The Invasion of 1910, with a full account of the siege of London

by William Le Queux

The calamities of the British fleet did not end with the torpedoing of the Indefatigable. A few seconds later some object drifting in the water, probably a mine—though in the confusion it was impossible to say what exactly happened—struck the Resistance just forward of the fore barbette. It must have drifted down inside the torpedo nets, between the hull and the network. There was an explosion of terrific violence, which rent a great breach in the side of the ship near the starboard fore torpedo tube, caused an irresistible inrush of water, and compelled her captain also to slip his anchors and beach his ship.

Two of the British battle squadron were out of action in the space of less than five minutes from the opening of fire.

Already the shattered remnants of the German torpedo flotilla were retiring; a single boat was steaming off as fast as she had come, but astern of her four wrecks lay in the midst of the British fleet devoid of motive power, mere helpless targets for the guns.

As they floated in the glare of the searchlights with the water sputtering about them, in the hail of projectiles, first one and then another, and finally all four, raised the white flag. Four German boats had surrendered; four more had been seen to sink in the midst of the fleet; one was limping slowly off under a rain of shells from the smaller guns of the Vanguard.

The British cruiser Londonderry was ordered to slip and give chase to her, and steamed off in pursuit down the Forth. A caution to “beware of mines” was flashed by the Admiral, and was needed. The German destroyers must have carried with them, and thrown overboard in their approach, a large number of these deadly agents, which were floating in all directions, greatly hampering the Londonderry in her chase.

But with the help of her searchlights she picked her way past some half-dozen mines which were seen on the surface, and she was so fortunate as not to strike any of those which had been anchored in the channel. Gathering speed, she overhauled the damaged destroyer. The crew could offer little resistance to the guns of a powerful cruiser.

A few shots from the three-pounders and a single shell from one of the Londonderry’s 7.5’s did the work. The German torpedo boat began to sink by the stern; her engines stopped; her rudder was driven by the explosion of the big projectile over to starboard, and the impulse of the speed at which she was travelling brought her head round towards the British vessel. The boat was almost flush with the water as one of her crew raised the white flag, and the fifth German boat surrendered.

The prisoners were rescued from the water with shaken nerves and quaking limbs, as men who had passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, who had endured the hail of shells and faced the danger of drowning.

So soon as the survivors of that most daring and gallant attack had been recovered from the water, and possession had been taken of the battered hulls in which they had made their onset, the Admiral ordered his torpedo launches to drag the channel for mines.

And while the dragging was proceeding, the prisoners were taken on board the flagship and interrogated. They would disclose little other than the fact that, according to them, war had been already declared. The ship which had attacked the Leicestershire, they said, was a tramp fitted for mine-laying and equipped with three torpedo tubes. Half of them were more or less seriously wounded; all admitted that the slaughter on board their boats caused by the British fire had been terrific. One lieutenant stated that all the men at one of his torpedo tubes had been mown down twice by the hail of small shells from the pom-poms, while a 12-in. shell which had hit the stern of his boat had blown it completely away. Yet the remnant of the boat had still floated.