Sea-Hounds Part 2

coming from the skipper about it.

"Fact is, sir," he said, speaking brokenly as the galloping gusts every now and then forced a word back into his mouth, "that that rip-rarin'

stem, with the white foam flyin' off both sides of it, bearing down right for where I was standin'--all that was so like what I saw the night of Jutland in the _Firebrand_ that--that the turn it give me took my mind right back and--and I wasn't thinkin' o' anything else till the _'Lympus_ was gone by."

I a.s.sured him that, since the _Olympus_ had doubtless been sighted from the bridge several winks before she had been visible from his less-favourable vantage, they would probably have been too busy to respond to his call at the voice-pipe even had he tried to report what he saw.

"If I were you," I said, "I would forget all about that, and try to explain how a cruiser that the _Firebrand_ was about to ram bow-to-bow"

(I had, of course, already heard something of that dare-devilish exploit) "could have looked to you like the _Olympus_ ramping down on a right-angling course and threatening to slice off the _Flyer's_ stern with all her depth-charges. I quite understood that one ramming is a good deal like another, as far as a big s.h.i.+p hitting a destroyer fair and square is concerned, but----"

"'Twasn't that _first_ cru'ser 'tall, sir," Melton interrupted, nuzzling into my "lammy" hood again to make himself heard. "Twas 'nother 'un, sir--a wallopin' big un. The seas was stiff wi' cru'sers fer a minit, sir, an' no sooner was we clear o' the first un than the second come tearin' down on us, tryin' to cut us in two amids.h.i.+ps. An' that last un was a battl' cru'ser nigh as big as the _'Lympus_, all shot up in the funnels and runnin' wild an' b.l.o.o.d.y-minded like a mad bull. We were pretty nigh to bein' stopped dead, an' if she hadn't been slower'n cold grease wi' her helm she'd ha' eat us right up."

There had been nothing of malice aforethought in my action in cornering Melton on the searchlight platform that night, for, as it chanced, I had failed to learn up to that moment that he had been in the famous _Firebrand_ at Jutland. Nor, with the wind and sea getting up as fast as the gla.s.s and the thermometer were going down, was the time or the place quite what a man would have chosen for anything in the way of cosy fireside reminiscence. But, both these facts notwithstanding, I felt that, since I was leaving the _Flyer_ to go to another base directly she arrived in harbour on the morrow, it would be criminal to neglect the opportunity of hearing what was perhaps the most sportingly spectacular of all the Jutland destroyer actions related by one who was actually in it. I did not dare to distract Melton's attention from his lookout by drawing him into talking while he was still on watch, but, when he was relieved at ten o'clock, I waylaid him at the foot of the ladder with a pot of steaming hot s.h.i.+p's cocoa (foraged from the galley by a sympathetic ward-room steward) and both pockets of my "lammy" coat filled with the remnants of a box of a.s.sorted Yankee "candy" looted from the American submarine in which I had been on patrol the week before.

Melton rose to the lure instantly--or perhaps I should say "fell to the bribe"--for the British bluejacket, if only he were given a chance to develop, is quite as sweet of tooth as his brother Yank. Because I could hardly take him to the captain's cabin, which I was occupying for the moment, for a yarn, and because he, likewise, could not take me down to the mess deck to disturb the off-watch sleepers with our chatter, there was nothing to do but carry on as best we could in the friendly lee of one of the funnels.

It was a night of infernal inkiness by now, and only clinging patches of soft snow and their blanker blankness revealed the dimly guessable lines of whaler and cowls and torpedo tubes and the loom of the loftier bridge. The battles.h.i.+p line was masked completely by the double curtain of the darkness and the snow, and only a tremulous greyness, barely discernible in the intervals of the flurries of flakes where the starboard bow-wave curled back from the _Olympus_, gave an intermittent bearing to help in keeping station. Underfoot was the blackness of the pit, not the faintest gleam reflecting from the waves was.h.i.+ng over the weather side to swirl half-knee high about our sea boots. Even overhead all that was visible were fluttering patches of snow flakes dancing through the haloes of pale rose radiance that crowned the tops of the funnels. The wail of the wind in the wireless aerials, the crash of the surging beam seas, the throb of the propellers, and the p.u.s.s.y-cat purr of the spinning turbines--these were the fit accompaniment to which Melton A.B. recited to me the epic of the _Firebrand_ at Jutland.

