In all the history of war no such loss of men, ships and material had ever taken place within the short s.p.a.ce of three days and a few hours.
Four great fleets and nearly a hundred thousand men had been wiped out of existence since the a.s.sault on Southern England had begun, and even now, despite the airships, had the millions of Britain"s able-bodied men, who were grinding their teeth and clenching their fists in impotent fury, been trained just to shoot and march, it would have been possible to take the invaders between overwhelming ma.s.ses of men--who would hold their lives as nothing in comparison with their country"s honour--and the now impa.s.sable sea, and drive them back into it. But although men and youths went in their tens of thousands to the recruiting stations and demanded to be enlisted, it was no use. Soldiers are not made in a day or a week, and the invaders of England had been making them for forty years.
While the Kaiser and Count von Moltke were going through Lennard"s papers, and coming to the decision to send them to Potsdam, Lord Whittinghame"s motor, instead of returning to Chatham, was running up to Whitstable to answer the telegram which Lennard had received at Rochester. The German flag cleared them out of Canterbury. It was already known that they had been received by the Kaiser, and therefore their persons were sacred. In consequence of the loss of the squadron attacking the Thames and Medway, and the destruction of the Ramsgate flotilla, the country was not occupied by the enemy north of the great main road through Canterbury and Faversham, and that was just why the _Ithuriel_ was lying snugly in the mouth of the East Swale River, about three miles from the little town, with a shabby-looking lighter beside her, from which she was taking in an extra complement of her own sh.e.l.ls and material for making Lennard"s explosive, as well as a full load of fuel for her engines. They pulled up at the door of the Bear and Key Hotel, and as the motor came to a standstill a man dressed in the costume of an ordinary worker on the oyster-beds came up, touched his sou"wester, and said:
"Mr Lennard"s car, gentlemen?"
"Yes, I"m here," said Lennard, shortly; "we"ve just left the Emperor at Canterbury. How about those oysters? I should think you ought to do well with them in Canterbury. Got plenty?"
"Yes, sir," replied the man. "If you will come down to the wharf I will be able to show you a shipment that I can send along to-night if the train comes from Canterbury."
"I think we might as well have a drop of something hot first, it"s rather cold riding."
The others nodded, and they went into the hotel without removing their caps or goggles. They asked a waiter to show them into a private room, as they had some business to do, and when four gla.s.ses of hot whisky and water had been put on the table, Lennard locked the door and said:
"My lords, allow me to have the pleasure of introducing to you Lieutenant Denis Castellan of His Majesty"s cruiser _Ithuriel_."
Lord Whittinghame"s and Lord Kitchener"s hands went out together, and the former said:
"Delighted to meet you, Mr Castellan. You and Captain Erskine have done magnificently for us in spite of all our troubles. In fact, I don"t know what we should have done without you and this wonderful craft of yours."
"With all due deference to the Naval Council," said "K. of K," rather bluntly, "it"s a pity they didn"t put down a dozen of her. But what about these oysters that you telegraphed to Mr Lennard about?"
"There is only one oyster in question at present, my lord," said Denis, with an entirely Irish smile, "but it"s rather a big one. It"s the German Emperor"s yacht, the _Hohenzollern_. She managed to run across, and get into Ramsgate, while we were up here in the Thames--that"s the worst of there being only one of us, as we can only attend to one piece of business at a time. Now, she"s lying there waiting the Kaiser"s orders, in case he wants to take a trip across, and it seems to me that she"d be worth the watching for a day or two--she"d be a big prize, you know, gentlemen, especially if we could catch her with the War Lord of Germany on board her. I don"t think myself that His Majesty would have any great taste for a trip to the bottom of the North Sea, just when he thinks he"s beginning the conquest of England so nicely, and, by the Powers, we"d send him there if he got into one of his awkward tempers with us."
