One destroyer, however, had noted the accident, and altering out from her station stood by her damaged consort and forthwith made preparations to take her in tow; for if one thing was more evident than another, it was the desirability of getting the damaged ships away to seaward before the fog should lift leaving them to be discovered by some inquisitive Hun submarine or aircraft patrol.
A wireless signal—it had to be done—was sent as soon as possible to the flagship from the damaged cruiser, and the squadron turned back on their track to try to locate and assist the damaged craft. But noon came—it was soon after 8 A.M. when the two ships collided—and there was no sign of the destroyer. The fog still hung thick over us all. Four P.M. came and passed and still we searched anxiously to and fro, peering continually into the thick wall of fog, and groping vaguely and blindly after our next ahead, catching a glimpse now and again of her mast or funnels only to lose her completely the next minute, and recommence the chase of her wake, assisted periodically by a fog buoy she veered astern.
From time to time, raucously and rashly, we would make signals on our syren hoping that the cripples would hear us, and periodically we tried wireless signals; but all to no effect, and night came leaving us still anxious for, and out of touch of our destroyer.
The damaged light cruiser was making her own way back to port, and two more destroyers that had lost touch with us during our fog manœuvring were also ordered home, but we should have been much happier for news of our ‘lame duck.’
The Germans still appeared to be unaware of our presence, despite our proximity to their coasts, but at any moment some prowling submarine might find us and give the show away, forcing us to scupper the destroyer lest she should fall into the enemy’s hands.
During the night the ships of our squadron were spread a couple of miles apart, so as to search over a greater area, but dawn on the next day came and still never a sign of our objective. We had received a signal of her estimated position, but neither she nor we were at all sure of our positions—it is not possible to be so in the North Sea amongst the variable currents, especially so in this case after so many alterations of course and speed and when it has not been possible to get a fix from the land or observations of the sun or stars for thirty-six hours. But with the new day the fog drifted away and there was soon a visibility of three or four miles.
Mr. Clerk of the Weather, however, was apparently unsatisfied with the capers he had already led us, and now substituted for the fog a rising wind and sea, so that we had visions of the damaged craft foundering before we might pick her up.
At 9 A.M. the flagship ordered one of the light cruisers to make all preparations for taking the destroyer in tow as soon as met with, but not until 2 P.M., thirty hours after the collision, did we at last sight her. She made a weird sight.
Her crumpled bows, unable to stand the strain of the ship’s motion any longer, had fallen off into the sea, so that from another ship one could look right into her and see her storerooms and other compartments, whilst the muzzle of her foremost gun, at ordinary times twenty feet or so back from her bows, now protruded over the ‘front’ of the ship like a tree outgrowing from a cliff.
The men’s living spaces right forward had retired to the bottom of the North Sea, and the waves were rolling in, unhindered, against the capstan engine, anchor chain lockers, and foremost mess decks. Yet the ship was still seaworthy, for a transverse bulkhead, which stretches across the ship and runs from the foc’sle deck right down to the keel, was keeping her watertight and preventing other compartments from being flooded—no small advertisement for the efficient work of our Corps of Naval Constructors.