The cocoa I quaffed mug for mug with Melton, down to the last of the sweet, sustaining "settlings" in the bottom of the pot; but the candy I kept in reserve to draw on from time to time as it was needed to lubricate his tongue and stoke the smouldering fires of his memory. I started him off with a red-and-white "barber's pole" stick, which took not a little fumbling with mittened hands to extract from its greased tissue paper wrapper, and the seductive fragrance of crunched peppermint mingled with the acrid fumes of burning petroleum as he leaned close and began to tell how the ----th Flotilla, to which the _Firebrand_ belonged, screening the ----th B.S. of the Battle Fleet, came upon the scene toward the end of the long summer afternoon. He had witnessed Beatty's consummate manoeuvre of "crossing the T" of the enemy line with the four that remained of his battered First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and he had seen the main Battle Fleet baulked of its action the lowering mists and the closing in of darkness; but it was not until full night had clapped down its lid that the fun for the _Firebrand_ really began.

"It was just 'twixt daylight an' dark," he said, reaching me a steadying hand in the darkness as the _Flyer_ teetered giddily down the back of a receding sea, "that the flotilla dropped back to take stashun 'stern the battl's.h.i.+ps we was screenin'. The _Killarney_ was leadin' an' after her came the _Firebran'_, _Seagull_, _Wreath_, an' _Consort_, makin' up the First Divishun. _Wreath_ an' _Consort_ sighted some Hun U-boats and 'stroyers while this move was on, an' plunk'd off a few shots at 'em.

Don't think wi' any fatal consequence. Then there come the rattle of light gun fire from the south'ard, like from cru'sers or battles.h.i.+ps repellin' T.B.D.'s. Then it was all serene for mor'n an 'our, an' then all h.e.l.l opens up."

I suspected, from the sounds he made, that Melton had bitten into a block of milk chocolate without removing its wrapping of foil and paper, but presently his enunciation grew less explosive and more intelligible.

"It was Hun cru'sers drivin' down on us from the starboard quarter that started the monkey-show," he said, "an' that bein' the nor'west it was hardly where we'd reason to expect 'em from. It looks like we had 'em clean cut off, wi' the 'hole Battl' Fleet steamin' 'tween 'em an' their way back home, an' that they was tryin' to sneak through in the darkness. The _Wreath_, at the end o' the line nearest 'em, spotted 'em first, and she, 'cause she didn't want to give herself 'way wi'

flas.h.i.+n', reported what she'd seen by low-power W.T. to the rest o' the flotilla. Course I--standin' watch aft--didn't know nothin' 'bout that signal, so that the first I hears o' the Huns was when they all opened up on the poor ol' _Killarney_, 'cause she was the leader. I s'pose, and she started firin' back at their flashes.

"The leadin' Hun flashed his searchlight on the _Killarney_ as he opened up, but shut off sharp when _Killarney_ came back at him. I could see some o' the projes flittin' right down the light beam until it blinked off, an' it was a flock of two or three of these that I kept my eye on all the way till they bashed into the _Killarney's_ bridge and busted.

She was zigzaggin' a coupl' o' points on _Firebrand's_ starboard bow just then, so my standin' aft didn't prevent my gettin' a good look at what was happenin'. I could see the bodies o' four or five men flyin' up wi' the wreckage o' the explosion, an' then, all in a minnit, she was rollin' in flames from the funnels right for'ard. By the light o' it I could see the crews o' the 'mids.h.i.+ps and after guns workin' 'em like devils, an' twice anyhow, an' I think three times, I saw a bright, s.h.i.+ny slug slip over the side, an' knew they were loosin' mouldies to try to get their own back from the Hun.

"The sea was boilin' up red as blood where the light from the burnin'

_Killarney_ fell on the spouts the Huns' projes was throwin' up all round her. She was the fairest mark ever a gun trained on, and p'raps that was what tempted the Hun to keep pumpin' projes at her instead o'

givin' more attenshun to the rest of the divishun trailin' astern. That was what gave _Firebran'_ her first chance o' alterin' the Hun navy list that night.

