"All clear aft?" shouted the Basher's lieutenant-commander.
"Aye, aye, sir," was the reply from a petty officer stationed at the after capstan, round which the towing-hawser had been made fast.
"Cast off fore and after springs," continued the officer, telegraphing for "Half ahead, port engine".
Very cautiously the towing-craft forged ahead, turning sixteen points in almost her own length. In the darkness the manoeuvre was fraught with anxiety, for, had the slack of the hawser fouled the Basher's propellers, the destroyer would have been as helpless as the craft she was endeavouring to save.
At length the wire hawser began to groan as, under the increased strain, it rasped through the fair-lead. Ever so slowly, yet surely, the Calder gathered stern way in the wake of her consort, and presently she was nearing the Tyne at a rate of 7-½ knots.
With her helm lashed amidships, and without means of steering, the partly waterlogged craft yawed horribly, sheering alternately four points to port and starboard of the towing-vessel. Yet it was the only practical means of getting the destroyer into port. Had she been towed bows first, the already-weakened for'ard bulkhead would assuredly have collapsed under the additional pressure of water.
"We may fetch Tynemouth," thought Sefton, as he watched the Calder's erratic movements, "but she'll never be able to ascend the river. She'll be barging into the banks and playing the deuce with everything."
He could think of nothing to check the damaged destroyer's behaviour. A scope of the cable trailing from the hawse-pipe might have served, had not anchors, struck by several projectiles, been immovably jammed in the hawse-pipes.
The same problem also confronted the skipper of the Basher, but he quickly settled it by wirelessing for a tug.
Dawn was just breaking when the Calder arrived off Tynemouth. A powerful paddle-tug was lashed alongside, and the voyage up the river began.