Lord Kitchener, who was in England acting as Chief-of-the-Staff to the Duke of Connaught, and general adviser to the Council of National Defence, took Lord Whittinghame to the other end of the room, and said a few words to him in a low tone, and he came back and said:
"It is certainly worth trying, even if you can only catch the ship; but we don"t think you"ll catch the Kaiser. The fact is, you seem to have established such a holy terror in these waters that I don"t think he would trust his Imperial person between here and Germany. If he did go across, he"d probably go in an airship. But if you can bring the _Hohenzollern_ up to Tilbury--of course, under the German flag--I think we shall be able to make good use of her. If she won"t come, sink her."
"Very good, my lords," said Denis, saluting. "If she"s not coming up the Thames to-morrow night with the _Ithuriel_ under her stern, ye"ll know that she"s on the bottom in pieces somewhere. And now," he continued, taking a long envelope from an inner pocket, "here is the full report of our doings since the war began, with return of ships sunk, crippled and escaped; number of men landed, and so on, according to instructions. We will report again to-morrow night, I hope, with the _Hohenzollern_."
They shook hands and wished him good-night and good luck, and in half an hour the _Ithuriel_ was running half-submerged eastward along the coast, and the motor was on its way to Faversham by the northern road, as there were certain reasons why it should not go back through Canterbury.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE LION WAKES
At daybreak on the nineteenth, to the utter amazement of everyone who was not "in the know," the Imperial yacht, _Hohenzollern_, was found off Tilbury, flying the Imperial German Ensign and the Naval flag, as well as a long string of signals ordering the aerial bombardment of London to cease, and all the _Flying Fishes_ to return at once to Canterbury.
The apparent miracle had been accomplished in an absurdly easy fashion.
About nine a.m. on the eighteenth a German orderly went into the post-office at Dover and handed in an official telegram signed "Von Roon," ordering the _Hohenzollern_ to come round at once to Dover, as she was considered too open to attack there.
There was something so beautifully natural and simple in the whole proceeding that, although there were about a dozen German officers and non-commissioned officers in the room at the time that the orderly came and went without suspicion, the telegram was taken by the clerk, read and initialled by the Censor, and pa.s.sed.
A few minutes later the orderly, marching in perfectly correct German fashion and carrying a large yellow envelope, walked out through the town northwards and climbed the hill to the eastward of the ruined castle. The envelope with its official seal took him past the sentries without question, but, instead of delivering it, he turned down a bypath to Fan Bay, under the South Foreland, gained the beach, took off his uniform in a secluded spot under the cliffs, and went for a swim. The uniform was never reclaimed, for when he reached the submerged _Ithuriel_ Denis Castellan had a rub down and put his own on.
The captain of the _Hohenzollern_ was only too glad to obey the order, for he also thought that it would be better protected from the dreaded ocean terror in Dover, so he lost no time in obeying the order; with the result that, just as he was entering the deserted Downs, the said terror met him and ordered him to the right-about under pain of instant sinking.
After that the rest was easy. The captain and officers raged and stormed, but not even German discipline would have prevented a mutiny if they had not surrendered. It was known that the _Ithuriel_ took no prisoners. In five minutes after the irresistible ram had hit them they would be at the bottom of the sea, and so the Hohenzollern put about and steamed out into the North Sea, with the three wicked forward guns trained upon her, and the ram swirling smoothly through the water fifty yards from her stern.
At nightfall the course was altered for the mouth of the Thames. And so, with all lights out and steered by a thin shifting ray from her captor"s conning-tower, the Kaiser"s yacht made its strange way to Tilbury.
The instant she dropped her anchor a couple of destroyers ran out from the Gravesend sh.o.r.e and ranged alongside her. The next minute a British captain and three lieutenants followed by a hundred bluejackets had boarded her. The German Commander and his officers gave up their swords, devoutly hoping that they would never meet their War Lord again, and so the incident ended.
It will be easily understood that the Kaiser was about the most infuriated man in the United Kingdom when the _Flying Fishes_ arrived at Canterbury and the Commander of the squadron described the arrival of the _Hohenzollern_ in the Thames and asked for orders.