"The second cru'ser in the Hun line was bearin' right abeam to starboard by now, an' I could see by her gun-flashes she was of good size, wi'

four long funnels fillin' up all the deck 'tween her two masts. She was firing fast in salvoes wi' all the guns that would bear on the burnin'

_Killarney_. I could just make out by the light from the _Killarney_, which was growin' stronger every minnit, that the crew of our after torpedo tube was gettin' busy, an' while I was watchin' 'em, over flops the mouldie and starts to run. I knew it was aimed for one or t'other o'

the two leadin' Huns, but wasn't dead sure which till I saw the after funnels an' mainmast o' the second toppl' over an' a big flash o' fire take their place. Then it looked like there was exploshuns right off fore an' aft, and then fires broke out all over her from stem to stern.

Next thing I knows, she takes a big list to starboard, an' over she goes, wi' more exploshuns throwin' up spouts o' steam, as she rolls under. The second mouldie--it got away right after the first--was never needed to finish the job. The _Firebran'_ had evened up the score for the _Killarney_, wi' a good margin over.

"The captain turned away to reload mouldies after that, an' just as we swung out o' line I saw a salvo straddle the _Killarney_, and two or three sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.t square 'tween her funnels an' after sup'rstruct'r'.

They must have gone off in her engine room, for there was more steam than fire risin' from her as we turned an' left her astern, an' she looked stopped dead. A Hun cru'ser was closin' the blazin' wreck o' her, firm' hard; but, by Gawd, what d'you think I saw. The only patch on the ol' _Killarney_ that was free o' the ragin' fires was her stern, an'

from there the steady flashes of her after gun showed it was bein'

worked as fast an' reg'lar as ever I seen it done at any night-firin'

practice. I looked to see her blow up every minnit, but she was still spittin' wi' that littl' after gun when the sudden flas.h.i.+n' up of the fightin' lights for'ard turned my attenshun nearer home.

"I could just make out a line of what looked like 'stroyers headin'

cross our bows, an' thought we'd stumbled into 'nother nest o' Huns till they answered back wi' the signal o' the day, an' I knew it was one of our own flotillas we'd been catchin' up to. That flas.h.i.+n' up o' lights come near to doin' for us tho', for it showed us up to a big Hun steamin' three or four miles off on the port beam, an' he claps a searchlight on us an' chases it up wi' a sheaf o' sh.e.l.ls. The only proj that hit us bounced off wi'out doin' much hurt to the s.h.i.+p, but some flyin' hunks o' it smashed the mouldie davit and knocked out most o' the crews o' the after tubes, includin' the T.G.M.[C] That put a stop to reloadin' operashuns wi' a mouldie in only one o' the tubes. By good luck we managed to zigzag out o' the searchlight beam right after that, an' was free to turn back an' try to start a divershun for the poor ol'

_Killarney_.

[Footnote C: Torpedo Gunner's Mate.]

"Her fires looked to be dyin' down when we first picked her up, but right after that some more projes bust on her an' she started blazin'

harder than ever. I watched for the spittin' o' that littl' after gun, but when it come it looked to spurt right out o' the heart o' a blazin'

furnace, showin' the fire was now burnin' from stem to stern. One more salvo plastered over her, an' that one got no reply. The good ol'

'_Killy_' had shot her bolt, an' her finish looked a matter o' minnits.

"It was plain enough if anyone was still livin' they was goin' to need pickin' up in a hurry, an' the captain put the _Firebran'_ at full speed to close her an' stan' by to give a han'. Just then I saw a Hun searchlight turned on and start feelin' its way up to where the _Killarney_ was burning, wi' a cru'ser followin' up the small end o' the beam, seemin' to be nosin' in to end the mis'ry. She did not bear right for a mouldie, but we opened up wi' the foremost gun, an' I saw the sh.e.l.ls bustin' on her bridge and fo'c'sl' like rotten apples chucked 'against a wall. The light blinked off as the first proj hit home, but there was no way to tell if it was shot away or no. It was the second time that night that we'd done our bit to ease off the h.e.l.l turned loose on the _Killarney_. Likewise it was the last. From then on we had our own partic'lar h.e.l.l to wriggle out of, wi' no time left to play 'Venging Nemisus' to our stricken sisters. Just a big bonfire sittin' on the sea an' lickin' a hole in the night wi' its flames--that was the last I saw of the ol' _Killarney_."

