A Naval Venture: The War Story of an Armoured Cruiser

by T. T. Jeans

Right in front of him was the dark mass of the cliffs—they seemed to be not 200 yards away—and twinkles of flame sparkled out all along the tops of them. As he looked, there was the glare of a field-gun flash which outlined the whole cliffs—the crash—and then a glare farther inland, and a fainter report of a shrapnel bursting. For an instant he saw before him a narrow strip of beach with a dark shadow above it. Then it was dark again; but all along it, all the time, spurts of rifle-flame, ten times as distinct and large as those twinkles of the Turks' rifles on the cliff, marked an irregular, uneven line, where he knew our own troops must be—those Worcesters, who had just landed, probably among them.

A little to the right, down in the centre of that spluttering line of flashes, there was a regular spout of flame—a maxim was rattling; farther away inland, twinkles darted out everywhere—the whole air seemed full of noises. Then he jumped nervously, for suddenly two or three maxims at the other end—from the bows of the River Clyde—opened fire at something or other, just as they had done before. He could see nothing moving; it was all very uncanny, and fearfully exciting. He forgot that bullets occasionally pinged overhead or splattered against the side of the ship, and waited there until that attack had been beaten off—or perhaps, after all, it had been a false alarm—and gradually first the maxims, then the volleys, then the individual firing died down, and left only a few snipers trying to find each other.

Then he had time to look round the deck. Close to him he saw something—some queer shape—moving in the shadow of the bulwark, and he put out his hand and felt the rough hair and the long, smooth ears which could only have belonged to a donkey. There were two of them, both tied up behind a little deck-house. They were glad for anyone to touch them; they nosed at him, as if he gave them comfort, and stamped their little feet on the deck to show their pleasure, and to make him understand how they wanted to be taken on shore.

He gave them each a friendly pat and scratched their ears, wondering what they were doing there.

But what he wanted to see were those maxims, away at the other end of the ship; to be actually behind them when they next opened fire, and to find out what was happening, and what they were firing at. So he crept along the deck, along a row of stretchers, with shapeless forms on them, lying close under the bulwark. One or two groaned, but they all seemed to be asleep, and then he gained the entrance to the dark passage or alley-way under the superstructure. In it a man was smoking—he saw the glowing end of his cigarette.

"Can I get along here?" the Orphan asked. "I want to get to the maxims."

A rough Yorkshire voice told him the passage was full of people asleep. "You'd be doing better to go up along; keep away t'other side, it's safer so."

So the Orphan retreated, crossed the open deck in front of the mast and cargo winch, found the ladder leading to the superstructure, and was just going up it, to the shelter of the starboard side of the deck-house, when he saw a stooping figure bending over a stretcher, and Dr. O'Neill's harsh voice growled out: "Here, you! come and lend a hand. Lift that corner of the stretcher."

A wounded man lay on it, very heavily asleep; and as the Orphan lifted, the Doctor pulled free a blanket which had caught under the stretcher, and spread it over him.

He had not recognized the Orphan, who promptly darted up the ladder lest he should do so, and stop him going to find those maxims. He groped his way to the ladder, which he knew must lead down to the for'ard "well" deck; found it, climbed down, and then the fo'c'sle itself was in front of him, and an iron ladder to climb up. He was up it like a redshank, and at last found himself right in the bows of the River Clyde.