"9.21. Vessel sinking. Forepart under water.
"9.23. Vessel submerged to forward funnel.
"9.25. Stern only visible above water.
"9.26. Vessel entirely submerged."
It seems incredible. The whole drama has been enacted with the same orderly speed as the movement of the pencil. The great grey battleship has, with three shots, sunk a large transport packed with a thousand men and a considerable cargo of supplies, which lay some fifteen miles away out of sight on the other side of a high range of hills. The blind sailors have loaded their guns and have fired according to the instructions given by the little figures swinging high in the blue morning sky in a creaking basket hung from a drowsy yellow balloon.... Standing here by the little cabin I have been a witness of a wonderful feat, and an awe-inspiring example of the scope of modern weapons.
This kite balloon of ours is the first ever used by the British, and this magnificent achievement which I have just seen recorded is the biggest triumph it has accomplished. It is naval history in the making. I walk away across the hot raised balloon deck feeling strangely small, strangely unimportant in an age of huge strength and mighty possibilities.
Now the whine and clatter of the winch recommences, and the balloon begins to descend slowly. When it is some five hundred feet above the deck the whistle is blown to call us to "balloon stations," and we hurry along to our appointed positions beside the tall wind-screens. Nearer and nearer comes the balloon; larger and more ungainly grows its yellow bulk, and soon the handling ropes are within reach. Catching hold of the ends, we quickly thread them through ring-bolts and pull them steadily till at last the balloon reaches deck, and the two observers climb out of their baskets.
We are evidently proceeding to some new position where the balloon is going to be used again, for it is not bagged completely down, but is merely temporarily weighted by clusters of sandbags in the rigging, and we stand by the ropes which are lashed to the side. After half an hour or so we receive orders to prepare to let the balloon up again. The two observers return with their binoculars and charts, and once more the balloon rises upwards. I am now told off to oil the gas-pipe which leads from the gas-cylinders aft to the balloon deck. This is a job which I like, because I can look over the side and see what is happening. So, with my can of yellow oil and my handful of cotton-waste, I watch a half-hour or so of fierce battle. We lie some five miles off the land near Achi Baba, where the lines run into the sea, and it is soon evident that an attempt is being made to advance. Between us and the shore lie several destroyers and a cruiser, and in a few minutes they start firing rapidly. I hear the sharp sound of the guns, and then a few minutes later the thud, thud of the exploding shells, and from the cliff leaps up one, two, three shrubs of yellow coiling smoke, which quickly enlarge into trees, and at length fade away in tall masses of vapour. Soon the edge of the cliff is a maelstrom of smoke and flame. Yellow, white, and black burst the shells, and as fast as the smoke of one salvo thins out, the fan-shaped puffs leap out again in the middle, and add more turbulence to the volcano. Just over the ground appear white puffs of shrapnel smoke. Again and again, in the same place, they appear like magic flowers in the air, and grow bigger, and frailer, and fade. The air is rent and torn with the sound of the explosions, some incredibly loud and vivid, some distant and dull, while to this chorus of tumult lies as a background the delicate wooden click and clatter of remote rifle and machine-gun fire, sounding like the fingers of a child beating a tattoo on a kitchen table.
Now and again a great shell bursts half-way down a ravine in the side of the cliffs, and fills it for a time with a coiling cloud of yellow smoke. Little figures can be seen moving along the skyline, and here and there flash bayonets and equipment. As I watch, I mechanically rub my oily rag up and down the pipe, up and down. It seems hard to realise that the tragic climax of war is being enacted out there before my eyes. That men are dying, are screaming in agony with terrible wounds, are whispering their last messages for their beloved ones in England to some comrade bending over them. For me it is merely a wonderful scene, a spectacle as in a play.
Then suddenly a whistling sound strikes a swift chill into my heart. Louder and louder grows the noise with all its sense of hostile approach, and ends at its summit with a dull explosion. Fifty feet away a column of water and steam hangs above the blue placid sea, and slowly fades, leaving a creamy-white disc on the water to show where the shell has burst. Another whistle sounds and another, and both end in the noise of an explosion, but from my present position I cannot see where the shells have fallen. Another one sounds, however, and grows so loud that I run instinctively into the nearest cabin, though it is no real shelter. I hear a loud explosion, and returning cautiously to the rail, see, some way down along the side of the boat, a white circle of foam, whose edge actually touches our hull, so close is it.