Submarine U93

To make matters worse, the "Moltke" took up the quarrel-if such it can be called, when on one side there is a giant and on the other a pigmy-and pounded the steamer till the sea on either side was white with beaten foam.

The battle-cruisers were still steaming due north-westward. For miles the horizon was streaked black with rolling smoke. Crouch could scarcely hope to make good his escape by heading straight for the coast. The "Mondavia" was far out to sea, and if she changed her course to the westward would be travelling in an oblique line across the front of the German cruisers, and of a certainty would be overhauled and sunk before she had gone a mile.

Crouch's only chance lay in holding to the same course as the enemy ships. Before long the "Mondavia" must be overtaken and destroyed. However, for the time being, Crouch could strive to delay the inevitable moment.

It was then a little after seven o'clock. The atmosphere was clear though the sky was cloudy. The sun, which had appeared for a few moments at daybreak, was now masked and invisible, except for a patch of brightness above the eastern sky-line. There were no ships in sight, save for a few trawlers veering towards the north. On that fateful morning the neighbourhood of the Dogger Bank-swarming as a rule with fishing craft of every kind and description-was unusually deserted.

The German battle-cruisers were now close enough for their hulls to be distinguishable. The outline of each ship stood forth, clear-cut and black, against the sky-line. Each was rushing forward at its topmost speed, bearing down with inevitable precision upon the defenceless cargo ship, which, like an exhausted, hunted animal, strained every bolt, bar and rivet to save herself from unutterable disaster. Suddenly, it became apparent that, in addition to the Dreadnought cruisers, the sea was alive with a host of smaller craft-light cruisers and torpedo-boat-destroyers. There were in all-so far as they could see-six light cruisers and a number of destroyers, which were spread out on all sides like a ring of skirmishers or scouts.

In less than five minutes, the "Mondavia" was reduced to a floating wreck. She was so riddled with shell, so battered, torn and damaged, that she was no more than a sheer hulk, lying idle on the waves. Her funnel had been struck low down, and hurled piecemeal overboard, taking with it the greater part of the boat-deck and the upper davits. Both masts had been shot away, the main-mast falling forward, so that all the superstructure on the main-deck, from the companion-way to the chartroom, had been reduced to ruins. In the sides of the ship there were, at least, half-a-dozen gaping holes, each one large enough to admit the body of a man. One shell had burst in the engine-room, killing the chief engineer and wounding three of his assistants, and leaving the engines no more than a mass of scrap-iron.

How Crouch and Jimmy Burke lived in the midst of this, it is not possible to say. The dogs of war, ferocious though they be, are sometimes kind and sometimes pitifully cruel. One man will be killed by a spent bullet the very moment he comes within the sound of guns; whereas another, time and again, will live in the midst of mad, raging carnage, and come forth unscathed and still alive.

Crouch's clothes were in rags and tatters. He had been hurled to the forward well-deck when the bridge had given way, and had found himself buried beneath a heap of splintered wood and twisted brass and iron. He was bruised from head to foot, and had been, at first, a little stunned; for a moment he had not been able to remember where he was.

And Jimmy Burke was in no better plight. Indeed, he looked as if he had received a mortal wound, for he was all sprinkled with the blood of a man who had been killed quite near to him-a poor fellow who had been literally blown to pieces by an 11-inch shell that burst at his very feet.

Crouch, followed by Jimmy, dragged himself to the forecastle, which was the only point of vantage left on the demolished, shattered ship. Save these two, no one was to be seen upon the deck, in which great holes yawned like chasms. Here and there, in horrid attitudes, lay those who had given up their lives, who had been murdered-for it was nothing else but murder-under the Naval Ensign of the German Empire, for the vile cause of the Fatherland and Kultur.

The great shells still rained in fierce and venomous profusion. Sooner or later, the unhappy ship must be struck below the water-line, when nothing could save the lives of those on board; for, not one of the ship's boats remained, and they could hope for little mercy from German seamen.

Captain Crouch looked about him like a man who finds himself, upon a sudden, on the horns of a dilemma. In spite of his dishevelled and tattered garments, he appeared quite unconcerned. He took not the least notice of either the great shells or the deafening explosions which every few seconds rent the air. He stood with his legs wide parted, and both hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

"I don't know how it is we're still alive," said he; "or how the old ship isn't lying on her beam ends, at the bottom of the sea. It's a mystery that no one will ever solve. It would stump Solomon himself, or my name was never Crouch."

"It can't last," said Jimmy, with his eyes fixed upon the gigantic shadow of the "Blücher."

"You're right, my boy," said Crouch; "it can't last; that's sure. We've run our course; we've hove in sight of the harbour lights where all men some day come to port. There's no need to signal for a pilot."

