An orderly instantly dived below to the telephone room. The Fort Commander took Sir Compton aside and said in a low voice:
"I am afraid, sir, that the forts are being attacked from the air."
"What"s that?" replied Sir Compton, with a start. "Do you mean that infernal thing that Erskine and Castellan and the watch of the _Cormorant_ saw in the North Sea?"
"Yes, sir," was the reply. "There is no reason why the enemy should not possess a whole fleet of these craft by this time, and naturally they would act in concert with the attack of the French Fleet. I"ve heard rumours of a terrible new explosive they"ve got, too, which shatters steel into splinters and poisons everyone within a dozen yards of it. If that"s true and they"re dropping it on the forts, they"ll probably smash the guns as well. For heaven"s sake, sir, let me beg of you to go back at once to headquarters! It will probably be our turn next. You will be safe there, for they"re not likely to waste their sh.e.l.ls on Government buildings."
"Well, I suppose I shall be of more use there," growled Sir Compton.
At this moment the orderly returned, looking rather scared. He saluted and said:
"If you please, sir, they"ve tried Portsdown and all the Hillsea forts and can"t get an answer."
"Good heavens!" said the Commander-in-Chief, "that looks almost as if you were right, Markham. Signal to Squadron A to up-anchor at once and telephone to Squadron B to do the same. Telephone Gilkicker to turn all searchlights on. Now I must be off and have a talk with General Hamilton."
He ran down to his pinnace and went away full speed for the harbour, but before he reached the pier another flash burst out from the direction of Fort Gilkicker, followed by a terrific roar. To those standing on the top of Southsea Castle the fort seemed turned into a volcano, spouting flame and clouds of smoke, in the midst of which they could see for an instant whirling shapes, most of which would probably be the remains of the gallant defenders, hurled into eternity before they had a chance of firing a shot at the invaders. The huge guns roared for the first and last time in the war, and the great projectiles plunged aimlessly among the ships of the squadron, carrying wreck and ruin along the line.
"Our turn now, I suppose," said the Fort Commander, quietly, as he looked up and by a chance gleam of moonlight through the breaking clouds saw a dim grey, winged shape drift across the harbour entrance.
They were the last words he ever spoke, for the next moment the roof crumbled under his feet, and his body was scattered in fragments through the air, and in that moment Portsmouth had ceased to be a fortified stronghold.
CHAPTER XI
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TWO SQUADRONS
It takes a good deal to shake the nerves of British naval officer or seaman, but those on board the ships of the Spithead Squadron would have been something more than human if they could have viewed the appalling happenings of the last few terrible minutes with their accustomed coolness. They were ready to fight anything on the face of the waters or under them, but an enemy in the air who could rain down sh.e.l.ls, a couple of which were sufficient to destroy the most powerful forts in the world, and who could not be hit back, was another matter. It was a bitter truth, but there was no denying it. The events of the last ten years had clearly proved that a day must come when the flying machine would be used as an engine of war, and now that day had come--and the fighting flying machine was in the hands of the enemy.
The anchors were torn from the ground, signals were flashed from the flagship, the _Prince George_, and within four minutes the squadron was under way to the south-eastward. After what had happened the Admiral in command promptly and rightly decided that to keep his ships cramped up in the narrow waters was only to court further disaster. His place was now the open sea, and a general fleet action offered the only means of preventing an occupation of almost defenceless Portsmouth, and the landing of hostile troops in the very heart of England"s southern defences.
Fifteen first-cla.s.s torpedo boats and ten destroyers ran out from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight coasts, ran through the ships, and spread themselves out in a wide curve ahead, and at the same time twenty submarines crept out from the harbour and set to work laying contact mines in the appointed fields across the harbour mouth and from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e behind the Spithead forts.
But the squadron had not steamed a mile beyond the forts before a series of frightful disasters overtook them. First, a huge column of water rose under the stern of the _Jupiter_. The great ship stopped and shuddered like a stricken animal, and began to settle down stern first. Instantly the _Mars_ and _Victorious_ which were on either side of her slowed down, their boats splashed into the water and set to work to rescue those who managed to get clear of the sinking ship.
But even while this was being done, the _Banshee_, the _Flying Fish_ which had destroyed the forts, had taken up her position a thousand feet above the doomed squadron. A sh.e.l.l dropped upon the deck of the _Spartiate_, almost amidships. The pink flash blazed out between her two midship funnels. They crumpled up as if they had been made of brown paper. The six-inch armoured casemates on either side seemed to crumble away. The four-inch steel deck gaped and split as though it had been made of matchboard. Then the _Banshee_ dropped to within five hundred feet and let go another sh.e.l.l almost in the same place. A terrific explosion burst out in the very vitals of the stricken ship, and the great cruiser seemed to split asunder. A vast volume of mingled smoke and flame and steam rose up, and when it rolled away, the _Spartiate_ had almost vanished.
