Cleared for Action
With admirable and well-kept secrecy the Admiralty had made all preparations for a strong attack to be delivered at the supposedly impregnable Dardanelles. In addition to the ships of the Mediterranean Fleet, battleships and cruisers were ordered to proceed to the Near East, until a fleet deemed sufficiently strong for the work in hand had collected in the Ægean Sea.
The Hammerer was one of the first to leave England for that purpose, while it was hinted amongst the officers that there was a big surprise up the sleeve of the Admiralty when the final depositions of the attacking fleet were completed.
Sub-lieutenant Dick Crosthwaite hailed the news with as much enthusiasm as the rest of the gun-room, which is saying much; for the youngsters let off a cheer that, if it did not equal the volume of sound emitted by the men, had the dire effect of arousing the chaplain and naval instructor from their afternoon nap.
It was a chance of a lifetime. Little Tommy Farnworth's announcement was a true one. While the Grand Fleet waited and watched in tireless energy for the German High Seas Fleet, this powerful squadron, detached without risk of disturbing the superiority of power in home waters, was silently and rapidly concentrating to match its strength against the vaunted Ottoman batteries on both sides of the Dardanelles. For this purpose the older type of war-ships with their 12-inch guns could be usefully and profitably employed, since speed—one of the greatest factors of modern naval warfare—was not so imperative when dealing with immobile batteries the position of which is already known.
When Ushant was astern and the Hammerer well into the Bay, the battleship's escort of destroyers turned and parted company. They had seen the ship through the waters within the radius of action of the German submarines. They were now free to return and take another battleship clear of the Channel. No doubt several huge grey-painted war-ships had been observed through the periscopes of these hostile under-water craft, but the presence of the swift, alert destroyers was sufficient to cause even the most reckless German lieutenant-commander to hesitate to attack. But for the destroyers more than one of the Mediterranean-bound war-ships would have fallen an easy prey to the lurking peril of the deep.
From the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans came ships proudly displaying the white ensign. Under cover of complete secrecy, battleships and battle-cruisers gained the rendezvous without an inkling of their presence to the outside world.
The Canopus, which had been expected to join Admiral Cradock's ill-starred squadron in the Pacific, and had last been heard of in the Falkland Islands fight, suddenly turned up in the Ægean. The battle-cruisers that enabled Admiral Sturdee to avenge the Monmouth and Good Hope swiftly covered the 6500 miles between the Falkland Islands and the Piræus; the Triumph, after doing yeoman service at Kiao-Chau, and stopping in the Suez Canal to help put the fear of the British Empire into the Turkish invaders of Egypt, steamed into the Archipelago, ready to continue the good work she had so worthily begun.
Not only was the white ensign displayed at the southern gate of the Sea of Marmora; for a powerful French squadron, without weakening the force that held the Austrians under the guns at Pola and Trieste, had arrived to join hands with the former traditional enemy and now close ally of France; while in the Black Sea the Russians were making their presence felt upon the Turkish littoral of that inland sea.
The Ottoman Empire, tottering after the last disastrous Balkan War, was on the point of committing national suicide under the patronage of its bombastic German tutors.