Thus happily ended Lieutenant Hughes's daring adventure. I think you will agree with me that as a story of pluck, endurance, and resource it is hard to beat.
CHAPTER XIII.
MORE STORIES OF SUBMARINE WARFARE.
You must not suppose that our submarines carried out their raids in the Dardanelles and in the Sea of Marmora without loss. Several of our under-water boats came to grief. E15, for example, while trying to torpedo a Turkish ship at the Narrows,[19] ran ashore on the Asiatic side. She was undamaged, and a Turkish destroyer speedily appeared on the scene. The admiral on the station was anxious that she should not fall into the enemy's hands, so he gave orders that she was to be destroyed. The story of how she was finally blown up is worth telling. Five different methods of destroying her were tried, but all in vain. Aeroplanes endeavoured to drop bombs on her, but without success; submarines tried to torpedo her, but failed; destroyers attempted to sink her, but could not manage to do so; and two battleships fired at her, but did not hit her. The battleships aimed their turret guns from a distance of 5¼ miles, and found that the conning tower of the submarine was too small a target. As a last resort the admiral gave the following order: "Two picket boats from Triumph and Majestic are to attack E15 to-night (April 18) with torpedoes fitted to dropping gear. . . . Only volunteer crews to be sent."
An officer in charge of the Triumph's boat tells us[20] that he was joined by the boat from the Majestic at 10 p.m.
"We steamed about eight knots, as the current was strong, and until we reached the beginning of the dangerous area we chatted—to keep up our courage, perhaps! As a matter of fact, I wasn't in much of a funk, and felt fairly cool, for I have been under fire a good many times, and I recognized that I had got a chance that does not often come in a man's life. It was a bit eerie, though, steaming along in the pitch dark, with all lights out in the boat, towards the distant searchlights, not knowing whether death or life awaited us. . . .
"We kept nearly in the centre of the channel, to avoid being spotted by the No. 7 searchlight, which was not a very high one. We had come along quite unobserved until we were abeam of it, passing the smaller searchlights without much trouble. Unfortunately the men stationed near the No. 7 searchlight saw us, and started firing 6 or 12 pounder shrapnel at us.
"Thus the ball opened. We still had three to four miles to go. We continued our way and approached the other searchlights. The alarm having been given, all the other searchlights came on and sent their beams searching round to pick us up, and as each beam struck us, bang would go another gun. A few seconds later we would hear a ping as the projectile whizzed past us, or a sharp metallic crack as a shrapnel burst just over our heads."
By the time they arrived near the stranded submarine eight searchlights were trained on them, and guns were firing at them from six different points. Presently they saw a dark mass which they thought to be the submarine, and fired a torpedo at it, but missed.