Of all this Hamerton saw nothing. He was waiting. It was his duty to wait till ordered to do something.
Presently the admiral wheeled abruptly.
"See what is wrong with the for'ard starboard six-inch," he said abruptly. The voice tube and electric wires communicating with that particular casemate were long out of action.
Hamerton saluted, and promptly descended the ladder to the deck beneath the waterline. Half a dozen anxious pairs of eyes asked mute questions. The Sub could only shake his head; he knew nothing.
Along a passage beneath the protected steel deck he made his way. Below, the ship appeared in normal condition. Everything below the waterline was practically intact, except that the concussion had broken every electric lamp in the ship, broken glass littering every square foot of space.
It was only by means of this passage and one more that direct means of communication could be maintained from one end of the ship to the other. The Royal Sovereign was built with three longitudinal bulkheads, extending from the keel plates to the upper deck, and completely separating the port engine-room from the starboard. In addition there were numerous transverse bulkheads, in which all watertight doors had been closed at the beginning of the action. Every man on board, save a very few, was encased in a steel box that might prove his tomb.
At the head of the ladder communicating with the main deck Hamerton crept under the flexible-steel splinter net. He was now well above waterline, and in a part of the ship only protected by fairly thin side armour. The space 'tween decks was filled with a pungent, yellowish vapour, pierced here and there by shafts of light that entered by means of huge jagged holes in the ship's side. The deck resembled an ironfounder's store, pieces of bent, twisted, and shattered steel lying in all directions and positions.
Something prompted the Sub to bend his back and run as hard as he could to the door of the casemate. Afterwards he wondered why he did, for had a shell entered and burst just as he was making his way along that part of the deck, stooping down would not have made any difference.
Seizing the gunmetal catch of the armoured door the Sub strove to turn it. Then he became aware that the metal was hot. He placed his hand against the steel door; there the heat was unbearable. Picking up a piece of iron bar Hamerton inserted it in the handle, and by a powerful lever-like motion succeeded in turning the catch. The door flew open, and the Sub leapt backwards, nearly overcome by a blast of hot and fetid air.
One glance was sufficient. A small shell had entered the casemate by the gap between the chase of the gun and the shield, and had exploded, killing every man of the crew of the six-inch. There was no escape. Those who were not slain by the direct explosion were killed by the fragments of metal ricochetting from the steel walls. The place was nothing less than a charnel house.