But that was the last act of destruction that the _Banshee_ was destined to accomplish. That moment the moon sailed out into a patch of clear sky. Every eye in the squadron was turned upward. There was the airship plainly visible. Her captain instantly saw his danger and quickened up his engines, but it was too late. He was followed by a hurricane of sh.e.l.ls from the three-pound quick-firers in the upper tops of the battleships. Then came an explosion in mid-air which seemed to shake the very firmament itself. She had fifty or sixty of the terrible sh.e.l.ls which had wrought so much havoc on board, and as a dozen sh.e.l.ls pierced her hull and burst, they too exploded with the shock. A vast blaze of pink flame shone out.
"Talk about going to glory in a blue flame," said Seaman Gunner Tompkins, who had aimed one of the guns in the fore-top of the _Hannibal_, and of course, like everybody else, piously believed that his was one of the sh.e.l.ls that got there. "That chap"s gone to t"other place in a red"un. War"s war, but I don"t hold with that sort of fighting; it doesn"t give a man a chance. Torpedoes is bad enough, Gawd knows--"
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a shock and a shudder ran through the mighty fabric of the battleship. The water rose in a foam-clad mountain under her starboard quarter. She heeled over to port, and then rolled back to starboard and began to settle.
"Torpedoed, by George! What did I tell you?" gasped Gunner Tompkins. The next moment a lurch of the ship hurled him and his mates far out into the water.
Even as his ship went down, Captain Barclay managed to signal to the other ships, "Don"t wait--get out." And when her shattered hull rested on the bottom, the gallant signal was still flying from the upper yard.
It was obvious that the one chance of escaping their terrible unseen foe was to obey the signal. By this time crowds of small craft of every description had come off from both sh.o.r.es to the rescue of those who had gone down with the ships, so the Admiral did what was the most practical thing to do under the circ.u.mstances--he dropped his own boats, each with a crew, and ordered the _Victorious_ and _Mars_ to do the same, and then gave the signal for full speed ahead. The great engines panted and throbbed, and the squadron moved forward with ever-increasing speed, the cruisers and destroyers, according to signal, running ahead of the battleships; but before full speed was reached, the _Mars_ was struck under the stern, stopped, shuddered, and went down with a mighty lurch.
This last misfortune convinced the Admiral that the destruction of his battleships could not be the work of any ordinary submarine, for at the time the _Mars_ was struck she was steaming fifteen knots and the underwater speed of the best submarine was only twelve, saving only the _Ithuriel_, and she did not use torpedoes. The two remaining battleships had now reached seventeen knots, which was their best speed. The cruisers and their consorts were already disappearing round Foreland.
There was some hope that they might escape the a.s.saults of the mysterious and invisible enemy now that the airship had been destroyed, but unless the submarine had exhausted her torpedoes, or some accident had happened to her, there was very little for the _Prince George_ and the _Victorious_, and so it turned out. Castellan"s strict orders had been to confine his attentions to the battleships, and he obeyed his pitiless instructions to the letter. First the _Victorious_ and then the flagship, smitten by an unseen and irresistible bolt in their weakest parts, succ.u.mbed to the great gaping wounds torn in the thin under-plating, reeled once or twice to and fro like leviathans struggling for life, and went down. And so for the time being, at least, ended the awful work of the _Flying Fish_.
Leaving the cruisers and smaller craft to continue their dash for the open Channel, we must now look westward.
When Vice-Admiral Codrington, who was flying his flag on the _Irresistible_, saw the flashes along the Hillsea ridge and Portsdown height and heard the roar of the explosions, he at once up-anchor and got his squadron under way. Then came the appallingly swift destruction of Hurst Castle and Fort Victoria. Like all good sailors, he was a man of instant decision. His orders were to guard the entrance to the Solent, and the destruction of the forts made it impossible for him to do this inside. How that destruction had been wrought, he had of course no idea, beyond a guess that the destroying agent must have come from the air, since it could not have come from sea or land without provoking a very vigorous reply from the forts. Instead of that they had simply blown up without firing a shot.
He therefore decided to steam out through the narrow channel between Hurst Castle and the Isle of Wight as quickly as possible.
It was a risky thing to do at night and at full speed, for the Channel and the entrance to it was strewn with contact mines, but one of the princ.i.p.al businesses of the British Navy is to take risks where necessary, so he put his own ship at the head of the long line, and with a mine chart in front of him went ahead at eighteen knots.
When Captain Adolph Frenkel, who was in command of the _See Adler_, saw the column of warships twining and wriggling its way out through the Channel, each ship handled with consummate skill and keeping its position exactly, he could not repress an admiring "Ach!" Still it was not his business to admire, but destroy.
He rose to a thousand feet, swung round to the north-eastward until the whole line had pa.s.sed beneath him, and then quickened up and dropped to seven hundred feet, swung round again and crept up over the _Hogue_, which was bringing up the rear. When he was just over her fore part, he let go a sh.e.l.l, which dropped between the conning-tower and the forward barbette.
The navigating bridge vanished; the twelve-inch armoured conning-tower cracked like an eggsh.e.l.l; the barbette collapsed like the crust of a loaf, and the big 9.2 gun lurched backwards and lay with its muzzle staring helplessly at the clouds. The deck crumpled up as though it had been burnt parchment, and the ammunition for the 9.2 and the forward six-inch guns which had been placed ready for action exploded, blowing the whole of the upper forepart of the vessel into sc.r.a.p-iron.
