Through the iron rain they fled,
Bearing home the tale of dead,
Flying from Thy sword.
After-hatch to fo'c'sle head,
We have turned their decks to red,
By Thy help, O Lord!
It was not by our feeble sword that they were overthrown,
But Thy right hand that dashed them down, the servants of the proud;
It was not arm of ours that saved, but Thine, O Lord, alone,
When down the line the guns began, and sang Thy praise aloud.
Sixty miles of running fight,
Finished at the dawning light,
Off the Zuider Zee.
Thou that helped throughout the night
Weary hand and aching sight,
Praise, O Lord, to Thee.
AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS.
The wardroom of the Depôt ship was just emptying as the late-breakfast party lit their pipes and cigarettes and headed for the smoking-room next door, when a signalman brought the news in. The Commander, standing by the radiator, took the pad from the man's hand and read it aloud. He raised his voice for the first few words, then continued in his usual staccato tones as the silence of his audience showed that they were straining their ears in fear of missing a word:—
"Lyddite, Prism, Axite, and Pebble in action last night with six enemy destroyers—Pebble sunk—fifty-seven survivors aboard Lyddite—enemy lost two sunk, possibly three—Lyddite with prisoners and Prism with Axite in tow arriving forenoon to-day."
There was a moment's pause as the Commander handed the signal back, and then half a dozen officers spoke at once. The Fleet-Surgeon was not one of them. He gathered up his two juniors with a significant glance, as one sees a hostess signal to her Division as the dessert-talk flags, and the three vanished through the door to get to work on their grim preparations. The Engineer officers conferred for a minute in low tones and then followed them out. The signal had given clearer data for the workers in flesh and bone to act on than it had for those who work in metals, and there was nothing for the latter to do but to get their men ready and to guess at probabilities. The remainder of the Mess broke into a buzz of conversation: "Axite, she must be pretty well hashed up; it must have been gun-fire, a torpedo would have sunk her.... Rot! why should it? What about the Salcombe or the Ventnor? They got home.... Yes, but not from so far out, and there's a sea running outside too.... Well, the Noorder Diep isn't a hundred miles, and that must be where...."
The Commander beckoned the First Lieutenant to him, as that officer was rising from his chair at the writing-table. "You'd better warn the Gunner, Borden, that the divers may be needed; and tell my messenger as you go out that I want to see the Boatswain and Carpenter too—thank you." He turned to the ship's side and looked out through the scuttle at the dancing, sunlit waters of the harbour. He had supervised the work of preparation for assisting and patching lame ducks more than once before, and he knew that his subordinates needed little assistance from him. What was troubling his mind was the question of the casualties. The Pebble was gone, so there was no need for spare hands to be provided for her, while her survivors were actually a gain. They would not be fit for work for a bit, though, a good few of them probably wounded, and the remainder perhaps needing treatment after immersion in a December sea. Then the three others—it sounded like a hard-fought action, and hard fights meant losses. That was the worst of these destroyer actions, the casualties were mostly good men, and it took so long to train good ratings. If only one saved the officers and men it wouldn't really matter how many destroyers were lost, he reflected, as he walked out of the mess towards his cabin and the little group of Warrant and Petty officers who awaited him by the doorway.