Another attempt was made, but hardly was the boat clear of her parent ship when a projectile ploughed through her bows. Enshrouded in a cloud of smoke and steam, the pinnace disappeared beneath the waves.
Undaunted, the Tremendous sent out a third hawser. Working under great difficulties, the crew of the Hammerer succeeded in getting the stiff wire rope on board and attaching it to a chain "necklace" round the base of her after turret.
"She's moving!" exclaimed Farnworth.
Slowly the Hammerer glided astern for almost her own length; then, with a bang that was audible above the roar of the guns, the hawser parted.
By the time the Tremendous had checked her way and had re-established communication, twenty minutes had elapsed. Already the Hammerer's top-hamper was little more than a tangled skein of steel. Her fore topmast had gone; her mainmast had been severed ten feet below the lower fighting-top. One of her funnels had gone by the board; the other was holed in twenty different places and looked little better than a sieve. Only the funnel-guys prevented it from sharing the fate of the former. Yet she kept up a heavy fire with unabated violence, while, to relieve the pressure of the Turkish batteries, two armoured cruisers closed and directed their attention upon the hostile guns.
Suddenly Dick sprang to the wheel, unceremoniously pushing aside the coxswain, whose whole attention was centred upon the stranded battleship.
"Full speed ahead both engines!" he shouted.
His quick eye had discerned a suspicious swirl on the surface within a cable's length of the picket-boat's starboard bow. Even as the little craft shot ahead, from the centre of the disturbed water appeared a periscope. It was not the periscope of a British submarine, of that Dick felt certain. It was a hostile craft, about to take her bearings prior to discharging a torpedo at the motionless Hammerer or her almost equally handicapped consort.
"Stand by, men!" ordered the Sub.
The picket-boat, having a dead weight of fifteen tons exclusive of the crew, was capable of dealing a heavy blow, but Crosthwaite realized that that would mean her own destruction. Already he had weighed up the situation. It was risking the lives of a mere handful of officers and men in an attempt to save the huge battleship and her complement of nearly eight hundred.