Their skipper, a reserve officer who spoke English like a native, had served as an officer in British ships, and seemed a good fellow. He was pleased to be congratulated on his plucky fight; but it was rather pathetic all the same, for he had been cut off practically at his own front door.
"You came upon us so suddenly and so near home," he said, looking at Sylt which was only six or seven miles away. "We had not a chance to do anything."
He told us that he had been in the wheelhouse of his trawler when the show started. One of our first shell passed through the glass windows within a foot of his head without bursting, and the very next did the damage in the engine-room. He ran down there to see what could be done, and this must have saved his life, for while he was away another shell burst in the wheelhouse and put about twenty holes in his greatcoat which was lying on the settee. I saw the coat and the holes when he came on board, and noticed it had the ribbon of the Iron Cross and that of some other decoration in the button-hole. He showed me his Iron Cross and was very proud of it, but what he got it for I did not gather. He seemed rather secretive about it. The other decoration, with a red-and-white ribbon, was the "Hamburg Cross," which is given to all officers and men belonging to the town who get the Iron Cross. I believe the other Hansa towns follow the same custom with their braves.
One thing about the skipper which struck me favourably was that he seemed very keen on the welfare of his men. The poor fellow who was badly wounded had been hit in the back, and three or four pieces of shell were still inside him. He must have been in terrible agony, but was very brave and did not utter a sound. An operation was quite out of the question, and as the poor chap was obviously in great pain our Surgeon-Probationer put him in a hammock on the mess-deck and gave him morphia. Soon afterwards the skipper asked to be allowed to visit him, and when the Doc. next went forward he found him swabbing the patient's brow with icy cold water to bring him to! The Doc. was rather peevish about it.
But to get on with the story of what happened. The trawler was sinking, but not quite fast enough, so we finished her off with a couple of lyddite shell on the waterline. In the meanwhile, as you probably know, for it was officially announced at the time, two destroyers had been in collision. The rammer crumpled her bows up a bit, but could still steam, but the ship rammed was rather badly damaged, and had to be taken in tow. It was in the middle of this operation that many hostile seaplanes, stirred up like a wasps' nest by our 'planes earlier in the morning, came out and started dropping bombs. None of them came very close to us,—the bombs, I mean,—but we saw a string of five fall and explode practically alongside one destroyer, and heard afterwards that there had been a free fight on her upper deck to secure as trophies the splinters which dropped on board. We were all using our A.-A. guns, and though we did not actually hit any of them so far as we could see, we made them keep up to a height from which accurate bomb-dropping was an impossibility, so nobody was hit. But nevertheless it was unpleasant, for no sooner had they let go one consignment than they went home again, filled up afresh, and came back for another go. They were bombing us off and on for four or five hours, so far as I can remember, and we counted seven or eight of the blighters in sight at once, so it was "embarras de richesse" so far as targets went.
We weren't going very fast, for the damaged destroyer could not be towed at a respectable speed on account of her injuries, and at about five o'clock in the afternoon the glass had gone down a lot, and the wind and sea started to get up from the westward. The prospect was not altogether joyful. We had heard the two trawlers shouting for help by wireless before we sank them, and knew that the German seaplanes had probably seen and reported an injured ship being taken in tow. (This afterwards turned out to be the case, though, according to their communiqué, the seaplanes claimed to have bagged her with a bomb, which was not so.) Moreover, Heligoland was a bare sixty miles away under our lee, so the chances were £100 to 1/2d. that the Huns would come out during the night and try to scupper the lot of us. It was with some joy, then, that we found there was a pretty strong supporting force within easy distance. In fact, we actually sighted them at about 6 p.m.
The weather grew steadily worse, and by sunset there was a pretty big sea and a fresh breeze, both of which were increasing every minute. The poor old ship in tow was making very heavy weather of it, while even we were pretty lively. But things got worse, for by ten o'clock, and a pitch dark night it was, it was blowing nearly a full gale. The sea, too, had got up to such an extent that there was nothing for it but to abandon the damaged destroyer. It was easier said than done, for the sea was too big for lowering boats, and the only other alternative was for some other craft to go alongside her and to take the men on. I did not see the business myself, but believe another destroyer put her stem up against the side of the one sinking and kept it there by going slow ahead, while the men hopped out one by one over the bows.
It was a most excellent bit of work on the part of the salvor, for with the two ships rolling, pitching, and grinding in the sea, and in utter darkness, it required a very good head and cool judgment to know how much speed was necessary to keep the bows just touching, and no more. If they had come into violent contact the rescuing ship might have been very badly damaged. I believe they had to have several shots at it, before they got every man away, but though two fell overboard in jumping across, they pulled it off all right without losing a single life. The only damage to the rescuing ship was a little bit of a bulge on the stem just below the forecastle, but this did not make a leak or impair her efficiency in any way, and she went about for months afterwards without having it straightened. They had every right to be proud of their honourable scar!
The poor old ship which had to be abandoned was then left to her fate, and nobody saw the end of her.
It must have been at about this time, though we did not see it, that some hostile destroyers came upon our light cruisers, or rather, our cruisers happened upon them. What took place I don't quite know, but the Huns were apparently sighted quite close, and our leading ship, jamming her helm over and increasing speed, rammed one full in the middle and cut her in halves. It must have been an awful moment for the poor wretches, for the stern portion of the destroyer sank one side, and the bow part went rushing on into the darkness at about thirty knots. The men on board her could be heard yelling, but it was quite impossible to do anything to save them as other enemy destroyers were in the neighbourhood and the sea was far too bad for lowering boats.