khaki swarm; the light on all faces turned on the one cant, arms pointing in one direction, rouses a haunting disquiet. However gallant and high of heart, they are standing on unfamiliar ground—at sea, in a ship, caged! If—
Two destroyers converge on us at frantic speed, tearing through the flat sea with a froth in their teeth. As the nearest thunders past, her commander yells a message through his megaphone. We cannot understand. Busied with manœuvres of the convoy, with the commodore's signal for a four-point turn, we miss the hail, and can only take the swing and wave of his arms as a signal to get ahead—"Go full speed!" The jangle of the telegraph is still sounding, when we reel to a violent shock. The ship lists heavily, every plate and frame of her ringing out in clamour with the impact of a vicious sudden blow. She vibrates in passionate convulsion on recovery, masts oscillate like the spring of a whip-shaft, the rigging jars and rattles at the bolts, a crash of broken glass showers from the bridge to the deck below!
The murmur among the troops swells to a higher note, there is a crowding mass-movement towards the boats. The guard is turned to face inboard. The colonel is impassive; only his eyes wander over the restless men and note the post of his officers. He turns towards us, inquiringly. What is it to be? His orderly bugler is standing by with arm crooked and trumpet half raised.
Our lips are framing an order, when a second thundering shock jars the ship, not less in violence and shattering impact than the first. A high hurtling column of water shoots up skyward close astern of the ship. We suppress the order that is all but spoken, stifle the words in our throat. We are not torpedoed! Depth-charges! The destroyers' work! At a sign, the bugler sounds out "Still!" and slowly the tumult on deck is arrested.
The commodore's half-right has been instantly acted on, and we are steadied on a new course, bearing away at full speed, with the torpedoed horse transport and the racing, circling destroyers astern. Suddenly our bows begin to swing off to port, falling over towards the outer column. The helmsman has the wheel hard over against the sheer; we realize that our steering-gear has gone; the second depth-charge has put us out of control. We swing on the curve of a gathering impetus—it is evident that the rudder is held to port; converging on us at full speed, the rear ship of the outer column steams into the arc of our disorder!
The signalman is instant with his 'not under command' hoist, the crew are scattered to throw in emergency gear, but there is no time to arrest the sheer. The first impulse is to stop and go astern. If we arrest the way of the ship, a collision is inevitably assured, but the impact may be lessened to a side boarding, to damage that would not be vital; if we swing as now, we may clear—our eye insists we should clear. If our tired eyes prove false, if the strain of a long look-out has dulled perception, our stem will go clean into her—we shall cut her down! Reason and impulse make a riot of our brain. The instinct to haul back on the reins, to go full astern on the engines, is maddening. Our hand curves over the brass hood of the telegraph, fingers tighten vice-like on the lever; with every nerve in tension, we fight the insane desire to ring up and end the torturing conflict in our mind!
A confusion of minor issues comes crowding for settlement, small stabs to jar and goad in their trifling. There is a call to carry on side-actions. Every bell on the bridge clamours for attention. The engine-room rings up, the chief officer telephones from aft that the starboard chain has parted, the rudder jammed hard to port. From the upper spars, the signalman calls out a message from an approaching destroyer—"What is the matter? Are you torpedoed?" Through all, we swing out—swiftly, inexorably!
Troops and look-outs scurry off the forecastle-head, in anticipation of a wrecking blow. On the other ship, there is outcry and excitement. She has altered course and her stern throws round towards us, further encroaching on the arc of our manœuvre. So near we are, we look almost into the eyes of her captain as we head for the bridge. Troops, the boat-guard, are scrambling aboard from the out-swung lifeboats, their rifles held high. On her gun-platform the gunners slam open their breech, withdraw the charge, and hurry forward to join the mass of men amidships. All eyes are centred on the narrowing space of clear water that separates us, on our high sheering stem that cuts through her out-flung side-wash.
Strangely the movement seems to be all in our sweeping bow. The other vessel appears stationary, inert—set motionless against the flat background of misty cloud; our swinging head passes point upon point of the chequered camouflage on her broadside; subconsciously we mark the colours of her scheme—red and green and grey. We clear her line of boats, and sway through the length of her after-deck—waver at the stern-house, then cover the grey mounting of her gun-emplacement. In inches we measure the rails and stanchions on her quarter, as our upstanding bow drives on. Tensely expectant, our mind trembles on the crash that seems inevitable.
It does not come. Our eye was right—we clear her counter! With some fathoms to spare we sheer over the thrash of her propellers, the horizon runs a line across our stem, we have clear yielding blue water under the bows!