In the first place no one knew better than William the Second how priceless was the prize won by the impudent audacity of these two young British sailors. In his private apartments on board there were his own complete plans of the campaign--not only for the conquest of Britain, but afterwards for the dismemberment of the British Empire, and its part.i.tion among the Allies--exact accounts of the resources of the chief European nations in men, money and ships, plans of fortifications, and even drafts of treaties. In fact, it was such a haul of Imperial and International secrets as had never been made before; and that evening the British Cabinet held in their possession enough diplomatic explosives to blow the European league of nations to pieces.
Erskine and Castellan were honoured by an autograph letter from the King, thanking them heartily for their splendid services up to the present stage of the war, and wishing them all good luck for the future.
Then the _Ithuriel_ slipped down the Thames, towing half a dozen shabby-looking barges behind her, and for some days she disappeared utterly from human ken.
What she was really doing during these days was this. These barges and several others which she picked up now and then were filled with ammunition for her guns and fuel for her engines, and she dropped them here and there in obscure creeks and rock-bound bays from Newcastle to the Clyde, where they lay looking like abandoned derelicts, until such times as they might be wanted.
Meanwhile, very soon after the loss of the _Hohenzollern_, the Kaiser received two messages which disquieted him very seriously. One of these came by airship from Potsdam. It was an exhaustive report upon the papers which Lennard had left with him on that momentous night as it turned out to be, on which the War Lord had rejected the ultimatum of the Man of Peace. It was signed by Professor Dollinger and endorsed by four of the greatest astronomers of Germany.
Briefly put, its substance amounted to this: Mr Lennard"s calculations were absolutely correct, as far as they went. Granted the existence of such a celestial body as he designated _Alpha_ in the doc.u.ment, and its position _x_ on the day of its alleged discovery; its direction and speed designated _y_ and _z_, then at the time of contact designated _n_, it would infallibly come into contact with the earth"s atmosphere, and the consequences deduced would certainly come to pa.s.s, viz., either the earth would combine with it, and be transformed into a semi-incandescent body, or the terrestrial atmosphere would become a fire mist which would destroy all animal and vegetable life upon the planet within the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes.
The second communication was a joint-note from the Emperor of Austria, the President of the Hague Council, the President of the French Republic, and the Tsar of Russia, protesting against the bombardment of London or any other defenceless town by the airships. The note set forth that these were purely engines of war, and ought not to be used for purposes of mere terrorism and murder. Their war employment on land or water, or against fortified positions, was perfectly legitimate, but against unarmed people and defenceless towns it was held to be contrary to all principles of humanity and civilisation, and it was therefore requested by the signatories that, in order to prevent serious differences between the Allies, it should cease forthwith.
The result of this communication was of course a Council of War, which was anything but a harmonious gathering, especially as several of the older officers agreed with the tone of it, and told the Kaiser plainly that they considered that there was quite enough in the actual business of war for the _Flying Fishes_ to do; and the Chancellor did not hesitate to express the opinion that the majority of the peoples of Europe, and possibly large numbers of their own soldiers, who, after all, were citizens first and soldiers afterwards, would strongly resent such operations, especially when it became known that the Emperor"s own Allies had protested against it; the result of the Council was that William the Second saw that he was clearly in a minority, and had the good sense to issue a General Order there and then that all aerial bombardments, save as part of an organised attack, should cease from that day.
The events of the next twenty days were, as may well be imagined, full of momentous happenings, which it would require hundreds of pages to describe in anything like detail, and therefore only quite a brief sketch of them can be given here. This will, however, be sufficient to throw a clear light upon the still more stupendous events which were to follow.
In consequence of the almost incredible destruction and slaughter during these first four awful days and nights of the war, both sides had lost the command of the sea, and the capture of the _Hohenzollern_ in broad daylight less than a dozen miles from the English coast had produced such a panic among the rank and file of the invaders, and the reinforcements of men waiting on the other side of the Channel and the North Sea, that communication save by airship had practically stopped.