But an even worse disaster than this was to befall the great twelve-thousand-ton cruiser. Her steering gear was, of course, shattered. Uncontrolled and uncontrollable, she swung swiftly round to starboard, struck a mine, and inside three minutes she was lying on the mud.
Almost at the moment of the first explosion, the beams of twenty searchlights leapt up into the air, and in the midst of the broad white glare hundreds of keen angry eyes saw a winged shape darting up into the air, heading southward as though it would cross the Isle of Wight over Yarmouth. Almost simultaneously, every gun from the tops of the battleships spoke, and a storm of sh.e.l.ls rent the air.
But Captain Frenkel had already seen his mistake. The _See Adler"s_ wings were inclined at an angle of twenty degrees, her propellers were revolving at their utmost velocity, and at a speed of nearly a hundred miles an hour, she took the Isle of Wight in a leap. She slowed down rapidly over Freshwater Bay. Captain Frenkel took a careful observation of the position and course of the squadron, dropped into the water, folded his wings and crept round the Needles with his conning-tower just awash, and lay in wait for his prey about two miles off the Needles.
The huge black hull of the _Irresistible_ was only a couple of hundred yards away. He instantly sank and turned on his water-ray. As the flagship pa.s.sed within forty yards he let go his first torpedo. It hit her sternpost, smashed her rudder and propellers, and tore a great hole in her run. The steel monster stopped, shuddered, and slid sternward with her mighty ram high in the air into the depths of the smooth grey sea.
There is no need to repeat the ghastly story which has already been told--the story of the swift and pitiless destruction of these miracles of human skill, huge in size and mighty in armament and manned by the bravest men on land or sea, by a foe puny in size but of awful potentiality. It was a fight, if fight it could be called, between the visible and the invisible, and it could only have one end. Battleship after battleship received her death-wound, and went down without being able to fire a shot in defence, until the _Magnificent_, smitten in the side under her boilers, blew up and sank amidst a cloud of steam and foam, and the Western Squadron had met the fate of the Eastern.
While this tragedy was being enacted, the cruisers scattered in all directions and headed for the open at their highest speed. It was a bitter necessity, and it was bitterly felt by every man and boy on board them; but the captains knew that to stop and attempt the rescue of even some of their comrades meant losing the ships which it was their duty at all costs to preserve, and so they took the only possible chance to escape from this terrible unseen foe which struck out of the silence and the darkness with such awful effect.
But despite the tremendous disaster which had befallen the Reserve Fleet, the work of death and destruction was by no means all on one side. When he sank the _Leger_, Erskine had done a great deal more damage to the enemy than he knew, for she had been sent not for fighting purposes, but as a depot ship for the _Flying Fishes_, from which they could renew their torpedoes and the gas cylinders which furnished their driving power. Being a light craft, she was to take up an agreed position off Bracklesham Bay three miles to the north-west of Selsey Bill, the loneliest and shallowest part of the coast, with all lights out, ready to supply all that was wanted or to make any repairs that might be necessary. Her sinking, therefore, deprived John Castellan"s craft of their base.
After the _Dupleix_ had gone down, the _Ithuriel_ rose again, and Erskine said to Lennard:
"There must be more of them outside, they wouldn"t be such fools as to rush Portsmouth with three destroyers and a couple of cruisers. We"d better go on and reconnoitre."
The _Ithuriel_ ran out south-eastward at twenty knots in a series of broad curves, and she was just beginning to make the fourth of these when six black shapes crowned with wreaths of smoke loomed up out of the semi-darkness.
"Thought so--destroyers," said Erskine. "Yes, and look there, behind them--cruiser supports, three of them--these are for the second rush.
Coming up pretty fast, too; they"ll be there in half an hour. We shall have something to say about that. Hold on, Lennard."
"Same tactics, I suppose," said Lennard.
"Yes," replied Erskine, taking down the receiver. "Are you there, Castellan? All right. We"ve six more destroyers to get rid of. Full speed ahead, as soon as you like--guns all ready, I suppose? Good--go ahead."
The _Ithuriel_ was now about two miles to the westward and about a mile in front of the line of destroyers, which just gave her room to get up full speed. As she gathered way, Lennard saw the nose of the great ram rise slowly out of the water. The destroyer"s guns crackled, but it is not easy to hit a low-lying object moving at fifty miles an hour, end on, when you are yourself moving nearly twenty-five. Just the same thing happened as before. The point of the ram pa.s.sed over the destroyer"s bows, crumpled them up and crushed them down, and the _Ithuriel_ rushed on over the sinking wreck, swerved a quarter turn, and bore down on her next victim. It was all over in ten minutes. The _Ithuriel_ rushed hither and thither among the destroyers like some leviathan of the deep.
A crash, a swift grinding sc.r.a.pe, and a ma.s.s of crumpled steel was dropping to the bottom of the Channel.