"Hallo, Bielefeld! Glad to see you! Giving them the slip after all?"
Despite the buoyancy of his tone the navigating-lieutenant noticed that his lips trembled and that his eyes were deadly serious.
Ere any reply was possible, a bell rang sharply. The gunnery lieutenant jumped away from his friend. The indicators from the forward fire-control station marked a direction, an elevation and a range. The navigating lieutenant stood back away from the alert groups behind the breeches. He felt the floor turning with him while the ship lurched heavily. A moment later he heard a muffled thud and everything shook. The starboard gun had been fired. He heard the hiss of the air-blast clearing the fumes from the firing-chamber, and then the breech was swung open. The hydraulic chain-rammer, jointed like a foot-rule, pushed another shell into place, followed by its charges. The hoists rattled as another projectile came up in readiness. The bell rang again. The crew at the port gun were suddenly busy. There was another shock. What was happening? What were they firing at? The navigating-lieutenant dashed out of the turret, closing the door quickly behind him.
As he ran up the ladder to the bridge, he heard a roar in the air, and a moment later a great sheet of flame leaped up just in front of the forward funnel with a colossal detonation. The blast of the explosion flung him to the deck. He picked himself up, bruised, dazed, but uninjured, and looked for the enemy. The turret had swung its two guns over to starboard, and as he followed their direction they discharged with a couple of almost simultaneous reports. He steadied himself and gazed hard into the distance. In the mist on the horizon he thought he distinguished a long, low band of brownish smoke, and at one end of it a dark spot and a tiny twinkle of flame. A minute later the roar of heavy projectiles tearing through the air came to his ears. Instinctively he flung himself flat upon the deck in the shelter of a gun-turret of the starboard battery. The sharp, splitting report of the gun in that turret was blotted out on the instant by a fearful upheaval that leaped from the centre of the ship with such a blast of noise as seemed to burst his ears. He had a glimpse, he knew not how, of a sheet of lurid flame and of a mighty upspout of water on the ship's flank. In the awful silence which ensued—a silence so profound that he wondered if he were permanently deafened—he staggered to his feet. The turret in front of him had been burst open, the gun protruded askew at a curious angle. He gazed at it, motionless, as though rendered imbecile with the shock. Then a chorus of agonised screams and shrieks came from the turret and continued. He heard them with a sense of relief, so terrible was that unbroken silence. Recovering his wits, he looked about him. The second gun-shield of the starboard battery had also been destroyed, the bridge was a hanging mass of contorted scrap-iron, the wireless "aerials" streamed away to leeward in the gale. The two forward funnels had disappeared and torrents of black smoke were welling up from the level of the deck, obliterating everything. In that smoke, tongues of fire licked upwards, whether from the furnaces or from a conflagration he did not know. Automatically he began to run towards the conning-tower. Without defining itself, the thought that the captain should be informed of the state of affairs impelled him. As he went he heard again the roar of projectiles. Again he flung himself flat. This time the enemy was not so successful. A shell burst somewhere on the fore-castle. The rest flung up spouts of water all around that fell again with a heavy splash. An instant later he was hammering at the lid of the manhole in the conning-tower.
The lid was unfastened from within. He pushed it aside and slid in, feet foremost. The round steel box was filled with fumes. Through them he perceived several bodies stretched out upon the floor. He stumbled over one of them, and the handkerchief over the man's face slipped aside. It was the commander. He heard the voice of one of the gunnery-lieutenants at a telephone communicating with a fire-control station, followed by rapid orders to the electricians turning the handles of the range indicators. At another telephone a man was making frantic but ineffectual efforts to get a reply from the wireless room. A junior officer at the steering wheel gave him a slow strained grin, almost like an expression of pain. The captain glared at him with eyes in which there flamed a Berserk madness.
"Well!" he shouted, sticking his red beard into the lieutenant's face.
The navigating lieutenant gave his information, staggering with the heavy lurches of the ship. It flashed on his mind while he spoke that she no longer rose so buoyantly to the waves. The captain listened, his face twitching insanely, puckering his fierce eyes. When the lieutenant spoke of the blur of smoke on the horizon he sprang round and peered out through the narrow slit between the wall and the roof. Then he turned with a cry of panic.
"They are all round us! Starboard your helm! West-by-north-west!"
The ship came round on her new course with a wallowing roll. The captain peered again through the observation slit.
Suddenly there was a fearful shock, a deafening roar, and the slit was vividly illuminated. The conning-tower had been again struck. The captain toppled backward on his heels, an object of sickening horror. The top of his head was gone. The gunnery-lieutenant sank quietly to his knees and slid over sideways. The officer at the helm was leaning over the wheel, motionless and staring. A splinter had gone through his brain. Lieutenant Bielefeld sprang to take his place. Three men beside himself, rangetakers and electricians, were left alive in the conning-tower. They seemed in a stupor, dazed by the shock.