Melton paused for a moment as if engrossed in the memories conjured up by his narrative, and I took advantage of the interval to hand him one of those most loved lollipops of Yankee youngster-hood, a plump, hard ball of toothsome saccharinity called--obviously from its resistant resiliency--an "All-Day Sucker." When he spoke again I knew in an instant that a sure instinct had led him to make the proper disposition of the succulent dainty--that it was stowed snugly away in a bulging cheek like a squirrel's nut, to melt away in its own good time.

"'Tween the glare of the burnin' _Killarney_," Melton went on after thras.h.i.+ng his hands across his shoulders for a minute to warm them up, "the gleam o' the Hun cru'ser's searchlight an' the flash o' our own gun-fire, we must all have been more or less blinded in the _Firebrand_, for we had run close to what may have been a part of the main en'my battl' line wi'out nothin' bein' reported. Our firin' had give us away, o' course, an' the nearest s.h.i.+ps must have had their guns trained on us, waitin' to be sure what we was. One o' 'em must have made up his mind we was en'my even before we spotted 'em at all, for the first thing I saw was the white o' the bow wave an' wake as she turned toward us, prob'ly to ram. She'd have caught us just about mids.h.i.+ps if the bridge hadn't sighted her an' done the only thing open to do--turned to meet her head on.

"I don't remember that either she or us switched on recognition lights, but the Hun opened with ev'rything that would bear just before we slammed together. It must have been by the gun-flashes that I saw she had three funnels, wi' what looked like some kind o' marks painted on 'em in red. I saw our second funnel give a jump and crumple up as a proj hit it, an' then a spurt o' flame--from a big gun fired almost point-blank--looked to shoot right on to the bridge. I thought that it must have killed ev'ry man there an' carried away all the steering gear.

But no.

"The old _Firebrand_ wi' helm hard-a-port, went swingin' right on thro'

the point or two more that saved her life. I could feel by the way she jumped an' gathered herself that last second that the ol' girl was still under control. Then we struck wi' a horrible grind an' crash, an' I went sprawlin' flat.

"If the Hun had hit us half a wink sooner, or if we had turned half a point less, we'd have been swallowed alive and split up in small hunks.

As it was, we didn't have a lot the worst o' it, an' p'raps we more than broke even. It was like a mastiff an' terrier runnin' into each other in the dark, an' the terrier only gettin' run over an' the mastiff gettin'

a piece bit clean out o' his neck. It was our port bows that come together, an' for only a sort o' glancin' blow. But it was the stem o'

the _Firebran'_ that was turned in sharpest, an' it was her that was. .h.i.ttin' up--by a good ten knots--the most speed. She was left in a terribl' mess, but most o' the damage was from her rammin' the Hun, not from the Hun rammin' her. While as for what she did to the Hun, the best proof o' it was the more'n twenty feet of her side-platin'--an upper strake, wi' scuttl' holes in it an' pieces o' gutterway deck hangin' to it--that we found in the wreck of our fo'c'sl'. If the hole that hunk of steel left behind it didn't put that Hun out o' bus'ness as a fightin'

unit till she got back to port an' had a refit, I'll eat it."

I wasn't quite clear in my mind whether Melton meant to imply that he would eat the hole in the Hun cruiser or the hunk of steel that came out of it, but there _was_ no room for doubt that the violent crunch with which he emphasised the a.s.sertion had put a period to the life of his "All-Day Sucker," which was never intended to be treated like chewing toffy. Dipping into the grab-bag of my "lammy" coat pocket for something with which to replace it, therefore, I brought up a stick of chewing gum, and he resumed his story in an atmosphere sweet with the ineffable odour of spearmint and escaping steam.

"How much the Hun was shook up by that smash," Melton continued, "you can reckon from this: We was almost dead stopped for some minnits, an'

all out o' control from the time of rammin' till they started connin'

her from the engine-room. There was one fire flickerin' in the wreckage o' the forebridge, an' another somewhere 'mids.h.i.+ps, while there was also a big glare throwin' up where the foremost funnel was shot away. We was as soft an' easy a target as even a Hun could ask for; an' yet that one was in too much of a funk wi' his own hurts to let off a singl' other gun at us in all the time that he must have been flounderin' on at not much more'n point-blank range. Mebbe he was knocked up even more'n we thought. Nothin' else would account for him not havin' 'nother go at us.

