Giving three cheers for the old ship, as the Engadine, abandoning her tow, increased the distance between her and the Warrior, the gallant crew watched the battered hulk rolling sullenly in the angry sea until she was lost sight of in the distance.
Having formally reported himself, Sefton went below to make up arrears of sleep. Boxspanner and the doctor were in the ward-room, both engaged in animated conversation, not upon the subject of the action, but on the merits and demerits of paraffin as a substitute for petrol for a motor-bicycle.
With disjointed fragments of conversation ringing in his ears, and "carburation", "sooty deposit in the sparking plug", and "engine-knock" figuring largely, Sefton fell into a fitful slumber, dreaming vividly of the stirring incidents of the past few hours, until he was aroused by the reversal of the destroyer's engines, the lightly-built hull quivering under the strain.
Instinctively he glanced at the clock. He had been asleep only ten minutes--it seemed more like ten hours by the length of his excited mental visions.
Leaping from his bunk, Sefton scrambled into his clothes and hurried on deck. It was still twilight. The wind was moaning through the aerials; splashes of spray slapped the destroyer's black sides as she lost way and fell off broadside on to the waves.
Fifty yards to leeward was a large British sea-plane. She was listing at a dangerous angle, her starboard-float being waterlogged, and showing only above the surface as the fabric heeled in the trough of the sea. Her planes were ripped in twenty places, while the fuselage showed signs of having been hit several times. The tip of one blade of the propeller had been cut off as cleanly as if by a knife. All around her the water was iridescent with oil that had leaked from her lubricating-tanks. Waist-deep in water, and sitting athwart the undamaged float, was the pilot--a young sub-lieutenant, whose face was blanched with the cold. He had voluntarily adopted his position in order to impart increased stability to the damaged sea-plane.
Lying on the floor of the fuselage, with his head just visible above the coamings, was the observer. He had discarded his flying-helmet, while round his head was bound a blood-stained scarf. Evidently his wound was of a serious nature, for he evinced no interest in the approach of the Calder.
As the destroyer drifted down upon the crippled sea-plane a dozen ready hands gripped the top of one of the wings, and a couple of seamen swarmed along the frail fabric to the chassis.
The rescue of the pilot was a comparatively easy matter, but it took all the skill of the bluejackets to extricate the wounded observer. It was not until others of the crew came to the aid of their comrades, the men in their zeal almost completing the submergence of the still floating wreckage, that the unconscious officer was brought on board.
There was no time to waste in salvage operations. At an order from the lieutenant-commander a seaman, armed with an axe, made his way to the undamaged float. A few vigorous blows completed the work of destruction. Held by the tip of one of the wings until the man regained the destroyer, the sea-plane was allowed to sink.