The gun's crew looked at each other. The turret moved slowly to the right, and went on moving. The breeches of the guns began to see-saw gently up and down in rhythm with the movement of the ship. Then a bell rang, and with a roar and a thud the right gun suddenly went off and recoiled backwards along its slide. It ran out again with a wheezing, sucking sound, and the massive breech-block flew open with a metallic crash.
'Left gun, ready!' came a shout.
The turret became filled with the warm, acrid smoke of burnt cordite. There came the swishing sound of the washing-out apparatus, and the clatter of the chain rammer.
The bell rang again. B-o-o-m! roared the left gun. The great battle had begun.
II.
It is impossible for any single spectator to describe a naval action as a whole from his own personal observations and experiences, particularly a battle which divides itself into many different phases, lasts intermittently from about three-thirty in the afternoon until the same time next morning, and is fought over many miles of sea.
The Mariner and various other destroyers were present with the battle-cruisers throughout the first shock of the engagement and the running fight which ensued. Some of them, the Mariner included, assisted to repel the attacks of hostile torpedo-craft during daylight, and delivered their own attacks on the heavy ships of the enemy during the afternoon and night; but though Pincher Martin saw a great deal of the fighting, he had no very clear conception of how the engagement went as a whole or of how the time passed.
When he first saw the enemy they appeared as a row of immense gray shapes stretched out across the horizon. They were battle-cruisers—he knew that from their build; and though they must have been fully ten miles distant, they looked grim and menacing. With them were several light cruisers, looking absolute pygmies alongside their overgrown sisters; while on the farther side he saw, or thought he could see, a swarm of destroyers. It was now about three-thirty P.M., and the weather was quite clear.
The Mariner was stationed close to the line of battle-cruisers, and between them and the enemy. She occupied one of the best seats in the house, the front row of the stalls, so to speak, a position from which, but for the clouds of smoke and masses of spray flung up by the falling shell, those on board her would have seen practically everything that happened. But the billet was not exactly a comfortable one. Indeed, it was most unpleasant; for when the firing began the shot from both the British and the German guns whistled and thundered overhead, while there was always the chance that the destroyers would receive the benefit of hostile shell falling short of their intended target.
Pincher watched the enemy with a certain amount of fascinated apprehension. They seemed to swing into a single line, and then, quite suddenly, he noticed five or six tongues of bright orange flame and clouds of brown smoke leap out from the side of their leader. There was a lengthy pause, followed by a terrifying crescendo of howling and screeching as the giant projectiles came hurtling through the air. They fell in a bunch a bare fifty yards short of one of the battle-cruisers, and exploded with a roar, the great upheaval in the sea almost completely shutting out all traces of the ship beyond. The British guns instantly flashed out in reply, and the next moment the engagement became general.