Surprised as they were by our swift maneuver comparatively few fired upon us as we raced past them, but even those few shells found their marks among the cruisers of our rushing column. Cruisers of my own squadron were struck and hanging there glowing and fusing from the terrific heat released upon them, unable to avoid the fast-speeding ships behind them which raced headlong into the white-hot wrecks. Then our columns were past them and as behind us their ships fell thick in white-hot melting ruin, I turned toward Macklin, exultant.
"We're beating them!" I cried. "Another blow like that one and——"
A cry from the second officer cut me abruptly short, and quickly I gazed back to where he was pointing, toward the mighty ring of the European fleet. Our two columns had converged inward toward each other after that deadly blow, when the great ring-shaped formation of cruisers behind us had halted abruptly its own forward flight, and had shot back a great double file of its cruisers between our own two racing columns! And then, before we could see and forestall its menace, before we had time to obey the swift command that the First Air Chief shouted from the distance-phone, that double tongue of ships had split, each line moving sidewise with terrific force and speed toward our own two lines, pressing them outward from each other, separating them, rolling them sidewise and backward in two great enveloping motions.
In that moment I felt our cruiser reel madly as a European cruiser shot against it, saw Macklin clinging madly to the wheel as I was thrown down and backward, while about us in that mad moment the heat-shells were speeding forth from ship to ship to burst in flaring destruction about us. Then as Macklin swung our cruiser up to a level keel, our heat-guns beneath detonating now as our gunners worked them like mad beings, we were fighting the remorseless lines of the enemy that swept us back and I was aware that our fleet's two columns had been swept hopelessly apart, that our forces had been fatally divided and that each division of them was now completely encircled by the outnumbering masses of cruisers of the European fleet!
Cruisers on all sides of us now seemed to fill the air, enemy cruisers that tossed about us in a great sea of ships and that made our own ships the target now of their unceasing volleys. Our column, rolled together by that irresistible maneuver, had massed into a solid group, the silver-striped flagship of the First Air Chief just beside our own. The air around us was livid with flares of blinding light as the heat-shells broke and burst in unceasing destruction, as the thunder of our detonating guns seemed to drown all other sounds in the universe.
Not for long could we thus remain the target of these masses of cruisers that swarmed about and above and beneath us. Our other column had been swept back and that was surrounded by enemy cruisers and fighting desperately even as we were. Unless we could join them, and reunite our shattered fleet, we must inevitably be destroyed. At that moment the voice of the First Air Chief rang from the distance-phone before me in a high command.
"Triangle formation!" he shouted. "North at full speed!"
Instantly the ships behind and about us, reforming swiftly and smoothly even under the rain of shells shifted into a great wedge-shaped formation, a great triangle of solid ships whose apex was the First Air Chief's cruiser, and which pointed north, toward the other isolated and struggling half of our fleet. Then the next moment our great triangle had leaped forward straight toward the north at full speed, into the swarming masses of European ships that surrounded us. Our own cruiser hung just behind the First Air Chief's, just behind the triangle's apex. Then with a terrific crash we had smashed into the solid wall of ships before us.
Our cruiser rocked and reeled beneath me as its sharp stem rammed at full speed into a European cruiser that had swung broadside in an attempt to escape us. Its side crumpled beneath that awful blow and I saw it reel back and downward, I felt other rending crashes that shook our ship wildly as our triangle crashed through the European fleet. Then suddenly we were through it, had smashed our way by sheer force through its sea of ships and had reached the second half of our fleet, joining with it once more. Scores, hundreds even, of our own cruisers and of the enemy's were tumbling and twisting downward toward the sea, battered wrecks of metal that had been all but annihilated in our mad crash through the enemy armada!
Now swiftly our re-united fleet, still almost two thousand strong, were massing together in a single long rectangle, our flagship speeding to its head, and as we moved toward the scattered swarms of European ships about us, that numbered almost four thousand still, they had formed into a similar formation. Then as our own long rectangle or column rushed toward them they were racing sidewise at the same speed as ourselves, so that side by side now our two great fleets sped through the air, our heat-guns detonating again as we held still to the awful struggle. Our cruiser seemed to bear a charmed life, since as we drove headlong through that hail of shining death, behind the First Air Chief's cruiser, we were sometimes missed by inches only. And now as Macklin, his eyes steady but burning, held our ship onward with those about us in this mad running fight of the two great fleets, I was aware that in that fight they were both slanting steadily downward, down toward the gray Atlantic far beneath!