Even as he spoke, a shell came rushing past their ears, so close that the hot air in their faces was like the blast from an oven. It plunged into the sea, not twenty yards from the "Mondavia's" bows; and both Crouch and his young companion were wetted from head to foot with spray.

"Another one like that," said Crouch, "and there's an end to you and me, and the poor old ship as well."

For the next five minutes, these two stood side by side, waiting in heroic patience for the end, which seemed so long in coming. And then, on a sudden, like the sharp bark of an angry dog, a gun spoke-from the north.

Crouch had lost his telescope; but, bringing the open palm of a hand to his brow, he strained his eye ahead.

"Look there!" he cried. "Look there!"

"What is it?" asked Jimmy, breathless with instant hope and the terror of the moment. "What is it?"

"I may be wrong," said Crouch; "but, unless I'm much mistaken, that's one of the British light cruisers of the 'Arethusa' class, in all probability the 'Arethusa' herself, or else the 'Aurora.'"

A few minutes sufficed to prove Captain Crouch in the right. The "Aurora" – for it was she-had opened fire upon the leading enemy light cruiser, which lay some distance to the east. And presently, two other British ships appeared, which Crouch identified as the "Southampton" and the "Arethusa."

The appearance of the British men-of-war meant the saving of the "Mondavia"; since, the very moment the light-cruiser squadron hove in sight, the German Dreadnoughts left the merchant vessel to her fate, and directed their fire upon an enemy who was capable of answering back.

For all that, it was still a rank unequal fight; and Captain Crouch was even more perturbed as to what would be the fate of the light cruisers under the heavy gun-fire of the "Moltke," the "Derfflinger," the "Blücher" and the "Seydlitz," than he had been anxious about himself and the ship that he commanded.

"By thunder!" he exclaimed. "They're as game as bantams. I never saw the like of it! They've speed enough, it's true; but if it comes to a square fight, they won't be able to keep above water for half-an-hour at the most."

It seemed, indeed, that the light-cruiser squadron was purposely courting death. Seven ships were now in sight: the "Southampton," "Nottingham," "Birmingham," "Lowestoft," "Arethusa," "Aurora" and "Undaunted," besides Commodore Tyrwhitt's destroyer flotillas. These ships would have proved far more than a match for the lighter German men-of-war, but the presence of the four "Dreadnoughts" put a very different aspect on the situation. And yet, the "Arethusa" and her sisters tore onward, at full steam ahead, making straight into the very jaws of a formidable and powerful foe

"I'm thinking," said Captain Crouch to Jimmy, "I'm thinking the 'Arethusa' must have something up her sleeve."

She had. She knew that she was backed up by some of the finest ships that were ever launched, the monarchs of the sea. And presently, from the north, the sudden report of a great gun smote the desolation of the Dogger Bank with a mighty thunder-clap which was like the bursting of the skies. And a little after, there hove into sight upon the northern sky-line, the "Tiger" and the "Lion," and, in their wake, the "Princess Royal," the "Indomitable" and the "New Zealand." The Titans were come to pick up the gauntlet thrown by the Giants.

CHAPTER XXVII-The Battle of the Dogger Bank

The German Emperor had styled himself "The Admiral of the Atlantic" – a title that rested largely upon the power and seeming invincibility of such battle-cruisers as the "Seydlitz," and the "Goeben."

For all that, the dominion of the Western Ocean-as, indeed, of all the High Seas from the Gulf of Mexico to the Sea of Japan-had been settled generations ago, before ever the first ship of the Prussian Navy was launched, when Sir Francis Drake sailed to the Spanish Main and the guns of Nelson's wooden, three-decked ships thundered in the Bay of Aboukir.

The German press and people may have claimed at the outset of the war that the steel ships of modern navies had never been put to the test, and Britain had once again to prove that she was Mistress of the Seas. In this sweeping announcement an important fact was forgotten: namely, that it was Britain herself who had invented, designed and launched the very first ironclad that ever put to sea. And what England had invented, England, in all probability, knew how to use.

There was no reason to suppose that Great Britain had fallen in any way behind the other nations in the art of naval construction. So much skill, science and money had been expended in the naval dockyards of the country that Englishmen had every reason to believe that, when the tragedy of a universal war fell like a thunderbolt upon the whole civilized world, the British Navy would not be found wholly unprepared.

If the "Derfflinger" and her companions were the giants of the ocean, the British battle-cruisers were the Titans. They represented the triumph of modern naval construction. They were the very finest ships afloat.

The "Lion," which led the line, steaming at the rate of twenty-eight knots an hour, carried a main armament of ten 13.5-inch guns, and flew the flag of the Vice-Admiral, Sir David Beatty. She and her sister-ship, the "Princess Royal," are ships that cannot easily be mistaken. They have three funnels; one almost amidships, another aft; whereas the third, which is considerably more slender than the others, is situated abaft the mainmast, immediately in rear of the bridge.

