Silently yet rapidly the battle-cruiser's ship's company fell in at their appointed stations. The securing chains of the huge turrets were cast off and the monster guns trained and elevated to test the intricate mechanism. The quick-firers were manned and trained abeam, ammunition was sent up from the magazines, torpedoes launched home into the under-water tubes, fire hoses were coupled up and watertight doors closed. Officers and men, with gas-masks ready to hand, were keenly on the alert, those whose stations prevented them from seeing what was going on without plying their more fortunate comrades with eager questions.
Kenneth and Wakefield were standing just under the fore-bridge. Above them every tier of "Monkey Island" bore its quota of sightseers, all looking steadily ahead into the grey mirk in a kind of competition as to who should first discern the masts of the expected Hun ships.
"Think they'll show up? If so, will they fight?" asked Wakefield.
A naval officer standing by answered him.
"They'll show up all right. As to fighting, it's a toss up. Judging from our standpoint, I shouldn't be surprised if they did; but, by Jove! they will be smashed in twenty rounds."
The whirr of an aerial propeller sounded overhead, and a large seaplane, literally skimming over the fore-topmast truck, raced noisily eastward, and was lost to sight in the grey dawn. Another, passing well to windward, followed, and then a huge airship, her yellow gas-bag glinting in the pale light, sailed serenely overhead at a great height. The scouts of the modern navy were at work.
"They're coming, sir!" announced a messenger, as he flung himself at the bridge ladder. "Airship's just wirelessed through."
"Then that's done it—one way or the other," murmured the naval officer. "I look like getting Christmas leave after all."
Approaching rapidly, came the line of pale-grey Hun battle-cruisers, led by the British light cruiser Cardiff. As far as could be seen, they flew no ensigns. Either in fear or in shame they hesitated to hoist the dishonoured Black Cross—the battle-cruisers had figured prominently in the raid on Scarboro' and Hartlepool, and the Huns were far from comfortable at the thought of their reception.
The German vessels had rigorously carried out the conditions of surrender. Their guns were trained fore and aft. The slightest deviation from that position would invite a veritable tornado of shells into the vitals of any ship that disregarded that command. Their own supply of ammunition had been left ashore, together with the war-heads of their torpedoes. The huge warships were like pythons with their poisonous fangs removed—formidable in appearance yet powerless to do harm.