Billy Barcroft, R.N.A.S.: A Story of the Great War

by Percy F. Westerman

Siegfried von Eitelwurmer, otherwise Andrew Norton, had paid the penalty.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ELUSIVE OBJECTIVE

"By Jove! old man," exclaimed Kirkwood, "we're up against a big thing to-morrow."

Billy Barcroft merely nodded. It was "a big thing," this impending movement. Something that was well worth the risk, but at the same time the chances of the participators in the business returning were very remote.

The two chums were pacing the port side of the quarter-deck of the "Hippodrome"—a long and comparatively narrow space betwixt the rise of the deck-houses and the stern, and separated from the corresponding part on the starboard side by the inclined launching platform.

The seaplane-carrier was lying in a certain East Coast harbour, with steam raised ready to proceed at a moment's notice, and although her destination was supposed to be a strict secret, the nature of the forthcoming operations was known to all on board.

It was nothing less than a raid on Cuxhaven, where a considerable portion of the German High Seas Fleet was known to be "resting" after a speculative but cautious cruise off the west coast of Jutland, the object being twofold—to exercise the crews and to impress upon the incredulous Danes the fact that the fleet of the Black Cross Ensign were willing and anxious to meet the British navy.

With their U-boats well out to sea, their ocean-going torpedo-boats forming a far-flung screen, and Zeppelins hovering overhead, the Hun "capital ships" had steamed in and out, keeping within their protective mine-fields: Having accomplished this imposing evolution the battleships of the fleet returned, part going to Cuxhaven, the rest to Wilhelmshaven, while the bulk of the torpedo flotillas anchored off the east side of Heligoland.

Once more the German Press had burst forth into a panegyric on the invincible and undaunted prowess of the fleet of the Fatherland, taking good care to impress upon the people that, although every opportunity had been offered to the British to engage in battle, the challenge had been declined.