The "Invincible" has already been mentioned as the first type of battle-cruiser ever built; and the "Indomitable," the ship that accompanied Sir David Beatty on that eventful morning, was a slightly smaller member of the same class. The "New Zealand" was an improved type, slightly larger, but capable of no greater speed. The normal speed of both these last-named ships was inferior to that of the "Tiger" and the "Lion" by at least three knots an hour.

Of the whole squadron, the "Tiger" was perhaps the masterpiece. This ship is the largest battle-cruiser afloat. She was laid down at Clydebank, and launched in 1914. Her total cost has been estimated at two million, two hundred thousand pounds-a sum considerably in excess of the cost of the very latest Dreadnought battleship, such as the "Iron Duke" or the "Maryborough." She is armed, like the "Lion," with 13.5-inch guns. In appearance, having three funnels of the same size and only one mast, she resembles no other ship afloat. In her, and in the "Lion" and her sisters, the most wonderful results have been obtained. These ships have a normal speed of twenty-eight knots an hour, which can no doubt be exceeded under stress; that is to say, they are capable of travelling at half the rate of an express train, in spite of the fact that they are heavily armoured, and carry colossal guns, which have an effective range at seven miles.

The turbine engines of the "Tiger" are something to marvel at. They have a horse-power of a hundred thousand; whereas the turbines of a great battleship, such as the "Iron Duke," are designed for twenty-nine thousand horse-power.

The fight that took place that bleak, wintry morning, in the neighbourhood of the Dogger Bank, was the first occasion upon which ships of the "Dreadnought" period were matched against each other. It was therefore something in the nature of an experiment. Both the English and the German navies had a certain amount of curiosity in regard to the fighting capacities of their opponents, which neither the Battle in the Bight of Heligoland, nor even the engagement off the Falkland Islands, had served to satisfy. For instance, British seamen, believing half the tales they had heard, had come to believe that German naval gunnery was something almost superhuman. Also, the comparative value had yet to be proved of the British heavy 13.5-inch gun as opposed to the lighter, but quicker firing, 11-inch weapon with which the German cruisers were armed.

The combat that ensued was greatly to the credit of the British Navy. It proved, in the first place, that our naval constructors had not been at fault, that our Intelligence Department was efficient and alert, and that British gunnery was by no means inferior to the German, and last, but not least, that the spirit that animated British seamen was the same that had existed in bygone days, when Drake, Blake, Hawke, Nelson and St. Vincent swept the enemies of Britain from the seas.

The first part of the action was witnessed by both Crouch and Jimmy Burke from the shattered, broken deck of the "Mondavia." Of the concluding phase they heard afterwards, when they were picked up, like men who had been marooned, by H.M.S. "Cockroach," which-it will be remembered-was the self-same torpedo-boat-destroyer which had come to the assistance of the "Harlech" off the Scilly Isles.

The "Lion" and the "Tiger" tore into action with something of the ferocity of the noble, savage beasts from whom they had taken their names. The "Lion" was in the van, with the pennant of Sir David Beatty flying in the wind. A long trail of black smoke came from her triple funnels, as shot after shot rang out in slow precision, like the sullen tolling of a bell.

At first she did no more than endeavour to pick up the range. A distance of about eleven miles still separated the rival ships. The "Mondavia" lay mid-way between the two squadrons, so that the hulls of both the German and the British ships stood forth upon either horizon with alarming clearness.

It was precisely nine minutes past nine when the "Lion" hit the "Blücher." Shortly afterwards, the "Tiger" drew up to within range, and the "Lion" fired salvo after salvo at the "Seydlitz," which stood third in the German line.

Presently, the "Princess Royal" joined in the battle, and fired with such deadly accuracy that almost at once the Blücher was observed to be rapidly falling astern.

It was a running fight across the open reaches of the North Sea. The Germans were heading straight for safety, for Heligoland and the mine-field in the Bight; and it was now that it was proved that as good work can be done on board a ship in action in the stokeholds as in the turrets.

As has been explained, the "Indomitable" and the "New Zealand" were not such fast ships as the three larger cruisers. The stokers were called upon to make stupendous efforts, and as one man they answered to the call. Every available hand was turned down to the stokeholds, and there they worked like Trojans, stripped to the waist as seamen fought in the days of old, until they were black as negroes from the coal dust, and the perspiration poured from off their moist and glistening backs.

The noise of the firing was now like a tremendous thunderstorm. On both sides the battle-cruisers were engaged, whereas the lighter craft and torpedo-boat-destroyers flew here and there like swarms of gnats, their quick-firing guns spluttering right and left.

When it became apparent that the "Blücher" was seriously damaged, the "Princess Royal" shifted her fire to the "Seydlitz," leaving the "Blücher" to the by-no-means tender mercy of the "New Zealand" and "Indomitable."