"When I regained my senses I found myself lying in Sandwell Hall, with doctors bandaging my wounds, and then I learned that we had been rescued just in time, and that my nine comrades had all escaped the fate they had faced with dogged disregard for their own safety, and such noble devotion to their Queen."
It was a black day for Britain. During the long hours of that fierce, mad struggle many Victoria Crosses were earned, but the majority of those who performed deeds worthy of such decoration, alas! fell to the earth, dead.
CHAPTER XX.
OUR REVENGE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
any important events had occurred in the Mediterranean since the outbreak of hostilities. At the moment of the sudden Declaration of War, the ships forming the British Mediterranean Squadron were at Larnaka, Cyprus, and on receipt of the alarming intelligence, the Admiral sailed immediately for Malta. On arrival there, he heard that a strong force of French vessels had been despatched to Gibraltar for the purpose of preventing any British ships from getting out of the Mediterranean in order to strengthen the Channel Squadron. Nevertheless he waited for some days at Malta, in hourly expectation of instructions, which came at length about two o'clock one morning, and an hour later the Squadron sailed westward for an unknown destination.
Our Fleet in those waters was notoriously inadequate in comparison with those of France and Russia. It consisted of three of the battleships constructed under the 1894 programme, the Jupiter, Cæsar, and Victorious, with the cruisers Diana and Dido; the ironclads Collingwood, Dreadnought, Hood, Inflexible, Nile, Ramillies, Repulse, Sans Pareil, Trafalgar, Magnificent, Empress of India, and Revenge; the cruisers Arethusa, Edgar, Fearless, Hawke, Scout, Orlando, Undaunted; the torpedo ram Polyphemus; the torpedo gun-vessel Sandfly; the sloops Dolphin, Gannet, Melita, and Bramble; and the despatch vessel Surprise, with twenty-two torpedo boats and six destroyers.
The information received by our Fleet at Malta was to the effect that the French force at Gibraltar was so strong that a successful attack was out of the question; while the Russian Mediterranean and Black Sea Fleets, the strength of which was considerable, were also known to be approaching for the purpose of co-operating with the French.