The consequence of this was that, geographically, the Allied armies, after the release of the prisoners from Portsmouth and Folkestone, amounted to some three million men of all arms, with half a million horses, and two thousand guns--it will be remembered that a vast number of horses, guns and stores had gone to the bottom in the warships which the _Ithuriel_ had sunk--were confined within a district bounded by the coast-line from Ramsgate to the Needles, and thence by a line running north to Southampton; thence, across Hampshire to Petersfield, and via Horsham, Tunbridge Wells, Ashford, and over Canterbury, back to Ramsgate.
In view of the defeat and destruction of the expedition against London, the troops that had been thrown forward to Chatham and Rochester to co-operate with it were re-called, and concentrated between Ashford and Canterbury. The rest of England, Scotland and Ireland was to the present a closed country to them. The blockade on Swansea and Liverpool had been raised by the _Ithuriel_, and there was nothing to prevent any amount of supplies from the west and south being poured in through half a hundred ports.
Thus the dream of starving the British Islands out had been dissipated at a stroke. True, the dockyards of Devonport and Milford Haven had been destroyed by the airships, but copies of the plans of the _Ithuriel_ had been sent to Liverpool, Barrow, Belfast, the Clyde and the Tyne, and hundreds of men were working at them night and day. Scores of battleships, cruisers and destroyers, belonging both to Britain and other countries, which were nearing completion, were being laboured at with feverish intensity, so that they might be fitted for sea in something like fighting trim; submarines were being finished off by dozens, and Thorneycroft"s and Yarrow"s yards were, like the rest, working to their full capacity.
The blind frenzy of rage which had swept like an epidemic over the whole kingdom during the first days of disaster had died away and in its place had come the quiet but desperate resolve that if Britain was to be conquered she should be depopulated as well.
All male employment, save that which was necessary to produce coal and iron, to keep the shipyards and the gun factories going, and the shipping on the west coast running, was stopped. In thousands of cases, especially in the north, the places of the men were taken by the women; and, in addition to these, every woman and girl, from the match-girls of Whitechapel to the n.o.blest and wealthiest in the land, found some work to do in the service of their country.
Every day, thousands and tens of thousands of the sons of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales were taken in hand by "Mr Sergeant What"s-"is-Name," and drilled into shape with miraculous speed; and every day, as detachment after detachment went to the battle front, which now extended from North Foreland to Portland Bill, the magic of patriotism and the long-inherited habits of order and obedience changed the raw recruit into the steady-nerved, strong-hearted soldier, who learnt his duty in the grim school of battle, and was ready to do it to the end.
In less than a month Britain had become a military nation. It seemed at the time and afterwards a miracle, but it was merely the outcome of perfectly natural causes.
After all, every British man has a strain of fighting blood in him. Even leaving out his ancient ancestry, he remains the descendant of families who have given soldier-sons to their country during five hundred years of almost ceaseless war in one part of the world or the other. He is really born with battle-smoke in his nostrils, and the beat of the battle-drum in his heart--and he knows that, neither on land nor sea has he ever been finally beaten.
Remember, too, that this was to him a holy war, the holiest in which the sword can be drawn. He was fighting for freedom, for the possession of his land, for the protection of wife and child and kindred, and the heritage which his fathers of old time had handed down to him. Was it any wonder, then, that within the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks the peaceful citizens of Britain, like the fabled harvest of the dragon"s teeth, seemed to spring as men full-armed from the very ground? Moreover, this was no skirmishing with sharpshooters over a vast extent of country, six thousand miles away from home, as it had been in South Africa. This was home itself. There was no right or wrong here, nothing for politicians to wrangle about for party purposes. Here, in a little corner of little England, two mighty hosts were at death-grips day and night, the one fighting for all that is dearest and most sacred to the heart of man; and the other to save itself from what could be nothing less than irretrievable disaster.