"Just one wild bally mess--that was what the _Firebran'_ looked like when I got to my feet again an' cast an eye for'ard. There was too much smoke an' steam to see clear, an' it was mostly flickers o' red light where the fires were startin', an' big, black shadows full o' wreckage.

As it looked to _me_ from aft--tho', o' course, the full effects wasn't vis'bl' till daylight, the bridge an' searchlight platform an' mast was shoved right back an' piled up on the foremost funnel. The whaler an'

dingy was carried away, an' my first thought, for I was sure she was sinkin', was that we had no boats to put off in. I could see two or three wounded crawlin' out o' the raffle, but I knew that the most to be dished would be in the wreck o' the bridge. The queerest thing o' all was the flashes o' green an' blue light flutterin' thro' the tangled steel o' the wreckage. At first I thought I was sort o' seein' things; but fin'lly I figgered it out as the juice from the busted 'lectric wires short-circuitin'. It meant, I tol' myself, that the men under them tons o' steel was bein' 'lectrocuted on top o' bein' crushed.

"It looked like any one o' three or four things would be enough to finish the ol' _Firebran'_. I remember thinkin' that if she didn't blow up, she was sure to burn up; an' that if, by chance, she missed doin'

one o' them, she was goin' to founder anyhow. She was already well down by the head, an'--leastways, it looked so to me at the time--still settlin' fast. An' I was just reflectin' that, even if she was lucky enough not to burn up, or blow up, or founder, she was still too easy pickin' for the Huns to miss doin' her in one way or 'nother, when, thunderin' out o' the darkness an' headin' up to crumpl' underfoot what was left o' the stopped an' helpless _Firebran'_, come a hulkin' big battl' cru'ser, the one I was just tellin' you the _'Lympus_ set me thinkin' on a while back.

"Starin' at our own fires must have blinded me a good bit, or I'd have seen him sooner'n I did. He looked like he been gettin' no end o' a hammerin', for his second funnel was gone, an' out of the hole it left a big spurt o' flame an' smoke was rus.h.i.+n' that would have showed him up for miles. There was a red hot fire ragin' under his fo'c'sl', too, an'

I saw the flames las.h.i.+n' round thro' some jagged sh.e.l.l holes in his port bow. Lucky for us, he was runnin' for his life, an' had no time to more than try to run us down in pa.s.sin'.

"It must have been just from habit I yelled down my voice-pipe, for I knew they was no longer controllin' her from the bridge; but the roarin'

o' a fire an' the clank of bangin' metal was the only sounds that come back. When I looked up again the Hun was right on top of us, an' I must have just stood there--froze--like to-night wi' the _'Lympus_. By the grace o' Gawd, he hadn't been abl' to alter course enough to do the trick. His stem shot by wi' twenty feet or more clearance, an' it was only the fat bulge of him that kissed us off in pa.s.sin'. It was by the glare o' his fires, not ours, which throwed no light abaft the superstructure I was on, that I saw some of the hands was already workin' to rig a jury steerin' gear aft. Then he was gone, an' much too full o' his own troubles to turn back, or even send the one heavy proj that would have cooked us for good an' all. A few minutes more, an' the wreck o' the _Firebran'_ begun gatherin' way again, an' when I saw her come round to her nor'westerly course an' push ahead wi'out settlin' any deeper, I knew that the bulkheads were holdin' an' that--always providin' we run into no more Huns--there was a fightin' chance o'

pullin' thro'.

"There was about a hundred jobs that needed doin' all at once, an'

'tween the loss o' dead an' wounded--only about half the reg'lar s.h.i.+p's company was fit for work. The bulkheads had to be sh.o.r.ed, for, wi' the fo'c'sl' crumpled up like a concertina an' the deck an' side platin'

ripped off from the stem right back to the capstan engine, she was open to the whole North Sea from the galley right for'ard. This made the first an' second bulkheads o' no use, an' made the third bulkhead all that stood 'tween us an' goin' to the bottom. Then there was the fires--'bove deck an' 'tween decks--that had to be put out 'fore they got to the magazines, an' the engines to be kept goin', an' the s.h.i.+p to be navigated, an' the wounded to be looked to. An' on top o' all this, the s.h.i.+p had to be got into some kind o' fightin' trim in case any more Huns come pokin' her way. I won't be havin' to tell you it was one bally awful job, carryin' on like that in the dark, an' wi' half the s.h.i.+p's company knocked out.